The Mainstream Finally Seeing the Value of Smaller Intro Events
Thank Goodness! I have been saying this for years: some of the best fundraising events are not really fundraising events at all.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published an article by M.J. Prest titled “Small Events That Win Big Gifts, No Gala Required.” The article highlights organizations moving away from large, expensive events and toward smaller, more personal experiences designed to connect people with the mission. The results are worth paying attention to. The Alpha 1 Foundation, for example, spent about $10,000 on four small donor dinners and generated nearly $500,000 in major gifts.
But I think the bigger lesson is about more than event costs or return on investment. It is about relationships.
I have never believed that the primary purpose of a donor event should be to raise money that night. A good event creates introductions. It builds trust. It gives prospective donors an opportunity to understand the organization. It elevates current donors by giving them greater access to leadership, mission, and impact. It allows donors to introduce other people who might share their interests.
And then we see where those relationships go.
The Chronicle article describes an Alpha 1 dinner where guests sat around a table and shared their personal experiences with the disease. One family ultimately committed $25,000. The organization estimates that 80 percent of its dinner guests had previously engaged very little, or not at all, with the foundation.
That is powerful fundraising because the setting matters.
Think about the difference between 500 people sitting at banquet tables in a ballroom and 12 people sitting around a dinner table. At the ballroom, donors watch the mission. Around the table, they participate in it.
The same principle applies to emotional settings. Take donors into the hospital. Let them meet the physician doing groundbreaking work. Walk them through the new facility. Introduce them to the scholarship recipient. Put them somewhere where they can see, hear, and experience what their philanthropy makes possible.
Then do something fundraisers sometimes struggle to do: do not ask for money.
The Chronicle reports that several organizations specifically avoid making a solicitation during these gatherings. World Food Program USA President and CEO Barron Segar explained that he rarely holds an event where there will be a hard ask that evening because he is not looking for transactional donors. Exactly.
Our objective should be a relationship that has the potential to become transformational. That requires curiosity, engagement, trust, understanding, and eventually a conversation about what the donor wants to accomplish.
The event is simply one part of that journey.
So, yes, thank Goodness. Maybe we are finally getting somewhere. Smaller. Personal. Emotional. Mission focused. Built around relationships. And leave the pledge cards at the office.
