Hopefully you’ve heard that I’ve got a little something special happening this week!  On Friday, we’re launching my new book “Get Fully Funded: How to Raise the Money of Your Dreams.”  It’s going to be a day-long virtual party, with events happening all day, all over the web.  Check out the Party Launch page at http://getfullyfunded.com/launch-party/.

Tips, tips!  Right here on the Get Fully Funded blog, we’re collecting tips this week.  Share your best fundraising tips by clicking on the comment link and sharing what works for you.  On Friday, I’ll choose the best tip and give away a Kindle to the winner!  You’ve got plenty of time to think about your best tip and share it, but don’t wait too long if you want to win!

Yep, your Mama was right.  Everytime she reminded you to say “thank you.”  She knew what she was doing.

Everyone needs to be thanked.  In the world of fundraising, it’s a critical action.

I remember in one fundraising job I had, the first thing we would do following an event was to write the thank-you letters.  If I didn’t get started on them immediately, my Executive Director would aggravate me until I did.  It was a great habit to develop and I used it throughout my career.

I ran across a resource today that I want to share with you.  Lisa Sargent is a nonprofit copywriter and has a great website with some good resources on it.  One thing she offers is some free thank-you letter samples.  Check out her site at www.lisasargent.com.

Since I’m sharing about Special Events this week, I thought I’d post some tips for making them better. Here are 5 tips for maximizing your events:

 1.       Clearly define each event you hold.

This is so important! Is the event a friend-raiser or fund-raiser?  Are you having the event to raise awareness?  Knowing your purpose will help you set the direction and expectations for the event to ensure success.  It will also help you narrow down the list of donors or potential donors you invite to the event so that you are getting the people that will help you meet your expectations and goals for the event.

 2.      Know how many events you can handle.

Be careful not to overload your staff and volunteers with too many events.  You want your events to be well-planned and effective.  One or two big events that are broad-reaching into the community are much better than lots of little events that use up all your time and energy.  Make sure that the events you do are a big deal to your staff, volunteers, donors, and the community.

 3.  Use special events as a chance to involve businesses.

Event sponsorships are a great way to involve local businesses and corporations in your special events.  If your event garners publicity, particularly through the media, you can probably secure at least one corporate sponsor.  Good candidates for sponsors are banks, communications companies, and other businesses that have broad target audiences.

 4.  Use a planning timeline.

Once you set the date for your event, use a timeline to back up from the event to plan all the details.  You can include things like sending a press release to the local media a week before the event, confirming with a caterer two days before the event, and so forth.  This great planning tool can help you keep track of all the details and avoid letting things fall between the cracks.

 5.  Use a committee of volunteers to plan the event.

Recruit volunteers to help you plan and execute your event.  You can get help pulling the event off and you will probably get some good ideas, too.  It will be much easier tending to all the details with extra hands.  Plus, involving volunteers in the work you are doing is a great way to get to know them and build a relationship.  After all, it’s all about relationships!

We’ve all been there.  We have a special event we’ve done a few times (sometimes LOTS of times), but it’s losing its luster.  And you realize it’s time to make the hard decision to stop doing it.  It can unpleasant, but the time comes when you must decide to stop hosting a particular event. 

Here are some signs that the time has come to retire a special event:

• Revenue from the event is slipping.
• Fewer people are attending.
• Media sponsors aren’t interested anymore.
• Corporate sponsors aren’t interested either.
• If you included labor cost in your financial summary, you would definitely be losing money on the event.
• Everyone is exhausted at the prospect of planning the event.

Unless the event is accomplishing something specific that you aren’t getting through any other channel (awareness or friend-raising), it’s time to shut it down. 

I remember working at the local food bank and the time came to stop doing a 5K race that we had done for several years.  We just weren’t raising enough money to justify doing it, and we had several other events during the year that were satisfying our need for publicity.  It was a tough decision, but we made it, and stopped holding that event.  It was very freeing actually.  And we had time and energy to put into other things.

Think about what else you could be doing with your time and energy that might generate more money, awareness, relationships, and goodwill for your organization.  You may be missing a big opportunity simply because you’re stuck in a rut with a particular event.

It’s important to wrap up every special event you hold with a ‘Lessons Learned’ or post-mortem meeting.

After each special event, you should gather the committee members who worked on the event, staff and volunteers who participated, and other key people together to debrief them.  The only way you can make the event even better next year is to uncover what needs improvement.  Don’t trust your opinion to be the only important one – you need to hear from a variety of people about what worked and what didn’t.

Ask some of these questions and record your answers.  This will help you plan for improving the event next year

• Did the event accomplish its purpose?
• What went well?
• What needs to be improved if the event is held again?
• Did attendees seem to enjoy themselves?
• Should this event be held again?

Be sure to put your answers in writing.  I can’t stress this enough.  By the time next year comes, you probably won’t remember all the things you meant to do differently.  If your Lessons Learned are in writing, you can simply refer to the document and get things right.

I’m not a big fan of special events as fundraisers. They’re usually labor-intensive and generate very little income.  Yet so many nonprofit organizations think that’s the way to go.

I was talking with a Development Director recently and found out that she’s doing a lot of things right.  She understands the importance of building relationships with donors.  She has a major donor program. She’s got a planned giving program ready to roll out, but she doesn’t have time to work on either of them because she’s too busy with her special events.  I wanted to scream.

She needs to completely reverse her priorities!  Or convince her ED and Board to do so.  If she spent more time on major gifts and planned giving, her organization would be way better off!  She’d be raising more money and drawing donors closer to the organization.  Instead, she’s on the special event hamster wheel, wasting her time on transactional events – events where people pay for the ticket to the event and don’t give a flip about the mission of the organization.

There are instances where special events can be very worthwhile.  I’ll be posting over the next several days about these. 

If you have any questions you’d like answered, hit the comment link and post them or shoot me an email at sandy@getfullyfunded.com.

I was talking with a client yesterday about an annual event her organization held recently.  Sounds like it went really well, but she could only see the mistakes.

As she relayed the details to me, I could see that the mistakes were visible to her and maybe other staff, but the rest of the guests probably had no clue anything wasn’t perfect.  This is often the case – we see the warts and we’re so critical of ourselves.

Seems like no matter how well we plan, there are always little things that could have been done better.  My best advice is to do a complete “lessons learned” on each event you hold.  Make a list of everything that went really well and everything that needs to be fixed next time.  Be sure to solicit this same info from a few others too – volunteers, staff, others who attended or worked on the event.  Write these down!  Don’t hold them in your head.  I promise you by the time this event comes around next year, you won’t remember. 

My advice to my client – create a timeline for the event that just happened, knowing what you know now.  Do your “lessons learned” activity.  Both in writing.  Then next year, pull out these documents and use them to plan for the event.  It’ll make your life loads easier!

By the way, my client estimates that there were more people in attendance at her event this year, they raised a bit more money than last year, and people who had attended for several years said it as the best one ever.  I’m thinking it was a successful event!  What do you think?

When it comes to donors and especially special events, it’s always a good idea to exceed their expectations.

I attended my niece’s graduation at Whitewater High School in Georgia this past Friday.  With over 400 students to graduate, I was expecting a long, dull evening.  What I got instead was a thrilling experience!  Four military fighters flew over as the school band finished the Star Spangled Banner.  The entertainment was incredible (they have some very talented kids!).  And the end of the evening was set off with fireworks.

It really made me think about how nonprofits give donors a good experience.  What do we do to go above and beyond expectations?  What do we do that sets people talking, creating incredible word-of-mouth publicity for our organizations?  It’s not usually hard or expensive to do, but it does require some thought.

I challenge you to make your next event memorable for your attendees and your donors. Come back and let me know how it goes.

At my local AFP meeting today, we heard from a friend of mine who talked about special events.

Penny Behling of Dynamic Events and Management gave the group some things to think about when it comes to special events.  She said several things that stuck with me and I thought I’d share.

She said that with the economy, some corporate sponsors are not renewing.  But some are.  Don’t get scared and fail to ask.  Go ahead and make your sponsorship request.  With so many people being scared, now is a GREAT time to plow forward.  Now is the time to market your organization.

Evaluate your special events annually to see if there are some that you should discontinue.  Face it – some events are not worth the time and effort you put into them.

Always ask yourself “what can we do to make this event better?”  If you aren’t moving forward, you’re moving backward.

Penny and her business partner Wendy Witsoe run Dragon Boat racing in several cities across the Southeast.  It’s a cool event that raises big bucks for a couple of organizations.  How much?  Think $80,000+!

Want to learn more about Dragon Boat races and how your organization can benefit?  Check out the website at www.racedragonboats.com.

I’m not a big fan of special events. They are labor-intensive and generally don’t bring a great return.  Too many small nonprofits spend too much time on the event treadmill and never spend time cultivating donors or doing any other kind of fundraising.

But special events have their place.

Yesterday, I spent the biggest part of the day with a client at their annual golf tournament.  I don’t know yet how much money they made, but the event was a success.  They were just shy of a full field (almost a sell-out) and everyone had a great time.  A couple of local golfers stepped up to volunteer in a big way on the planning committee and brought in lots of players and lots of prizes.  Without their help, the day wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

There were lots of opportunities for Board members to get involved and they were there helping and playing.  Media sponsors all participated in the tournament in addition to publicizing the event.  And corporate sponsor reps played too.

This was the Director of Development’s first time to run a golf tourney and she did a great job.  Of course there were a few bumps in the road, but I don’t think any of the players knew about them.  We sat in the sun in the afternoon and de-briefed about registration and lunch, and how they could be better next year.

All in all, it was a good day.  Again, I’m not a big fan of special events.  But this one provided opportunities to people to get involved that might not otherwise have participated with the organization.  And if it works the same way next year, it will be another great day without too much time on the event treadmill.