Events and Direct Marketing Integration: Building Fundraising Success
Thursday, 20 October 2011 00:00
by Mark WarnerParticularly with local and regional organizations, coordinating all your fundraising activities is essential for success. Not only in terms of dollars raised, but communicating with external audiences that your organization functions as a seamless whole.
On many levels, this seems to be self-evident. However, given the competing priorities within any organization, it is often difficult to achieve. Essential to this is welcoming your volunteer leadership into the overall fundraising planning process. Make sure that it includes volunteers from al the functional areas. It’s not uncommon for event volunteers to operate in silos disconnected from other parts of the organization. In the case of auxiliaries, the volunteers may be totally disconnected.
Considering just special events for now, these campaigns need to be approached with the same level of thoroughness as your other appeals. Special events create a unique opportunity for prospects to engage with your organization and donors, both new and old, to rally around your organization’s mission. Inherently well-managed special events aide in the stewardship of donor relations. With this in mind, it is important to create different events and multi-faceted marketing campaigns in an effort to target each of your organization’s donor groups. In addition, your off-line and online campaigns should integrate with those events at some level.
Here are a few questions to ask during the planning process:
How can we integrate special events into our direct marketing calendar?
Are there timing conflicts?
How and when will event attendees be solicited after the event?
Does a particular event attract a specific audience (e.g. young professionals) that needs special messaging and segmentation?
How can we use our direct marketing campaigns to reward high-end sponsors and increase the value of those sponsorships?
Are we creating seamless messages across all our marketing campaigns and events?
Mark Warner launched MDW Consulting in 2009 with more than 15 years of development experience that focused on capital campaigns, major giving and society membership programs. The firm serves the breadth of the not-for-profit sector with highly customized projects that empower clients to increase their fundraising revenue. Mark gives back to the community and the sector as a board member and development committee chair of Strawdog Theatre and as a volunteer docent at the Chicago Architecture Foundation where he leads tours of Millennium Park, Pilsen and the Loop.
