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Small Business — Tips for Nonprofits Seeking to Cultivate New Donors

Special to the Business Journal

As more nonprofits have introduced special events in recent years, the fund-raising market has quickly become saturated with 5K runs, golf tournaments, auctions and gala dinners.

Not only are these events rivaling one another for the same pool of donors, nonprofit organizations must factor in the competition that San Diego itself offers , from outdoor fun at the beach and bay to world-renowned attractions like the Zoo and SeaWorld San Diego.

There is no doubt that executing a successful special event in San Diego seems a daunting task.

But for those nonprofits approaching special event fund-raising with a smart, more strategic plan for implementation, events continue to serve as an important source of new donors, inspired volunteers and revenue.

The key is to execute a special event as you would any other marketing function , by identifying an organization’s market and crafting an event to suit them. Not only will this type of targeted thinking and thorough planning increase attendance, it will also make it easier to develop important revenue-generating event-sponsorship programs.

– Tailor Events To

A Specific Audience

No marketing activity should be introduced without a thorough understanding of the audience you are trying to reach with your message. A special event is no different.

An event should be tailor-made to attract attendees who are likely to become regular donors and/or active organizational participants. That means taking into account their interests, their time constraints and, most importantly, the type of event that would in their eyes be worthy of sacrificing personal time or other recreational activities to attend.

People who already believe in your cause will come to the event anyway. The goal for your strategic event plan should be to attract other attendees who will come because the event sounds like an enjoyable way to spend their time, in the hopes of turning those fun-seekers into regular supporters.

One of the first steps in any marketing planning process is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your organization or product or service and eliminate as many of those weaknesses as possible to strengthen your competitive advantage.

In special event planning, your audience is likely to have limited recreation time , making your event’s demand for time a potential weakness. On the other hand, events that offer an easy, “packaged” opportunity for fun offer a very positive and welcome diversion.

– Focusing Events

On Local Attractions

Though it’s true that America’s Finest City offers some tough competition for special events, those very same features can serve as the perfect selling point when translated into the focal point of a fund-raiser.

Fund-raisers that involve boating, taking a behind-the-scenes look at some of our most popular tourist destinations or basking in a sunset at a popular surfside location, for example, allow San Diegans to enjoy some of the hundreds of regional activities that residents normally don’t make the time to enjoy.

Customer satisfaction is a key element in any successful marketing initiative. Research shows that retaining a happy customer is significantly easier and less expensive than attracting a new one. The key in event planning is to ensure that your attendees are “satisfied customers” who will continue to support your organization in the future.

To start, consider what your guests hope to gain from attending your event, other than an enjoyable few hours. This is a question that becomes easier to answer as an event establishes a history, but even in the initial years some basic assumptions can guide event planning.

For example, do they expect to network? If so, it is important that the event facilitate meeting and interacting with other attendees in a comfortable environment. If they are a social crowd looking solely for recreation, then the event should showcase activity before all else.

– Plan Around

Other Calendars

A well-timed promotion can mean the difference between record sales and a marketing bust. When trying to appeal to a particular constituency, it is essential to keep their schedules in mind. Often event planners make the mistake of using their own timetables as a planning guide, when the demands of their audience may be quite different.

The audience’s business life can’t be the only guide, though. Their personal life must be factored in as well. Back-to-school, graduation, spring breaks and Mother’s Day are all non-traditional holidays that can serve as significant obstacles to a strong turnout.

It is also important to determine what other fund-raisers have been planned on or around the date you are considering. Take the time to touch base with other competing organizations to avoid scheduling conflicts and look at other event themes to avoid being the fifth boat cruise or 10th gala dinner in a row.

A clearly defined target market and a well-planned event activity make it easier to identify and approach potential sponsors. Think carefully about which retailers and service providers might be looking for new ways to reach your audience.

Simple signage or advertising in an event program do not provide sponsors with enough of a marketing opportunity. The event that offers businesses creative ways to showcase themselves will be the one to collect substantial sponsorship revenues.

For example, in a recent San Diego event that featured a game-oriented theme, each event sponsor hosted a game booth, offering prominent display of their business name, a chance to mingle one-on-one with event participants while they played the game and an opportunity to showcase their product or service as part of the game prize selection. Sponsors who participated reported feeling that their investment was a worthwhile one, and looked forward to participating again.

– Offer Sponsorships

On Different Levels

Another crucial element in creating broad sponsorship appeal is to offer opportunities on many levels.

Though simpler to offer only a few high-priced sponsorship categories, it is best not to eliminate opportunities for smaller dollars, when well-designed, event sponsorship can offer small businesses a useful and cost-effective way to reach their target audience. That is why many successful events collect the largest share of revenue from lower-tier sponsors.

Consider each special event as an opportunity to conduct your own market research to enhance future efforts, both in event planning and in other marketing and fund-raising activities.

The key to hosting a successful event is to make adjustments each year to keep it from going stale and make it more appealing to your audience. Rather than rely on your employees and volunteers to be the sole source of evaluation, capture feedback from your attendees and incorporate their thoughts and suggestions into refining future events.

The best opportunity for feedback comes at the event itself, when people have the most definitive opinions about what they did and did not enjoy about the function.

Typically, all the host organization needs to do is to provide the mechanism for feedback and a little incentive for someone’s time to collect a great deal of valuable information. For example, by placing evaluation cards on dining tables, and offering a raffle prize drawn from all comment cards collected, people are more likely to take the time to tell you what they think.

– Use Evaluations For

Future Improvements

More than collecting the information, however, the most important element of evaluation is to use it to improve your event.

If some participants suggest a change of date, don’t be intimidated by the fact that your organization has always held your event during a certain month or on a certain night of the week. Artificial calendars mean much more to the host organization than the attendees.

Likewise, if your evaluations suggest more time to mingle with other attendees, don’t be afraid to abandon the sit-down dinner approach that has been your event’s mainstay for as long as you can remember.

Though both time and labor intensive, special events will continue to offer nonprofit organizations what is perhaps one of the most effective tools for bringing visibility to their organization and its mission. Special events attract and build relationships with new donors that probably wouldn’t give through other channel. Plus, it promotes feedback from their constituency.

Just like any other instrument in your marketing and public relations toolbox, however, the key to achieving these goals and generating revenue, is to use a more strategic approach to event planning and execution.

Littlefield is a senior marketing communications consultant with Stock/Alper & Associates, a local full-service marketing and communications firm.

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