Episode 72: Donor Engagement and Event Sequencing with Queen Bee Fundraising

Jeff: Welcome to Elevate Your Events, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. On today's episode, Jeff and Elise are joined by A.J. Steinberg, founder of Queen Bee Fundraising. With over 20 years of experience as a nonprofit event planner and engagement strategist, AJ gives us a peek into her proven process covering when to engage with donors, how to engage with donors, and how to keep their attention at your event. This is definitely an episode where you'll want to take some notes. So grab your notebook or your notes app, sit back and enjoy.

Jeff: All right, welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast where we talk about all the various ways you can make your next fundraising event better. And so we've got a really cool topic today, and we've got a very special guest. We've got A.J. Steinberg from Queen Bee Fundraising. Glad to be here with her. She is a fundraiser and grandma extraordinaire, we hear.

AJ: That's awesome. Lucky me.

Jeff: And joining me, I'm Jeff Porter, CEO, founder of Handbid. I've got Elise Druckenmiller here in the studio with me.

Elise: Hello. Nice to see everybody again.

Jeff: And so AJ and I, we've been on some sessions together, and then we kind of hung out at AFP recently. And so we decided, we've got to get you as a guest on our podcast. You have a ton of event experience. And we'd love for you to pour that into our listeners, give them what you do. So give us a little background on Queen Bee, what you do and then what you think makes your services unique versus all the other types of event planners out there.

AJ: Interesting. Yeah, because that's definitely been something we've talked about. I think it is special. I compliment from a different place. I've been doing this well over 20 years, as I like to say, since before there was online platforms, when we used spreadsheets and things like that. So I've been a nonprofit event producer since 1999. I'm based in Los Angeles and have done over 100 events and raised many millions of dollars for some amazing organizations. But I look at events very differently than somebody who comes in and just puts elements together. I consider the event one moment in time in a stewardship process, meaning this is a unique opportunity to get people together in person to build affinity, not only with your organization, but between themselves and build community, and then to have them fall in love with your organization. But that's just one moment in time. Then we put the pieces in place for stewardship after the event to keep that love flowing and to move them through your stewardship cycle.

Jeff: I think that's important. It's so funny because we all run events. And I just actually ran my fundraiser recently. And you kind of go into that decompression mode where you're like, the event is over and I don't want to do anything related to this. But you can't, right? You got to follow up.

AJ: You have to stay connected to your donors throughout the year.

Jeff: And not just that -- a lot of people think I'm going on vacation the Monday after the gala.

AJ: Everyone just wants to take off. But I call that the thank-you week, because that is a full week of calling the donors, emailing donors saying thank you, thank you, thank you. I have a -- if they wanted, they can email me at aj@queenbeefundraising.com -- I have a three-step post-event sequence that I use with my clients that's really incredibly effective in not just thanking the people who were there, but actually creating FOMO for those people who didn't come. Because you don't just send the email blast to your guests. Your entire email list gets this incredible recap on this event and it makes them want to come next year when they see how awesome it was.

Jeff: I think that's powerful. And I think it's missed. I'm not even sure -- we need to call you because I don't think we followed your three steps at all.

Elise: I was just going to say, we're guilty of this.

Jeff: I did not go on vacation on Monday. All right. I will tell you that. But we tried something this year, AJ. I'd love your thoughts on it. We decided we would put survey QR codes all around the event, trying to see if we couldn't capture people in the moment who are maybe not enjoying something -- if they would just complain about it right there on the spot. And it sort of worked, but we did spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday thanking and then pleading for them to give us feedback. And so we did get quite a bit of feedback and it was all very good for the most part. But the rest of it -- I think we do miss out on the structured follow-up. Yes, we did send an email out saying thank you. But it was more of that generic thank-you email. And what I'm hearing from you is, whether it's customized, personalized, whatever it is, there's specific people that really ultimately need to be specially thanked, especially for the contributions.

AJ: Of course. So of course, your board, your committee needs phone calls. Anybody who donates over a certain amount -- and that varies; it could be $10,000 for some organizations, then that could be a thousand for a smaller organization -- phone calls. And you delegate your phone calls to your board and your committee, so it's not just one person doing it, so it's not like 500 phone calls. But then also, I have a three-step sequence of emails. The first one is your kind of generic -- hey, it was awesome. We raised $350,000 because of you. I always make sure that the "because of you" portion is in all my emails. Because of you we're able to bring water to this village in Uganda. Because of you, there are going to be a hundred scholarships for summer camp for these kids at the Boys and Girls Clubs. So that's the first -- a generic thank you. This is what we raised. It's because of you that we're able to continue to do this. The next one, I usually try and do an infographic in a fun way of what happened at the event. How many signature martinis were served through the ice luge, how many people came, how many volunteers it took, how much money was raised, how many auction items. And then we put the save-the-date in.

Jeff: This is amazing. I'm not sure I want to disclose how many mint juleps were consumed at my Derby event. But that's fun.

AJ: And you'll see. If you just email, I will send you my infographic from one of my events from way back in the day that I use as my holy grail. And you can do them on Canva. I like to spend -- well, you can go to Fiverr. I do Fiverr, and it's like $30 and you have the perfect gorgeous infographic.

Jeff: We just had an hour meeting about Fiverr before this.

Elise: We did.

AJ: Holy grail, changed my life. Because I just don't have time to do what I did when I was just AJ doing events. Now I'm doing a lot of really big events. I don't have time to do the graphic things that I used to love to do. So I have to outsource, but I don't have the budget for a really high-end person for me.

AJ: So then the last one -- the first email goes out about two, three days, maybe one day. On Monday, that should be your first one. It can be scheduled in advance. The next one goes out maybe two, three days later. The last one goes out a week or two afterwards, and it just says the love keeps flowing. We keep getting feedback on how much you love our organization and the event. Just wanted to remind you, because of you, such and such happened. We hope that you'll -- thank you for being a part of our family. Then I would send, every month, an update once they've become guests. So this is important. For committees, especially high-net-worth individuals who give you their Rolodex, they give you their email list for your invitations or their mailing list -- if they're very private about who they're sharing their contacts with, it is not for you to roll their contacts they give you to send invitations to into your general email list or your mailing list. That is considered taboo -- that's their people. But the minute that their people buy a ticket or make a donation, fair game. They are now in your general email blast list. I would start sending email blasts to everybody just saying, I want to remind you, because of you, we've now been able to do this. Our gala made it so that now our capital campaign has gotten a million dollars more in it. Whatever it is, keep reminding them they're amazing. And there is a nonprofit called Mercy Beyond Borders. And it's run by a nun who started it. And within a couple of years she got a $2 million grant because she's so awesome. But her communications about being donor-centric are incredible. And I love her. I know her personally. She's a friend. But Mercy Beyond Borders -- just sign up for her email list or her mailing list and you'll see what she's putting out.

Jeff: I love inspiration like that. Everything you just mentioned is so funny because it generates a thought in my head over a board meeting I've been at or an event that I've been at where I'm like, yes, I completely agree with you, that is something that I would do or I wouldn't do. It just came up in a board meeting the other day. I'm on the board of this nonprofit. And one of the board members -- we were trying to figure out how do we expand our mailing list. And of course, my suggestion was, why don't you actually collect names when they show up at the event? That would actually be a really good way to do it.

AJ: Oh, you crazy wild ideas.

Jeff: Right. But this one guy, our boy, he's well-meaning, but he's like, how about this? How about I'm just going to start -- I'm going to send out an email to my friends, and I'm going to just blind copy one of you guys on the organization and just take their emails and add them to the list. I'm like, no. Don't do that. They didn't opt in to get junk from you. If you want them to get stuff from us, have them register for something. I don't care if it's like a free thing or whatever.

AJ: Something. If you have something of value -- so I'm really big on having throughout the year, maybe two or three a year, free events that are friendraisers. And I hate those -- like, fundraisers or friendraisers are kind of hokey. But I'm very big on trying to get younger people who are in the beginning of their wealth cycle so that we build affinity before we start really asking for money. So when you're a CFRE and you take the test, the thing they drill in your head more than anything else is ability, affinity, and timing. So ability means they have the funds that they can donate. Affinity means they care about what you do. And then timing means you can't just ask someone to marry you on the first date. Don't just say, join my board when you first meet them, which I know people do. So those are the three things we think about. When you have an emerging leaders event -- breweries -- I'm in San Diego right now, but I'm based in Los Angeles. I work in Santa Barbara. There are breweries and wineries everywhere. So what we do is it costs maybe $1,200 to host for free an event with food and wine or food and beer. Lots of times you can even get it donated by the venue. But those are where you bring people in. You do a raffle so they put their email addresses when they RSVP, and you use Handbid to digitally have them RSVP so that you capture their email addresses. If they show up, have a raffle so that they do it. Once they come, they're in your email segment. And you might segment them -- when you talk about things that newer people may not know about your organization, younger people may care about more. Give them interesting information. If you make it interesting, they'll open your emails.

Jeff: I agree.

AJ: And then use it. So here's an example. I'm sorry to keep gabbing about this, but Arts Best Express -- I'm on the board here. And they have not done a great job in the past. And they have the easiest lift I've ever seen of getting new names for their email list. They are -- all they do is provide transportation for Title I schools, underprivileged schools, for field trips. The field trip money is there, but the kids can't get there because there's no transportation. So they go to all these cool places in San Diego -- the zoo, the parks, SeaWorld, all these places. So what we're starting to do is we do twice a month a feature of one really cool field trip place that people can take their own kids, plus the teacher of the month so that we're doubling down. The teachers want to open it up to see who else. They start to get used to opening your emails. And everybody wants to read about the zoo or the aquarium. Where can I take my kids this month? So what you're doing is giving them information that's interesting. So they want to open your email. There's always a donate button. And then every couple months you do just a campaign where you ask them for donations.

Jeff: I love it. Capturing names, I think it seems so obvious that that would be the way that you would start a relationship with somebody is to actually know how to get in contact with them. But I think there's such a missed opportunity. And we don't just see this at the smaller, less sophisticated nonprofits. We see this even at the more sophisticated ones that are like, I don't want to bother my donors with having to check in, register, do whatever at an event because it's a burden on them. And I'm like, okay, but your donor just brought five friends and you're going to want to know who they are.

AJ: And for Handbid, that's where you guys come in. You make it easy. Because it's so easy for them to give a link to their people, to send a link. There are so many ways that you've made it easy for people to get the names. That's why you're there. You've made our lives easier.

Jeff: But there is a trade-off. I mean, there is a trade-off between donor relationship management, donor development, and a little bit of work that you're going to have to ask the person to do. It's not magic. And so for us, it's like, yes, we make it easy. So I register, I buy a table. I get seven guests maybe at my table. I put in their names and emails. I send them an invite link. I'm still asking them to click on the link and fill out this information. I still have to click the link and say, yes, I will attend. But it's no different than when you send an invitation for a kid's birthday party. They're still going to RSVP. I don't think the ask is that much. And I think that is one of the challenges that we have with a lot of -- not the event planner, but people that are running the event. They don't want to bother. It's not the AJs of the world. It's AJ's clients.

AJ: And so here's what I do -- they don't want to bother them. And I think that mentality needs to go out. The connection of filling out my info is back to donor development. That's the connection.

Jeff: But I'll be honest with you, this was an organization that's done multiple events, and I show up on one of their demos with one of our reps. And I drop in from time to time, and I'm chatting and watching this whole thing go down. And what the charity wanted -- the first thing they said is, okay, so how do we get people registered? Okay, well, your sponsor buys a ticket. And then say that ticket admits eight people -- it's a table of eight or whatever. So they're going to have their seven guest slots. They're going to put their names in. And they say, I don't want my sponsors to have to put names in. I said, okay, well, how do you want the information to happen? I just want them to have a link and they just email the link out. Okay, well, how are they going to email the link out? They're going to email it to their friends. Well, how about they just put the emails into the seven slots and hit send link? I mean, you're going to do it anyway.

AJ: Usually what we say -- I find that telling them that the reason we want their email addresses is to be able to make the registration easier and to get them the information they need before the event. So I kind of switch it. We know we want the emails and we want the names because we've got to put the names down. It's like, please give us your email. Quite honestly, I do a lot of the work. I'll say, send me a list of your emails and I will input them for you.

Jeff: And we do that too. And it's so funny because we'll say, okay, so if you don't want your sponsor doing this -- if you don't want your sponsor typing in seven emails and hitting invite my friends -- then you're going to have to call them to get them yourself.

AJ: Okay. So that's fine. Now, part of the problem is a lot of these sponsors don't want to send eight. They don't have eight people that want to go to your event. Because a sponsorship is usually -- a table sponsor is usually a board member or a donor and they do want to have their friends there. So you have these sponsors who buy these tables, they have a table of 10 and you know darn well that either they're not going to show up or they're going to send the lowest-level assistant secretary who will eat and leave without engaging. So what I always do is when any time I get a sponsorship, I send an onboarding email and the information says, thank you for doing it, this is your level, this is what you're going to get. And I always say, if you don't feel that you will be able to fill a table of 10 guests, we encourage you to gift back your table so that we can have others who are VIPs and families of honorees attend as your guest.

Jeff: I love this idea. Can we dive into this?

Elise: We do this with One Go Foundation.

Jeff: Yeah. Because this is a problem that we have. I mean, we had a sponsor and they bought our most expensive package for our Derby event. And they had a table of eight. And it's a very prominent, fancy circular sofa fire pit table, and they didn't want it, honestly. They didn't want to come. They just wanted their name out there. They wanted their name, and they just wanted to support.

AJ: And that's it. Real sponsorships are marketing opportunities for businesses. It's not humans. There's people behind it, and you would love them to attend, but most just want the branding. And the problem is that these are prime real estate, these sponsor tables, and it looks so bad, especially in photos, that there's two people sitting at a table or a completely empty table in the prime real estate section of our events. So I always, if I do not have names for those, I pick up the phone and I say, listen, this is great. Your name will be on the table. There will be a "this table is hosted by Union Bank" -- which is no longer, it's U.S. Bank. And they're very happy not to have to show up.

Jeff: I think that's great. It's funny. One of the very first Handbid events we did, and this is a long time ago. It was an event in D.C. And exactly what you described happened. We show up on site. And Google was one of their biggest sponsors. Well, Google had two tables up front. And I would say halfway through check-in, 15 or 16 kids in their early 20s show up. And it's all the Google employees.

AJ: That, to me -- and that's so sad. I mean, we want, obviously, to encourage Google employees to become part of your donor base. But not at that event. That event is not for them. That is a big deal. So I guess the way that we always say it -- if you don't have C-level executives coming -- and I think that people are happy to have their tables filled with, quite honestly, if you have two tables filled with employees, exactly what you described -- hey, you want to go to a free party? Food and drinks.

Jeff: I told the staff to check their IDs. I was a little nervous. But it's like you live and learn. For this organization, to your point, what they should have done is said, Google, we really appreciate your $20,000 sponsorship or whatever it is, and if you don't feel like you're going to be able to staff these with senior executives at your table, can you gift it back? Because this was a victim-oriented charity. And there were a lot of victims' families and people who probably could not afford to sit at a $10,000 table, which would have been perfect.

Elise: And that's what -- so One Go Foundation, I'm on the board of that.

Jeff: Explain what they do and what you guys do with it.

Elise: So we do critical gap funding for first responders. A lot of what we do is mental health. But our big annual event is our main event honoring first responders. So we send out applications and ask for community involvement in determining who the honorees are going to be -- fire, police, EMS. We don't just limit it to just fire or police or anything like that. Everybody on the front line can be a candidate. And so we have an honorary table and they usually bring families, and there's a big video and all of the details. But most of what we do -- we do have table sponsorships but we do a lot of just general sponsors. And you get tables and a lot of them don't come. And so what I was saying is last year, and we're really pushing for it this year too -- our event is coming up in September -- but if you're not coming, we're asking ahead of time: unable to attend, would you like to donate your table to a first responder or to one of the honorees? Their families -- the honorees automatically get a table, but their extended families. And we even allow them to pick their first responder. A lot of our sponsors, we're very fortunate, it's not just about marketing for somebody's business. A lot of them are involved in the first responder community somehow and so they have a personal connection to first responders. And they will select a first responder to give their table to, or even just, I don't have eight people but I've got four first responders I want to give it to. So we've started doing that and we're now filling the tables with money in the room.

AJ: I love it. That's awesome. That's exactly right. You're way ahead of the curve on that.

Jeff: So can we shift gears here for a second? I want to talk about auction. And I'll be honest with you, we're a mobile bidding company, right? So you think that this is the center of our universe. It really isn't. On our commercial side, because we have a commercial auction business, obviously it is. But with more and more of these charity events, we're seeing less of the highlight on auctions. We definitely have a few clients and a few events where that is it -- it is all around that. But we're just starting to see that it's becoming something slightly different. And what we've coached our customers on is -- because to me an auction is something that you don't evolve away from, but it's not something that needs to continue to be the center of your event. And what I mean by that is it's a nice tool for those people we just talked about -- the newcomers. It's the entertainment. It's entertainment that raises a little money but takes a lot of your resources and hours. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. But not everybody who's a new guest at an event from our standpoint is ready to raise their paddle for a hundred bucks, but they might bid in your auction and win something. And you still, either way, get their info.

AJ: It's bargain shopping.

Jeff: You get their info. It is bargain shopping. It is the entry for them to start becoming engaged. You get to teach them about what your organization does. During cocktail hour, if you don't know anybody, it's kind of a way to break the ice. I mean, I now see people who are doing no silent auction. They still do live because it does kind of warm up the crowd -- limiting to five to seven items. I won't do an event that has 13 live auction items.

AJ: Oh, I just did one that had 30.

Jeff: That's like the whole bottle of wine conversation about what's wrong with that?

AJ: I asked them to bring me a drink. Honestly, how many people had even stayed? Well, anyway, if it's a commercial auction, they're there for the auction.

Jeff: Yeah, that's different. Those are definitely different. I mean, I do commercial auctions with 80 items in it, but they take eight hours.

AJ: I did a silent auction that was 400 pieces. So this is what happens. It was 750 people, and I was not the event planner. I was like a day-of person. So I was doing a lot of that -- doing the live auction and the paddle raise. My paddle raise, even for a Boys and Girls Club in a mid-range area, I raised like $300,000 to $500,000 on my paddle raise typically. And that's because everything in the event is sequenced perfectly. It's like a Broadway stage program -- no entertainment even -- but just everything happens to the moment to build up to that moment. There are 750 people in this room who are well-to-do. By the time they finished with a zillion silent auction items, which raised a lot of money for them, they did nothing to promote the organization, nothing to make these people donate ever again. They went in the ballroom, they had their auction items, and then they did the paddle raise and they only raised like $125,000 on their paddle raise with 750 people in the room because everybody had already just spent their money. They were just bored too because it was such overload to look at that many silent auction items. That's a lot.

Jeff: I agree. Unless it's like your thing. I mean, we do some silent auctions that do half a million dollars, but that's kind of their thing. That's what people are specifically there for.

AJ: Right. So do it. I would do away with -- if I did that and they made much more money on the silent auction, I would get rid of the paddle raise. And I'd do like three live auction items that are just spectacular. But people were walking around during the live auction and the paddle raise because they didn't care. It doesn't matter how many chairs you have.

Jeff: And that's my thing. I want to say -- I always close a silent auction when people go in the ballroom. I do not keep it open.

AJ: Yeah. That was always a tradition, especially with auctioneers, because they hated people getting up out of their chairs and leaving the ballroom to go back.

Jeff: But if your silent auction is on mobile, you don't have to do that. The nice thing about leaving it open is people don't leave. But I think to your point, if you structure your event in a way where you've got that balance, you can keep people there.

AJ: It's all in the sequencing. If you put your honoree at the beginning, people will leave after dinner. I always have a certain sequence. It's like introduce the mission, warm up the audience, and then let people eat. And then you do the live auction. You do something meaningful. You do the paddle raise. And then you do the honoree last because the honoree's friends won't leave before the honoree gets up and speaks.

Jeff: That's a good point. That's a great point. I have a board meeting after this, AJ. I might bring this up. I think we're talking about our run-of-show. I'm going to bring that up. I don't know if I agree or disagree with it, but I think it's a conversation that needs to be had. We've never done our honoree at the end. We do it before the live.

AJ: But this one -- so I'm doing an event where that's always been the way we've had the honoree at the end. But this time, the honoree -- we're trying to bring in younger generations of donors who are related to the wealthy people who made the million dollar ask. So legacy families are our honoree. So the legacy families are what we are honoring. So we are actually moving them to right before the paddle raise. We're shifting because we want people to be totally in love with these families and realize they can create a legacy if they do something similar. So everything is custom. You have to change.

Jeff: We changed at an FCA event I was at last year. We actually put the paddle raise in front of the live auction to see if it would fix some things.

AJ: How'd that do?

Jeff: It did really well, actually. It did really well, except -- I don't know why we did this. Part of it was just to see how flexible the auctioneer was going to be when we told him that we were messing with his run-of-show. And he was. He was a good sport about it. But the one thing we did that I completely regret was they held off the $100 level until after the live auction and that just upset a bunch of people.

Elise: I don't know why they did that either. I did not like that. That was a surprise when we were there.

Jeff: He wanted to do the runaround and that was his game. So he wanted that done after the live auction. Anyway, that was our compromise with him. But I actually think it did really well.

AJ: Well, good for you for trying something that worked. I'm always a cheerleader. I will defer to my clients -- if they want to try something, I will say, listen, I don't think it's going to work, but I will be thrilled if I'm wrong. I'm not there to cheer against them. I think, in all of our roles as fundraising event experts, I think it's important for us to encourage our clients to get out of their own way a little bit, right?

Jeff: Get out of the way. Or just try something.

AJ: I love that. Bold and unconventional.

Jeff: It's one of our values. That's one of our values.

AJ: Adapt or get out of their own way. I love that. That is the story of my life. It's like, please don't just shoot yourself in the foot. It's that gentle reminder of you hired me for a reason. You hired me because I am an expert in my field. So if you're going to do things the way you've always done it, what do you need me for? I say that to them. I was like, you paid a lot of money for me. There's a reason.

Jeff: It sounds like the sermon I just listened to at church. So do you want a cheerleader or a coach? Which one do you want?

AJ: I am going to say that.

Elise: Oh, AJ is stealing that one, Jeff.

AJ: Well, I love that because my specialty is committees. I don't just go in and build these -- there's committees. And I am a cheerleader for those. Let's be a team. Let's build this together. This is your event. Let's get your event to be successful. But the truth is that I'm working with one right now where it's not a lot of kumbaya. And then every time I come up with the best solution, because I do this for a living and these people don't, they'll get like nine people on an email chain and they'll all chime in with that one person's opinion and say, well, it's consensus. And I'm thinking, why would you have me even be here? I don't want to waste my time with you if it's not going to be a great event.

Jeff: You get definitely a lot of groupthink. And for us, we definitely want the people that come in that want to challenge the way we do things. Because that's the cheerleader-or-a-coach thing. It's like, you just want to tell me what I want to hear? Because all of us know those people. If I want to go do something in my life and I know who I can call who's going to tell me to go do it -- but I don't necessarily want that, especially with my event. I want to throw it out there. What should we be changing? What should we be doing differently? Because we're not always right. I mean, we've been doing this a long time too. I ran my first fundraiser in 2004. So 20 years have gone by. I've seen thousands of them, but that doesn't mean that I'm always right. Because to your point, you try things and see how they work, and if they work for that particular event or that particular audience, great. Why did we move the paddle raise ahead of the live auction? Very simple. Because we had a constituent group in there that wanted to go home at 9 o'clock. And if the live auction runs long, we started our paddle raise that first year at nine and people were frustrated and mad. And when people are frustrated and mad, they don't raise their paddle.

AJ: But that's also with the 17 to 30 item live auction. People are mad. It's very amusing for a few. But then there's only 5% of the people bidding on it and everybody else starts getting bored after a while because the rich people are having fun and everybody else is just waiting.

Jeff: Boredom sets in, 100%. And then they're on their phones and they're over by the bar talking to their buddies. And if you close the silent auction in the middle of that, they go home.

AJ: I think you should do a whole podcast on things that we think should be done differently at events.

Jeff: A hundred percent. And the thing is, what you think should be done differently might be something that people are already doing at another event and vice versa. So it'd be good to trade some of those secrets.

AJ: But it's amazing because when you work with committees and then new committees come in -- they're all volunteers and the new committees come in each year. So something that's worked amazing for several years, the new committee comes in and they just want to change it. Well, we should do this because at my other event we did this. So all the hard work for years of gearing this up for success, building and building. And then it's like, oh, you want children to be singing who nobody knows who these children are? That's not going to work. Let's just address the elephant in the room. You should not just automatically come in and fire your fundraising consultant or mobile bidding company. Maybe they've been working for years really well.

Jeff: That is true. But then there's times -- if I want to be fired, I'm like, okay. We've fired ourselves too, trust me. We're not afraid to do it. We're not a good fit for you. If you want to put fake information into our system so that your guests don't have to check in, we're probably not a good fit.

AJ: I can't even imagine.

Jeff: Okay, I've got to let you go back to grandma duties. I know, and we've got to run. This has been a fun conversation. So you know what? Your family and your grandma duties are super important. And thank you for taking time away during this time of the year to meet with us. It's been great.

AJ: Oh, I'm so happy. I got to tell you, Jeff, you're one of my favorite people because the first time Jeff and I were on a panel together, I thought that Jeff and I were going to be at each other's throats because he's mobile bidding and I am not a mobile bidding person. I don't hate mobile bidding. I love your platform. I love platforms, but I don't allow mobile bidding in the ballroom. It's like once you leave the silent auction area -- but I just love too because he's evolved, I've evolved, and it kind of shows you that both of us grow and understand a little bit more about different points of view.

Jeff: Well, we can't encourage our -- I mean, you got to practice what you preach. We're talking about getting our clients to change their minds and to see other points of view. I mean, we got to do the same thing.

AJ: But not everybody does. I know.

Jeff: That's true. So that's a good point. All right, you guys. All right, AJ. I look forward to seeing you at the next AFP event that we're both at. And we'll do that. And so we're going to wrap up this episode of Elevate Your Event. And so until next time, everyone, happy fundraising. Thanks so much to AJ for taking a break during her grandma time and joining us to share her years of experience. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.