Hospitality House of Charlotte is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their mission serves patients and families in medical crisis by providing lodging. They are a tremendous resource in the community, not only, for the guests who stay with them, but for the major hospital systems surrounding the house. Hospitality House of Charlotte keeps patients and families close to their medical teams and each other yielding direct benefits physically, emotionally, and financially.
Every fall Hospitality House of Charlotte holds their major signature fundraiser - Annual Fall Luncheon. M2 Philanthropy assisted with various aspects of the luncheon. For full details go to the “Our Work” section of the website. There are so many nuances of hosting a successful event, but for this post our focus is program. There’s no doubt a luncheon or gala style fundraiser is an investment. It’s expensive and can feel like a risk, but it’s worth it. Not only, can you raise big money, but it’s your opportunity to tell your best story in front of your most high level supporters.
Below are a few of the program strategies we implemented for HHOC:
Good program writing raises money before you even open your doors
Write your program highlighting sponsors and individuals separate from your general sponsorship opportunities to raise more money. For HHOC, we leveraged an additional $30,000 by strategically placing corporate partners in the program. We highlighted their generosity bringing our mission moment full circle and inspiring others in the room to give that day.
Authenticity is key
Creating a program forming an authentic connection with your attendees and mission is crucial. Your message is your #1 tool to build this connection, but your format is also important. We create a varied program of speakers balancing behind the podium remarks with Q&A and videos to help foster this connection and enhance our messaging.
For your executive director or board member giving remarks behind the podium is appropriate, but for an individual or family who your mission has served it can come off as too formal or business like. It requires coaching and finding the right individual or family, but often a Q&A format is more dynamic. Adding short videos throughout can help bring things full circle and takes some of the pressure off your speakers. Finally, a varied format will increase your audience’s attentiveness, likely increasing their propensity to give.
The Ask & Your Message
We hold the direct ask until the end of program as a natural culmination which makes sense, but giving back should be the undertone of your entire program. The transformational power of giving - that’s it. Your goal for your fundraising event is not only for your attendees to find their purpose in your mission, but why their involvement will be an enhancement to their lives. If you can thread that message throughout your program your direct ask will be a success.
Does your organization host a luncheon or gala needing a reboot? Maybe, you’re interested in starting one? At M2 Philanthropy, one of our specialities is event fundraising. We led HHOC in raising the most funds in the history of Annual Fall Luncheon - that means more families served, more supporters, and more impact. That fills us up. How can we help you achieve your event goals? Let’s talk about it.
Fundraising tends to get emphasized when we talk about impact in nonprofit and undoubtably raising money is crucial to the success of any organization, but here’s something you hear less - it’s only one piece of the puzzle. It’s a tool. It’s an avenue. Obviously fundraising will always be a key factor in making all organizations possible, but as you aim to move your mission forward if your only focus is raising more money, you’re missing the big picture.
Effectiveness is not measured in dollars. FACT - there are organizations with annual operating budgets below $500,000 that are more effective than others with multi million dollar budgets. Even in growth the final measure is not how much money you raise. Your effectiveness and growth will always be defined by your impact.
The path to being more effective, experiencing more growth, and creating more impact starts with asking yourself, staff, and board the right questions, big questions.
What does your organization do better than anyone else? How can you improve?
Coming from a place of abundance, you have all the resources in the world, no limits - what do you with it?
What is the headline you’d most like to read about your mission in 3 years, in 5 years\
These questions are very different then just asking “well how much money can we raise?”. Of course, the process to answering all these big questions will involve a thoughtful fundraising plan, but you need to ask yourselves these things first. When you land on answers to bigger questions you’re able to fundraise more successfully, because you’ll have a compelling message and vision to engage your donors and supporters.
For every nonprofit there are revenue opportunities were there are potential. Maybe, there has been a steady increase in your corporate partnership numbers or you’ve thought of a fundraising event you think would be a success or it’s time to start an annual fund to pave the way to major gifts. Whatever it is, undoubtedly, there are ways to grow revenue your organization is likely not putting the time in to to see a return.
Probably the #1 roadblock on your path to exploring these revenue streams is manpower. It takes focus and follow through to create or grow new programs. Nonprofit leaders often defer to their current staff and fundraisers to pilot these initiatives creating challenges:
Burn out
Your current team is likely tapped. If we were to guess, every one of your staff members is at capacity or almost so. While organizationally there can be improvements made and ways everyone can become more efficient - pushing these programs on an employee’s plate is not going to be the answer you’re looking for. Nonprofit burn out is real and it starts when leadership overwhelms their staff with “just one more thing”.
Time
So you make the decision to give this project to your top fundraising performer. They are a total rockstar. No doubt in your mind they will get it done. Here’s the thing - no matter what there are 24 hours a day and 7 days in a week. Anything extra you put on one person is time they will be spending away from their current donors or projects. Furthermore, you will likely never know the potential of a new initiative by giving it to an already tapped out staff person, because they will not be able to give the time necessary to really give it a shot.
Hiring a contractor or consultant is a more efficient use of your budget - here’s why: experience. To really grow and start initiatives takes expertise. Restrictive budgets make it difficult to find an experienced hire, but will afford you the ability to outsource. Too often, nonprofits outsource non revenue driving positions - marketing, human resources, finance, etc. Why not take the same tactic with fundraising?
Consultants and contractors are experts in their field. Grants, annual giving, capital campaigns, events - see where we’re going with this? Outsourcing is not going to give you a 40 hour employee, but the right consultant will do more (much more) with less time. Also, the time you’ll save because you won’t be hand holding or managing a full time employee will allow you to get out of the weeds and keep you operating at a high level. Beyond specialization, outsourcing provides focus for the contractor/consultant, for you, and most importantly for the staff. The more you can channel anyone’s efforts the more successful they will be - period.
Now we know we might be a little bit biased, but as you look to reach your 2020 goals and beyond we think you should consider outsourcing. We also know a pretty great group to work with.
It's hard to believe Giving Tuesday is tomorrow and if this year is anything like past years, it’s trending upwards. Just last year gifts made on Giving Tuesday increased by 106 million. That’s almost a 39% increase from the prior year. In fact, Giving Tuesday has seen a solid increase since 2012.
Giving Tuesday like any fundraising campaign is what you make it. The good thing is Giving Tuesday has brand awareness and it’s an online campaign. For those reasons your organization’s Giving Tuesday campaign can be pretty turn key. For this post I want to focus on Facebook’s impact on Giving Tuesday and the ways it might impact your organization.
In 2018, 125 million dollars was raised on Facebook on Giving Tuesday. 380 million was raised TOTAL on Giving Tuesday. Let that sink in. Like Giving Tuesday, Facebook Giving Tuesday campaigns are on the rise as well. Meaning there is a huge chance your supporters will likely create a campaign on Facebook to support your mission on Giving Tuesday. Facebook is an easy go to for your supporters - considering the frequency which most are on social media and they have a captive audience there. Also, Facebook is promoting their users to host their Giving Tuesday campaigns on their site.
While Facebook is a great option for your supporters it will provide your organization some issues. First, you can’t access a donor’s information who has given through Facebook. Meaning all the folks your supporter reaches to give to your mission you can’t steward, you can’t engage, you won’t know who they are. Another issue is that Facebook will send checks in lump sums. Therefore, you won’t know how much your supporter raised unless you are following their campaign. Also, if you’re setting a specific goal for Giving Tuesday a lump sum check can be particularly challenging to know which funds were raised in honor of Giving Tuesday or for another reason.
In the past with organizations I’ve worked with, we tried to steer our supporters away from Facebook campaigns and turned them to our own 3rd party fundraising site. But, I understand not all nonprofits have the budget for a personalized 3rd party crowdfunding site. Regardless, every organization will have supporters use Facebook campaigns so here are my suggestions:
Communicate
If you have supporters who have reached out wanting to support your mission for Giving Tuesday and are going to use their Facebook, let them know the drawbacks. Many supporters won’t realize your organization can’t send a personalized thank you due to lack of information and become frustrated. To alleviate this issue you can ask your supporter to collect their donor information separately so you can add them to your database. Also, ask your supporter to keep you posted on their fundraising total.
Keep an eye on your organization’s Facebook account
If your organization has a Facebook account (which if you don’t you should create one), Facebook should send you a notice when someone creates a fundraising campaign in your honor. Your level of monitoring should be peaked this time of year looking for campaigns. When you see someone is raising money in your honor, reach out and say thank you. Also, increased monitoring will allow you to match campaigns with the checks you’ll receive from Facebook.
No doubt Facebook creates an easy and effective fundraising platform for your supporters to utilize, but your awareness of the benefits and drawbacks will allow your organization to create a plan to ensure supporters and donors feel thanked, inspired, and valued.
I’d like to close by acknowledging how amazing it is to have a day promoting giving back. Isn’t it incredible what happens when we come together?
