EP 4 Events Make an Impact
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Sara Mayer: Welcome to Impact Unleashed, the nonprofit edition, where we dive deep into the untapped potential of nonprofits and their remarkable ability to create a lasting impact. I'm your host, Sara Mayer. Let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello everyone out there making a difference and unleashing their impact on nonprofits. Today I'm super excited to introduce our series on making an impact mastering nonprofit fundraising efforts. through events. And there's a balancing act when it comes to truly putting on great events in the non profit sector.
Sara Mayer: So we will talk a little bit about the, all the fun event components that go into planning an event. But first it's super critical that non profits think about [00:01:00] a couple of maybe boring things before they get started on actually Crafting the event and those things include the budget, the net revenue, the mission alignment and truly setting goals.
Sara Mayer: So there is a reason that a lot of nonprofits have events. Nonprofit events are a great way to introduce people to your nonprofit. It's a wonderful way to build a coalition. Of support, and there's many successful events out there. And what I found is working with some of the board members of volunteers and people who are.
Sara Mayer: involved in your nonprofit, it's an easier ask for them to ask somebody to join them at an event or to sell a ticket where somebody is getting something from the event. And so I think it's important to really think about events [00:02:00] and consider an event if you're a nonprofit, because it's a great spotlight that you can put on your event.
Sara Mayer: However, many nonprofits get caught up in all the things with events, rather than sticking to the most important part of events, which is funding the mission. And so it's easy to get caught up in the color of the tablecloths and the alcohol that's going to be served the food at the event, the decorations and all those things, and to drift further and further away from the mission.
Sara Mayer: Thanks. I've done probably over 200 events in my career for nonprofits. I've done everything from happy hours to big galas to golf tournaments. You name it. I've probably done it. Walks. All that stuff and so the most successful events that I have been a part of and [00:03:00] worked with on boards, but also as a nonprofit staff member really start at the core and that.
Sara Mayer: is setting clear goals. And it's important to define what the goals are before planning the event. And I also will say, if you inherited an event that's been going on for a while, it's important to go back to setting goals at the beginning. Now, there are events that are designed simply for awareness.
Sara Mayer: Their goal is to bring more people Into the event so that they are aware of the nonprofit for later cultivation. So that's 1 goal. You might have. Is this an awareness event? Great. How do we get a whole bunch of people here and maybe set the price point a little lower, keep our expenses down so that we're not losing money, but.
Sara Mayer: Really exposing a lot of people. So if that's your goal, an awareness event, [00:04:00] then how you implement that event will be very different. There are events where you need to make a significant amount of money for the mission of the nonprofit. And that is something that. You know what that amount of money is, and so you want to capitalize on every single thing at that event to ensure that people are not only opening their hearts, they're opening their wallets because of the inspiration at that event.
Sara Mayer: Those are 2 different events, awareness events, get people on our list, get people in our world, get people in our door, usually more people. Fundraising events get money in our door, inspire people to open their hearts and wallets. And then there are a couple events where they're specifically geared towards funding a certain project or a certain component of the mission, and you're looking to really inspire people to do that.
Sara Mayer: You may do an event where you're bringing somebody to a [00:05:00] place, and you want them to. Experience the mission and what the nonprofit does. So I think it's really important to set goals. Many times I find that events are trying to be everything to everybody. And when you really take a look at what events are successful in raising money, the events that are successful in raising money and successful in achieving the goals truly have one singular goal.
Sara Mayer: And maybe there's other things that happen from that, but that is the main goal, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention there are events where the whole entire goal is to educate people about legacy giving and maybe giving in their will or adding the nonprofit as a beneficiary. That's a totally different event as well.
Sara Mayer: There's stewardship at events just to thank donors. So [00:06:00] it's really important to differentiate what is the goal before you start planning the event. So many times what happens is people are like, Oh, I saw this really cool thing. We should have a golf tournament. But they haven't really defined the goal.
Sara Mayer: And that's what helps to really define the event strategy and budget and ensure success. Now, I just mentioned the B word, budget. It's the most critical part of planning event, defining the budget for the event. There are, when you are holding events, there are going to be expenses, venue, catering, marketing, logistics, stuff like that.
Sara Mayer: And there are things that are nice to have, and there are things that are not nice to have. And it's critical in my opinion to set the budget before the planning begins. And I've seen so many nonprofit volunteers with such a great heart. And they're like I really want [00:07:00] to have these amazing flowers so that everything looks good.
Sara Mayer: And In reality, people are talking about how they felt at the event and the inspiration. They're not really talking about the flowers. Now, I'm not saying that florist aren't important or flowers aren't important, or you don't wanna look and have a certain look and feel. What I am saying is that many times the budget gets thrown out the door as the event planning goes on.
Sara Mayer: And I would be really weary. I don't advise it where somebody says if I go get the money to pay for it, then I can get the flowers because that's a slippery slope. And also. It's not sustainable long term in general. So I think it's really important to create a realistic budget and make sure that budget sets the margin that meets the margin that you're looking to make.
Sara Mayer: I. E. how much are we spending? How much are we making? And what is our net [00:08:00] profit going back to the mission? Now, I worked with hundreds of. People who work at nonprofits and nonprofit professionals who would come to me when it was budget setting time, and they would say, we're going to sell 20, 000 tickets.
Sara Mayer: We're going to make 5 million. And. In reality, in the past years, they hadn't even come close to that. And so I think it's so important to really be realistic on the revenue side and maybe take it down a notch and then set the expense side. It does nobody any good to overestimate the revenue you're going to bring in just so that you can spend more money on cool stuff.
Sara Mayer: You can do some amazing events on a very small budget to ensure that the money goes back. To the mission. [00:09:00] All right. And there are some common nuts and bolts when you're budgeting so some common pitfalls are starting with the expense side, you should always start with the revenue side, what is realistically what we can bring in.
Sara Mayer: And when you're doing that budget, we'll talk about it in another episode, but there's some categories that you really want to pay particular attention to. I like to have a team around each of those categories. For example, ticket sales, there should be a sales team. Sponsorship team.
Sara Mayer: Auction, auction team. If you don't have a team around it, driving that number. The likelihood you're going to make that number is slim to none. All right, now let's talk about net revenue. So there is, it is important to really be thinking about maximizing your net revenue and a well managed budget does contribute increased net revenue.
Sara Mayer: [00:10:00] And you should never be putting on an event that's losing money. Now, many times when the event first starts, you don't know how it's going to go. But you want to make sure that before you're going out and spending money, you're really thinking about those things. There are many ways at an event to raise money beyond ticket sales.
Sara Mayer: So you have sponsorship, merchandise, donations, auctions, stuff like that. And it's really important to diversify those income sources. And build a team around those people so that they are accountable and driven towards meeting that number. Now, 1 of the coolest ways that you that fundraising really helps is you want to align it with the mission.
Sara Mayer: So many times fundraisers end up being just events and they're not really around the mission. And so it's really important to align it with the organization's mission. And mission centric [00:11:00] events do help to later tie those donors to your mission. I think it's important to ask yourself as you're spending money.
Sara Mayer: Does this relate to our mission? How can we tell our story at the event? How can we bring our mission alive? How can we ensure that attendees and supporters going back to our goal? Get what we have asked or want them to get out of it. And how can they leave knowing they, they did good. Remember everybody who attends your event could be anywhere else.
Sara Mayer: It could be a home watching Netflix or doing whatever. So they're giving your time and attention. And so it's really important that you are able to. Capitalize on every single minute and I am going to talk through that about planning the event day in another episode. This is one of my favorite things to do.
Sara Mayer: And one of my greatest [00:12:00] skills is capitalizing on every single minute that you have somebody. At your event. So we're going to talk through pre registration parking I'm telling you, we are going to dissect the events, and it will help you so much. So I really want you to think about. The different components at the event, but once you align it with the mission, it's time to really think about what are the different things that we are going to do at the event to tie back to our original goal, either creating raving fans bringing more people into the event.
Sara Mayer: Capitalizing on making sure that they open their hearts and wallets, creating fans for the future, whatever the goals are. It's really important to think about those from a goal perspective. Alright, so I know that you have some event ideas and you want to hear all about all the crazy events that I've [00:13:00] done.
Sara Mayer: And I am going to share all that tea with you, but first I really want you to start to think about your events. Now, if you have already hosted this event, it's always great to go back to the goal. What is the goal of this event? Is everybody in alignment with that? Have we crept a little bit on our mission?
Sara Mayer: Have we moved away from the goal? Have we tried to be something to everyone? And then what is our budget? What are we hoping for our net revenue to meet? And then how can we build teams around these goals? That all starts before you decide on what kind of event you have. All right, everyone. I am so excited to kick off this series on fundraising events, because I know that you can unleash your impact and change the world.
Sara Mayer: So let's get to it.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Impact Unleashed, the nonprofit [00:14:00] edition. I'm so excited you were here on this journey. If you haven't signed up for our newsletters and wonderful resources, please visit nonprofitimpactunleashed. co. Again that's nonprofitimpactunleashed. co. I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.
Sara Mayer: Of Impact Unleashed.