Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Finding your top event prospects

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend EventRaise - a fantastic day dedicated to event fundraising - an area I am really excited about.

So often we hear that event participants aren't worth cultivating.  That they aren't really connected to our cause, but that they are interested in the challenge.  One of the things that really struck me at EventRaise is that while that might be true for many event participants, there are event donors who are well worth the time and energy to cultivate.  We just need to identify who that group is.

Martin Paul of More Strategic shared some incredibly valuable information from some research he has been doing into 5 mutli-charity fundraising events - events where participants can select from a number of charities or even choose their own to fundraise for. 

These 5 multi-charity fundraising events had a total of 170,423 donors.  That is a huge number of people to try and cultivate.  And if you think most of them won't give again, your right.  There is tons of evidence to support that.  So where should we focus our efforts?

There are two key times when participants self identify as being really great prospects.  The first is during the fundraising period for the event.  Donors who increase their fundraising target are self selecting themselves as people who are in it to raise money and who are the most engaged in what you are doing.  This is the group of individuals, and it will only be a small percentage of participants, who are worth focusing your attention and resources on.

While everyone who participates in your event is lovely, and we are grateful for each and every one, you and your organisation cannot afford to nurture every participant.  So start with this group, see what additional tools you can give them to help them raise more money, and develop and grow your relationship with them.

Post event, you will also want to identify the relationships that you should be focusing your time, energy and attention on.  When doing your post event analysis, it is likely that you will find that most of the income came from a small number of participants (many of whom are likely to have been the ones you already know - who pushed themselves by raising their fundraising targets during the campaign).  Martin's findings from the 5 multi-charity fundraising events was that 30% of the income came from just 5% of participants. So can't follow up with everyone?  Start here.  These are the people who are most likely to continue to support your work long after the event, and to sign up again next year.

What have you tried to engage your event participants?  And where do you start?


I love events. My team when we hit the half way mark at Oxfam Trailwalker in 2014.





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