Pivot Your Events: Rethinking Stewardship through Virtual Events
None of us imagined the reality we’re facing now when we developed our strategic plans for 2020. We’re living in and adapting to a new normal – teachers shifting to distance learning, students learning via virtual classrooms, staff working remotely, and parents and donors homebound. It has had a major impact on how we proceed with events. Included in this article are some helpful tips to help you pivot your events this year and into next.
1. Weighing the Decision of In-person vs. Virtual Events
20 Degrees has put together an Event Decision-Making Tool to help you decide if you should host an event in 2020. It is quite thorough with a 24-item checklist to evaluate events with an objective eye.
The checklist includes important things to consider, including:
Does the tone of your event make sense in light of the new normal?
Is your board/staff optimistic about it? Are your sponsors supportive?
Is this event necessary to further our mission?
Are there reasons, beyond revenue, to host it?
What they’re finding is that in nearly every scenario, organizations should host a virtual event versus canceling altogether. Connecting virtually is the new normal and our communities are very receptive.
Criteria for evaluating when to schedule in-person events:
June - August 2020 Not happening
August – December 2020 Very unlikely
January – May 2021 Possible, need a Plan B
Summer & Fall 2021 Likely
Health forecasts still have unknown variables making it hard to predict when we can safely host in-person events. Virtual events are likely to be the best option through year-end and events next spring may still need a Plan B.
Capital City Public Charter School had a gala planned to celebrate 20 years this October. Since their goal was to bring people together that have been a part of this school community for 20 years, they decided to push back the gala to October 2021. When school leaders examined what the purpose of the event was, community building was identified as the number one goal important. This priority informed the school’s decision to postpone until in-person activities could resume.
2. Bringing Focus to Rethinking Your Events
Consider these questions when you look at rethinking your events:
What is the event’s purpose? Friendraising, donor recognition, community awareness, service delivery, etc.
What are your success measures? Dollars raised, attendee numbers, major gift prospecting, visibility, etc.
Do you have the capacity right now to host a virtual event?
What tools do you need to host a virtual event?
These answers may help provide you a framework for determining what type of event makes the most sense and ensuring our events remained focused on the results we want to achieve.
3. Starting With Purpose to Plan a Virtual Event
Start by defining what you hope to achieve from your virtual event. Are we focused on connecting parents? Showing donors appreciation? Demonstrating our impact to cultivate donors? These answers help you zero in on the type of virtual event that may be most successful for your school.
Charter schools are hosting an array of virtual events – from town halls to trivia nights to talent shows to house parties. Most have received great feedback and some have seen larger turnouts than usual. Virtual events are quite effective at keeping us connected to our stakeholders. Think about how our daily lives have changed. People who know us well and the ones curious to learn more are craving connection and conversations now more than ever.
Let’s compare some virtual events to see which type you may want to host:
Check out MobileCause’s 10 Ideas for a Virtual Fundraising Event infographic for additional ideas.
4. Gaining More Value from Events
We host in-person events for a lot of reasons – not only fundraising, but also donor recognition, parent connection, celebrating teachers and students, and bringing people together in the community.
Virtual events can be quite valuable when you consider all that we can achieve. It is a great time for us to focus on stewardship and cultivation where we demonstrate our impact without a specific ask. Events often provide a reason for our closest stakeholders – our board, parents, and current donors – to invite their friends. It helps us expand our reach to new people and build a list of individuals to follow up with. And it can simply be a forum for connection, conversations, and fun – which we all need more of these days – with our community of stakeholders.
Washington Latin is hosting virtual house parties for parents to connect, a pivot from in-person ones, to fundraise for their faculty fund. They also hosted two Fora community and parent forums where they had 300 attendees.
FOCUS hosted four virtual distance learning tours, each attracting 50 attendees, where school leaders take guests into virtual classrooms to see the critical work being done from a distance, then led a discussion about how they’re adapting. Intentional follow up by development staff engages donors in a meaningful dialogue.
How can virtual events help you with stewardship and cultivation? parent engagement? student connection?
5. Effectively Raise Money from Virtual Events
We’re seeing a lot of innovative ways that charter schools are raising funds from virtual events.
Virtual galas offer a few ways to raise money – online auctions, tickets, and donations. Online auctions can drive donations closely matching in-person galas but require a lot of legwork to track down prizes. Virtual tickets may be free for stewardship events or priced at the usual gala rate. Schools with a loyal gala following have an easier time with higher tickets and some have been successful suggesting attendees donate all or part of what they normally spend on the gala. Sponsors will likely be hard to secure unless you have them already.
Two Rivers Public Charter School hosted a Framing the Future virtual gala and auction to celebrate the arts with 100 items to bid on, including staff experiences, student artwork, sports memorabilia, class baskets, and locally crafted jewelry. They ended with a Closing Toast via Zoom where everyone who joined was entered to win raffle prizes. And showcased sponsors in emails, social media, and virtually during the event. By the end of the virtual gala, Two Rivers had raised over $100,000 with $25,000 coming from their silent auction alone.
Thurgood Marshall Academy turned its Shining Star Gala into a Shining Star Showcase where donors toured virtual classrooms, talked with students in Zoom breakout rooms, and came together at the end where they were asked to support COVID-related expenses (technology, tech support, teacher training). Donors who couldn’t attend received a link to the recorded event with an ask to make a donation. The school reduced expenses by 80% and hit 50% of its original revenue goal – generating a higher net income than past in-person events.
Schools asking donors to support a need now – raise funds for technology, distance learning, food security – have been successfully fundraising. The ask can be during an event or as part of your individual follow up.
It is time to be innovative and rethink our events. We’re all learning how to put on virtual events. It may not be perfect but people will be understanding. Our supporters still believe in our mission to help kids.
What should you do next to start planning a virtual event?
Define the purpose
Be innovative and flexible – expect that this is new to everyone
Engage multiple stakeholders – run the idea by your board, parents, donors, and sponsors to hear the level of support and any concerns
Research the best tools – you have your pick of options, like Zoom, MobileCause, and Classy
Look at what others are doing – the best ideas often come from seeing examples
The consensus: Do host virtual events. We’re all craving connection and conversations. It is a great way to cultivate donor stewardship and deepen relationships with all of your stakeholders.