EP 22: How to Build Lasting Donor Relationships with Fundraising Event Attendees

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Intro: Welcome to the Elevate Your Event Podcast, where we talk about how to plan and execute an unforgettable event that will dazzle your guests and generate more income for your organization. From fundraising and securing trendy auction items to event production and logistics, get the best tips and advice from seasoned fundraising and event professionals who have been in your shoes.

Jeff Porter: Welcome back to the Elevate Your Event Podcast, where we try to discuss ways that you can make your next fundraising event better. We've got a special guest, not in the studio today, but online. And I'm pleased to introduce Hanna Berger. Hanna, go ahead and say hello and give us a little background for our audience.

Hanna Berger: Thank you so much for having me, Jeff. My name is Hanna Berger. I am the president and founder of The Philanthropy Coach. We are a boutique consulting firm based out of Southern California providing nonprofit management and fundraising consulting services for small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations. That's everyone from getting started in their first days to operating budgets of $20 million annually. We specialize in three key areas: major campaign consulting, board training and retreat facilitation, and what we call empowerment coaching, which is one-on-one coaching for any sort of nonprofit leader.

Jeff Porter: Awesome. And I am joined here by the awesome Kristen Wheeler.

Kristen Wheeler: Yeah, I am awesome.

Jeff Porter: You are awesome for a lot of reasons. One of them because this podcast doesn't operate without her, but the other major reason is Kristen has a lot of experience in donor development and events as well.

Kristen Wheeler: Yeah, I've seen it all. From what Hanna said, the first campaign, the first event, all the way to multi-million dollar high-end donors and major givers. And Hanna, you were talking before we hit record about wealth management and getting wealth data on your donors. I remember way back in the day before all of these tools and resources were available to us, we were on Zillow. What's the value of their house? When did they purchase their house? That gives us a clue. The amount of research that a development person in the nonprofit space is willing to do is just phenomenal.

Jeff Porter: Right. And Hanna said she specializes in helping small to mid-sized nonprofits that go up to $20 million. If you're not doing $20 million, don't be discouraged. You'll get there one day, especially if you listen to Hanna. I actually had the privilege of meeting Hanna. I was on the board at the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research, and Hanna came in as our director of development and brought in just a wealth of experience. I remember for us as a young organization, still trying to learn a lot of things, it was nice to have another opinion. As I've mentioned to Kristen before, who worked at JDRF, in the very beginning we would always be like, "I don't know how to do that. But what does JDRF do? Oh, they do it that way? Let's do it that way too." And then we brought Hanna in and she started saying, "Well, we could do it this way instead, or we could add this, or we could do that."

Jeff Porter: The first thing I want to talk about is the concept of where you go when you're a very young nonprofit to finally adding in that director of development, and how you start to expand your fundraising beyond events. When we started FPWR, that is all we did was run events because that's all we knew how to do -- run a walk or a party. So Hanna, I'd love your perspective a little bit on where events play a role. Obviously this is the Elevate Your Event Podcast, so our audience is running them. But I just got to the point where I felt like people saw it as an either/or. Like, "I do events and then I evolve out of that and go get grants or gifts or something else." What are your thoughts on where events fit? Do they stay? Do you evolve out of them, or do they become part of the mix?

Hanna Berger: Yeah, I think events are a healthy component of a healthy development program. Human beings are social primates. We need to be around each other. Connection is key and everybody loves a good party. Now, how you use events in your development program is really the question. I'm a firm believer in having fundraising events and being very specific that they're fundraising events where you monetize absolutely everything that happens. And then having your stewardship events where you invite folks and tell them, "We will not be raising money tonight. This is just to say thank you and to educate you about what we've done with your investments to date." But whenever folks say, "We really want to stop doing the events," my question is, let's talk about what's not working. Is it that you're using up considerable staff time because you're using really old technology or none at all? Is it that you're not raising very much because you haven't done a great job of monetizing the event itself and making sure there's lots of different ways that people can give? So when I'm working with clients and they say, "We want to eliminate our gala and replace the $300,000 we bring in with individual philanthropy," I'm like, great, we can all be focused on diversifying our revenue streams. But eliminating events altogether -- I'm absolutely opposed to that. I think they're really important.

Jeff Porter: I think that makes sense. We talk about events being there to raise awareness and to connect with not just your existing donors, but potentially new ones. These could be guests of people coming in the door. And I think you raised something I want to make sure we dive into a bit, which is what are you doing with that information? If the purpose of your fundraising event is to reach out to a new audience or expand your donor base by having your donors or supporters bring their friends, what are you doing with that on the other side? Do you work with your clients on that?

Hanna Berger: Oh, absolutely. Events can't just be about the transactions that happen night-of or even the sponsorships that come in because of the event. They have to be about the relationships -- the relationships that you're either creating or deepening through the event. So we look at, who are our core network? That could be your board of directors, guests that are there every year, your very close friends and family of the organization that are always going to show up. Who are they bringing? And how are we going to specifically engage those people? Prior to every major event, I always encourage my clients to put into their event planning timeline a day where they sit with their staff -- if they have a development team, their staff, programs, administration, operations, anybody who can be a part of the event -- and assign people roles. Folks that when they come through the door, they're there to host. It's like, this is our house, and we want everybody to have an incredible time, so we're going to host them like we are in our home. Really giving everybody a short list of people that they're required to meet, things they might want to talk about with those people. That means we have to know something about their network, their interests, what they do for a living.

Hanna Berger: A chief development officer of an organization had a really successful annual gala. When I came on board and told the board members they were now going to have responsibilities acting as ambassadors for the new friends we would have in the room, I received some pushback from the board chair. Her argument was, "I'm already bringing two tables, 20 guests that I need to host. How am I going to accommodate them and these new people?" To which I responded, "What a great opportunity to connect your friends with new friends. We're all one big happy family." So it looks like you're in the middle of a conversation with one of your dear friends, you spot the person on your list for the night, and you engage them in the conversation you're having. It looks like me as your head of development spotting you across the room and saying, "Oh, here's Mr. Johnson that I really wanted you to meet. This is our board president." And you're just allowing that conversation to happen. Walking my board members through what that might feel and look like was a way to get them to understand how you create that magic of bringing new friends in with the old ones and making sure everybody feels really well taken care of.

Jeff Porter: Sure. Do you give your board members any sort of coaching on what to say, elevator pitches, any of that? Or has that already happened?

Hanna Berger: Yeah, that's one of the first things I like to do with boards, both the ones that I've previously staffed and the ones I work with as clients. We tend to make this assumption that because our board members are experts we've recruited to our governing body, they're experts in all things, including nonprofit fundraising, including talking about the organization in a way that feels natural and educational and expert. And that's a really unfair assumption to make. People lead really busy lives. When you are there as a volunteer leader, you're not steeped in the day-to-day. You probably have your perspective on the organization, your why for getting involved, what connects you to the mission. But if you're never asked to articulate that back to folks at the drop of a dime, it can be a really uncomfortable experience. So I call it "perfecting your pitch." I come in and work with boards. We put together and walk through a really simple worksheet: Why I got involved. What's my personal connection. What's the mission of the organization in my own words. What's something that really excites me about what the organization is doing now, the impact it's having on the population we serve. And how can you, the new person I'm speaking to, get involved -- a simple call to action. Then we literally go around the room and have everybody present their pitch for constructive feedback from their peers, just building that muscle memory. It's tremendously helpful.

Jeff Porter: I like that idea. I think it's going to give your board members a little more comfort being willing to have these conversations with people at an event where they feel like they've been coached. It would for me, at least. Not that I wouldn't necessarily know what to say, but just getting some good talking points and tips, especially if you're also providing that about the people I'm supposed to be talking to. I think that's awesome. And look, I'll even say mea culpa at my own events. I don't think we do enough of this either. We have really high-end supportive donors coming to our events, and I think it is important to reach out to them and have a conversation with them beyond just the person that invited them. So I love that idea. If you really are trying to connect the pieces together at an event -- like all the different areas of fundraising -- this is one key way to do that, getting those people coming in the door engaged with your board and some of your other folks.

Hanna Berger: Absolutely.

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Jeff Porter: Love that. So Hanna, when you talk about deepening relationships at the event, introducing people to board members, introducing new friends, making new friends, and those key talking points and deep discussions -- what are some other ways that you can deepen that relationship at your event with key donors?

Hanna Berger: Yeah, assuming it's a fundraising event, you want to make sure there are a lot of opportunities that are fun and engaging and that people can make a donation at all levels. So everything from your silent auction to your live auction, paddle raise -- I was at an event recently where they played heads or tails. Are you familiar with this? They sold wristbands.

Kristen Wheeler: Oh, yeah.

Hanna Berger: Okay, this was the first time I'd ever been at an event where they did it. And it was a really fun way to kick things off. It was so fun. Folks were spending $40 for two wristbands, which gave them two shots at the game, and everybody's got their hands on their head or on their tails. It was just a silly way to kick things off and it raised a couple thousand dollars. It was great. I think probably everybody in the room -- it was an event of 400 people -- ended up making some kind of contribution.

Hanna Berger: Now, I know you're probably going to get to this, but the event has to be seen as an engagement point. It cannot be the entire donor relationship. While I don't produce events in my consulting practice, when I'm working with my clients on their full development program or major campaign, I say to them, "Okay, so what's the intention of this event beyond money? How are we going to leverage the data that we have now that we've got new people in the mix? How do we follow up with them? What kind of outreach follows this event?" And by the way, outreach needs to be quick.

Hanna Berger: I was at an event -- not naming names -- on Friday. I'm now a new donor of that organization, and it's Tuesday, and I've not seen any kind of post-event email yet, not even a general thank you. To me, that's not good. My expectation is really next day. And it can be as simple as a brief event recap, a thank you from the executive director, a lovely note from one of the clients that the organization serves, and a picture. It doesn't have to be a super detailed report or even a fundraising total, but some kind of touchpoint that says, "Hey, you are here, you're in our community now, and we're so glad." Because that leads into all the future communication that we want to create so that we can engage that person and build a relationship -- not just an opportunity for transactions once a year at an event.

Kristen Wheeler: And that can be something you front-load and do ahead of time. Even if you did want to add a fundraising total, all you have to do is plug in the number or one key highlight about the event. You can have all of this done beforehand, just upload the email addresses and click send. Because I'm hearing the voices of our listeners in their cars right now going, "Yeah, I'm too tired the day after the event to send a bunch of thank-yous. I'm on a plane to Cabo the day after my event."

Hanna Berger: Yeah, so these are all things that you can be thinking about as part of your planning process.

Jeff Porter: I think that's smart. I mean, you could absolutely pre-write this. You could even have ChatGPT write it. Well, that's another podcast -- we'll have to talk about that. But either way, I think that's absolutely smart. And it goes back to what I loved -- your question, "What is the purpose of the event beyond money?" We have this conversation a lot. You also mentioned something I think is really important: are you giving all of your attendees a variety of ways to engage with you at the event? That means auction, live auction, heads or tails game -- which is totally fun -- a wine pull, a paddle raise. You've got to have a combination of those things because everybody is going to want to engage in different ways. The folks that come to us and say, "We're just doing a paddle raise" -- okay, that's fine, you can do that. But if somebody comes to the event for the first time ever, maybe they're a guest of somebody, maybe they're willing to donate a hundred bucks to cover their meal, maybe they're not. They probably would bid in the auction, and that affords you the ability to get their email address and phone number. And what do you get to do with that? Well, that's the part that sometimes gets missed, to your point. Yes, you send that follow-up email, but what else are you doing? It really is an entry point, a starting point to a relationship. Do you agree?

Hanna Berger: Absolutely.

Kristen Wheeler: Well, when you talk about leveraging that data from the event, what are some ways that fundraisers can leverage that data from their guests?

Jeff Porter: Yeah, this question comes up a lot. "Do you integrate with our CRM? Do you integrate with Salesforce? Do you integrate with Bloomerang? Do you have Kindful?" The answer is always yes, but what are you actually going to do with it? I'm actually really curious. I know your finance team wants to load the transactions in, but I'm really more interested in your development team. What are they going to do with the attendee information? Beyond just what they spent, I as a donor development person would want to know who arrived, who checked in, what they bid on, what they did at the event. Maybe what they didn't do. Maybe they didn't win anything, but maybe they bid on 20 items and lost them all. Who knows?

Kristen Wheeler: Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Porter: What do you talk to your clients about as it relates to that?

Hanna Berger: I initially ask a lot of questions that they can't answer because they've not been thinking about what you just laid out. In a lot of folks' minds, they're like, "Why would I care about what they bid on, especially if they didn't win the item?" And I'm like, because it tells you what they care about, what their interests are. And it gives you something to discuss, especially if they won the item. Because then you can call them and say, "I'm so excited for you to take this trip to Cabo. Let's make sure your details are all set. Who are you planning on taking with you? Oh, it's the family. Tell me about your kids." It leads to so many other relationship-building touch points. So yes, to your point, folks are usually very concerned about getting the data into the database -- and God bless them, because it's even worse if you're just not capturing anything. But what do you do with that information afterwards? It's worth pulling reports out of your system and looking at donor behavior beyond just attending the event, beyond the total dollar amount they spent.

Hanna Berger: In particular, one of the most important things I see my clients not putting into practice until we work with them is tracking relationships. You know that donor A brought a table full of people. You've got all of their names and email addresses. Have you linked them within your system to know that those are his or her contacts that they brought in? What's the relationship? Are they professional colleagues? Are they family? Are they friends? You really want to know the life stories of the donors you're building relationships with. It's vitally important.

Hanna Berger: Some tactical ways you can use this data afterwards: I love, especially if they're brand new to your organization, to create a really simple new donor welcome packet. This can be a digital, pre-built piece sitting in your MailChimp or Constant Contact or whatever system you use for email marketing. You just add your new folks to it and it goes out. It says, "Thank you so much for joining our community. Here's what your contribution will help fund in the coming year. And here are three different ways you can get involved now: volunteering, serving as a mentor" -- whatever the opportunities might be. It's a way to make sure we're not making assumptions about the knowledge our new friends have of our organization, the way we operate, and the work we do. There's so much to learn with every organization. You want to make sure you're guiding your donors through the experience of getting to know you.

Jeff Porter: I think that's powerful and important, because it creates so much more of a reason to not just host an event, but to set it up in a certain way to capture certain amounts of information. And it's really hard to do what you're describing if you don't. We have a number of people who I don't think value the information you can get and the relationships you can start over what they consider to be more of a guest experience. "I don't want anybody walking in the door to have to tell me their email address or their phone number or their name. I just want them to grab their paddle number and sit down." Or, "I don't want you to require an email address." And I get it -- you're trying to create an experience where your donors don't feel burdened when they walk in the door. But at the same time, the part of the event that's so important is that you get this information so you can build a relationship with them. Hanna, do you have any clients who come to you and say, "No, I don't want to collect this kind of information at an event from anybody coming in the door"?

Hanna Berger: At this point in my career, after having done this work for more than two decades, I'm pretty direct with my communication. When I have clients that push back on that front, I say, "Well, then you really don't have an interest in creating a sustainable fundraising program. Period."

Jeff Porter: I think that's a good way to put it.

Kristen Wheeler: Yeah. I mean, how else will you be in touch? If you're not willing to ask for an email address and a phone number, you're probably not going to ask for a mailing address. You're probably not going to send snail mail. People tend to throw it away these days anyway. It's not asking for private information. We use email addresses as an identifier for absolutely everything now. And a lot of your donors, especially the more sophisticated ones, will have an expectation that you know how to reach them.

Jeff Porter: Yes. And they will be disappointed when you don't.

Kristen Wheeler: Donors are. Well, that leads into a story I have about donating to an organization -- not because I was necessarily connected to it, but I had a colleague who was being honored. I made a donation, and it was meaningful for me. It wasn't $10,000, but it was a large amount for me to give to an organization I had no prior connection to. I really wanted to see what they would do with it. I didn't expect pomp and circumstance, but I expected a thank you or "here's what we've done with the money you donated." Instead, what I got was, "Can you give us more?" That's what the letter said. So not only did I expect communication, but I think there are people out there who are dipping their toe in the water with you, and they want to see how you steward that and what you do with it.

Jeff Porter: And I don't think it takes much. That's not to say you have to chase after every $250 or $500 donation as if it could be a million-dollar donation, but do you have those processes in place to have a touchpoint with them?

Hanna Berger: Yeah, absolutely. Similar story I heard recently from a board member of one of my new clients. This person recently moved to the Coachella Valley -- the Palm Springs area in California, for those who aren't familiar -- out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Tech background, sold his company, extremely wealthy individual looking to get involved philanthropically in his new community. He sent $1,000 to a number of organizations via their websites and is now deeply involved with the two that responded to him with what you just described, Kristen -- information about what they do, how the donation would be used, and an invitation to engage deeper: take a tour, come to an education session, whatever they might have been. Because they showed up in that way, he showed up literally. Now he's a six-figure donor at both places and serving on the board of directors of one. You never know who's in your mix unless you're paying attention and you've got some processes in place to help you triage relationship management and identify ways to engage your donors and offer them engagement. Their response is everything -- you've got to get the ball rolling somewhere.

Jeff Porter: And I think the other thing that's important to know is, as you're describing this follow-up, it's not always critical that -- I think most of our clients are thinking, "I've got my 20 or 30 minute program at my event where I have to get all that out. I've got to explain everything that's going on and do my ask." Sure, you can do all of those things, but that doesn't eliminate the need for you to do the follow-up, where you can have a more intimate conversation. When I've been on certain boards before, I'll talk to the staff and ask, "What are we doing to follow up with the people that came?" And they say, "Well, we told them everything at the event." Yes, thank you for telling them everything at the event. Half of them were enjoying their cocktails. The other half weren't paying attention. It is really important that we follow up with the people that did engage with us there, especially the new folks, because we captured emails at the door and phone numbers. I just want to make that point because I think sometimes people feel like it isn't as important. And we see that it is. You've told your story, Hanna, about the person on the back end -- the guy who maybe went to these events, maybe he just found these charities online. Either way, the ones that connected with him one-on-one were the ones that built the relationship. He is now financially supporting them in a meaningful way. That's great to hear.

Hanna Berger: Yeah, yeah. And what you were just saying, Jeff -- I wanted to make a note that you don't have to recreate the wheel. You put together a great program, a wonderful script, probably a really cool video. Repurpose those materials in your follow-up. Take a portion of the script, put it in an email. Attach the video you showed at the event that, to your point, people may not have fully experienced in the moment. Let them see it again. Sometimes when it comes to the marketing piece of the puzzle, organizations overthink it and feel like they've got to create new content every time. We're living in a world now where we're inundated with messages and images and video. There's a statistic -- I'm not going to attempt to quote it exactly -- but I believe it's something like you've got to see the same piece of information at least three times for it to stick. The point being, repurpose the great stuff you put together for your event in your email marketing throughout the year.

Jeff Porter: That sounds smart.

Kristen Wheeler: Yeah, as a marketer, I could go on and on about that. You can take your one two-minute appeal video and turn that into 10 or 15 different outreaches or pieces of content.

Jeff Porter: This is where she's going to start talking about Snapchat and TikTok.

Kristen Wheeler: Not quite. But like Hanna said, you can put that in front of people multiple times and it will still have meaning and impact. I mean, honestly, I watch people in their 20s and 30s on their phones, and they are consuming content so fast. Imagine you're going through your Instagram reels and there's that 15 or 20 second video from the same charity, the one whose event you just went to. I love that. I think that's cool.

Jeff Porter: And why are they following you? Because you connected with them after the event. So we're running out of time here. This has been awesome. We've talked about a lot of really good things. But I think ultimately, when our clients are talking to us about where events fall in their overall fundraising portfolio, it's not an either/or. That's what we talked about. It is one way -- it's an entry point for starting a relationship with people who are new to your organization. It's another way to reconnect with people that maybe you haven't done a great job of connecting with over the years. It's another way for your best supporters to bring their friends and expand their ability to support you. It's a great way to collect this information. And we did talk about the importance of making sure you are gathering people's information at the door. The way you do that is encourage couples to bid in an auction or encourage them to get registered. So for those of you out there trying to discourage that because you think it's going to burden your donors, or if you think your donors are too important to give their email address -- and we've seen this complaint too, they're too wealthy or too famous and they're just not going to do it -- Hanna has checked in plenty of famous people, especially in L.A. They will give you their email address because they want to stay connected. They want their receipt, obviously, but at the same time, they expect you to do these things. And the stuff you've shared about what you do with that information on the back end -- I think it's been really rich.

Hanna Berger: Great, I'm glad to hear it.

Jeff Porter: Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners? We're going to let you have the last word on this podcast.

Hanna Berger: Ooh, no pressure. I do want to say one thing that we've actually done using Handbid -- we offered what we called internally "white glove service." So to your point about folks who are super high capacity or considered honorees, VIPs, if you're doing a classic gala situation, or your major sponsors -- calling them before the event to get that information for all of their guests and saying, "We're doing this for you because we want to make sure you've got a very smooth entry into the event and won't have to go through the registration process on site." There are ways to do this that make people feel even more important. But yes, we've got to get that information.

Hanna Berger: Without that information on your event guests, attendees, and donors, it's really hard to build anything sustainable. It's about building a sustainable development program, a community of relationships. And it's worth asking yourself: what is the point of this event? What is our intention here beyond just raising money? Is it education? Is it enrichment of existing relationships? Is it an entry point for brand new folks? I call it "friend-raising." What is it we're trying to accomplish here beyond just our dollar goal?

Jeff Porter: Hanna, how can people connect with you? Where can they find you if they're interested in your services?

Hanna Berger: Great, thank you. Our website is thephilanthropycoach.com. You can learn more about our consulting practice there. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn -- Hanna Berger, H-A-N-N-A B-E-R-G-E-R. And I'm on Instagram as well.

Jeff Porter: I love it. I'm going to give a strong plug for Hanna. I've worked with her. She's got not just a breadth of experience, but a world of knowledge about how to take a charity like we had at FPWR and take it to the next level. When I started at FPWR, I think we were raising 50 grand a year. I left 11 years later -- and Hanna was there for the last several years of that -- and we were raising three or four million a year. That's a significant increase. So I do encourage you to think about how you create a sustainable development program that spans a variety of channels of fundraising, with events as one component. Thank you so much for joining us today. I think our listeners absolutely appreciate it. I do encourage you to reach out to Hanna if you're looking for this expertise. I know you're in Southern California. Do you have clients in other states as well?

Hanna Berger: I do. Not every state yet, but yeah, we cover the Western U.S. and a couple folks in Texas.

Jeff Porter: All right. Love it. Thank you for listening in today to the Elevate Your Event Podcast. We appreciate you being listeners. We encourage you to leave a review, share this podcast with your friends or anybody else that you think would benefit from learning about how to run a better fundraising event. Until next time, best of luck in your fundraising efforts.