A development officer recently referred to special events as a love-hate relationship. You love them for the goodwill and needed funds they raise and almost hate them, concurrently, because they can be so all-consuming of your time and energy and overtax your valued volunteers. The key to successful and sustainable special events is multiple strategic outcomes. Events are not just something we do to justify our existence on a development, fundraising, or alumni relations team. Successful events should contribute to multiple outcomes, including growth in volunteer engagement, donor cultivation, generating fundraising income, goodwill and peer relationship building, memorable experiences, networking, milestone, and mission-affirming celebrations, etc.

Before your next event, identify at least two or more specific outcomes, such as funds raised and networking opportunities, or donor cultivation and community good will.

3 Primer Questions for Events

Ask yourself these primer questions to evaluate whether or how to proceed with an event you are hosting for the first time or improving for a repeat cycle:

1. Purpose. Will my volunteer opportunities for this event be meaningful and life-giving for volunteers? Will they be energized by serving or just dutifully helping because this is what we/they have always done?

2. Outcomes. Can the time and energy invested in this event achieve significant outcomes desired in moving forward donor relationships through goodwill, networking, or raising funds?

3. Capacity. Who of our staff and volunteer leadership is best equipped to accomplish this event? Is there space on our calendar, job descriptions, and organizational budget to be successful?

6 Examples of Events and Outcomes They Can Fulfill

Events that can generate more than one outcome. Here are some examples:

1. Business/leadership roundtables and networking events featuring a speaker or panel to inspire local community leaders. These can be a great way to meet new influential friends for a breakfast or luncheon and discover who in my community cares about my ministry. A business luncheon creates an opportunity to cultivate partnerships with corporate, foundation, and small business leaders while showcasing your organizational mission. These events can be hosted on-site at your ministry, or you can bring your ministry/client testimonials to these business leaders at a fun, historic, or a locally interesting site.

2. Banquet, golf outing, outdoorsman event, auction gala, or fall festival. These are great ways to have fun with donors, clients, staff, and prospective future donors who get a glimpse of your good work and help you raise funds.

3. Homecoming, grandparents’ day, parents’ weekends, alumni or former client/graduate receptions and reunions. These are wonderful opportunities to personally engage with old and new friends. Make the most of these opportunities to increase your database/relationship gathering information on current and potential donors. If done well, events like these promote positive engagement and can lead you to significant dollars.

4. Celebration and groundbreaking events (graduations, campaign completion benchmarks, etc.). Don’t miss opportunities to give God praise for the great things he is doing in your ministry.  Commemorate new beginnings and new milestones in mission fulfillment. Taking time to celebrate victories reinforces your mission, builds momentum, and strengthens your donor relationships.

5. Virtual events. Especially in the last year, many ministries have moved their events to a virtual format. COVID has forced us to discover ways of reaching your constituency that you might not have otherwise engaged due to geography or health concerns. Consider all types of opportunities, including live-streaming virtual concerts and performances, online fundraising galas, and specialized donor appreciation events, etc.

6. Vision-casting/donor briefing events. These present wonderful opportunities to test new strategic or fundraising initiatives with a select group of donors and prospects in home gatherings and/or affinity groups.

4 Essential Criteria for Successful Event Planning

When you plan, host, or retool past events, keep in mind these four tips:

1. Know your audience. Keep the time of year and event length in mind when deciding what, when, and where to host your event.

2. Know your volunteers. Match the personality, skills, and interests of volunteers with various committee, leadership, or event-day responsibilities that will maximize their strengths and passions.

3. Know your goals. By considering your primary outcomes intended for a given event, you can give your staff and volunteers a visual picture of what success will look like.

4. Know your results. Be sure you gather volunteer, staff, and participant feedback in a follow-up debrief meeting and/or surveys to measure how you met desired outcomes. Write down ways to improve the event in the future, if positive feedback indicates you should continue it.

When utilized effectively and focused on the right priority outcomes, events can help you cultivate donors, prospective donors, and volunteers. You can encourage greater community support, promote your mission, start new relationships, and build donor and volunteer loyalty. Done well, a strategic use of special events is a significant tool in furthering and funding your mission for assisting those you serve.

About the Author: Jody Fausnight, CFRE, has worked in the fund development field for more than 25 years serving as a director of advancement, a community/public relations director with four non-profit organizations, and as a consultant. Jody has expertise in Christian school recruiting, public relations, fund development, and major gift cultivation strategies. He has successfully raised many millions on behalf of numerous organizations and has grown ministry development programs from the ground up on more than one occasion.

Faith vs. Doubt in Fundraising

Christian ministry fundraising incites our Christian faith. The same God who creates our needs is the same God we must trust. We have a choice to either embrace faith or doubt. As a development director at a Christian K-12 school, I know this circumstance all too well. I rebuke doubt and embrace the belief that God will help me meet my school’s annual fundraising goal. Faith without works is dead, so I put action behind my faith and zealously serve my God, who created my fundraising needs. It is well with my soul because God provided this lack to exercise my faith. Lack often instigates doubt while fulfilled needs strengthen our faith. To quote a line from a Christian-themed, Hallmark movie, “It wouldn’t be called faith unless we had something to doubt.”

Experiencing Jehovah-Jireh

Our ministry needs set the stage for us to know Jehovah-Jireh, which means “the Lord will provide.” Scripture illustrates God our Provider in several accounts, but one account that the Holy Spirit brings to my remembrance is Elijah in 1 Kings 17. In the following passage, God commands Elijah to hide by the brook, where He will feed him:

“You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. And after a while, the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. (1 Kings 17:4-7)

In this passage, Elijah’s faith and obedience allow God to show Himself as Jehovah-Jireh. While we may not have faith as strong as those listed in Hebrews 11, we often face the same circumstance as Elijah. This circumstance allows us to experience a confirmation of God’s faithfulness.

I recently completed my doctoral dissertation that studies authentic leadership and its influence on venture philanthropy in Christian, K-12 schools. Yes, that is a mouthful. I have several stories on how God created desperate needs in my arduous academic journey only to fulfill them in His perfect timing. One humorous story that comes to mind is how God sent me a venture philanthropist to participate in my research. I prayed for God to send me another participant, and that same weekend, I received a Papa John’s pizza delivery meant for another address. I called the business, who said that I could keep the pizza. Given my petite stature, I am not one to inhale two large pizzas by myself, so I asked God what He wanted me to do with them. His Holy Spirit told me to “be a blessing,” and two of my coworkers immediately came to mind. One coworker is a hardworking father of three young students, and the other coworker is our school custodian who graciously donates $20 a month from his humble ministry paycheck.

The next morning, as I am putting their pizzas in the faculty breakroom’s fridge, my accounting director sees me and begins inquiring about my research. I informed her that I am still looking for a participant, and she insisted that I reach out to a Colorado school she used to live by before she moved to Texas. She asked me to follow her to her office and was incredibly insistent that I contact the school’s superintendent. She went as far as writing down the leader’s contact information, and to this day, she laughs at how that behavior was out of her shy character. As God would have it, the Colorado school superintendent responded to my email that same day and connected me with his school’s co-founder and philanthropist. When I spoke to her on the phone, the Lord moved me to share what inspired our phone call. After I told her my, “Papa John’s story,” she laughed and fell silent from a moment of shock and awe. She went on to say that her husband represented a company that invested in Papa John’s in its early years and how he had one-on-one meetings with its founder long before the company became a household name.

Key Takeaway

The point of my testimony is that it is God who commands the ravens, or in my case, a Papa John’s pizza deliverer, to fulfill a need. God also commanded more “ravens,” or venture philanthropists, to meet my need for research participants just as He commands them to invest generously in Christian schools. Without a need and your prayer and obedience, God cannot prove himself as a faithful provider. It is God, not a high-net-worth donor, who meets our fundraising needs by speaking His commands. Just as us ministry fundraising professionals are eager to connect with Christian philanthropists, we should be eager to connect daily with the wealthiest donor we will ever encounter – Jehovah-Jireh.

Shalom,

Renee Cervantes

About the Author: Renee Cervantes is the development director for The Christian School at Castle Hills, located in San Antonio, Texas. She leads their $10.5 million capital campaign that has raised $9 million in the last four years. Before joining the school in 2017, Renee’s work experience was in television and newspaper reporting and public relations. She has a bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts from The University of the Incarnate Word, where she received a four-year golf scholarship. Renee also has a master’s degree in Christian Ministry and is completing a doctoral degree in Christian Leadership from Liberty University.

In our get-it-done-quickly, get-it-done-now world, any type of slowdown could be viewed as weak or uncertain. COVID will come to an end and we will again be able to meet our key donors in person. Until then we are limited to Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, Twitter, email, text, smoke signals, the ole cell phone, or whatever. There are many ways to communicate. All too often our communication is one way. We get so excited about sharing our ministry needs and our impact in the world, we forget to listen. Learn to talk a lot less and listen to your donors a whole lot more. Memorize this acrostic: W.A.I.T. – Why Am I Talking? Sometimes, we must W.A.I.T. for the gift. Here are some questions that will help you improve your donor listening skills.

• How did you first become involved in our ministry? How did they learn of you and what caused them to give the first gift? True stewardship is very value-based. What does your ministry accomplish that matches their value system? Why do they continue to give? Ask them what sets apart your organization from the other 1.8 million non-profit organizations in America. 

• Tell me about you. Continue your W.A.I.T. approach. Ask them about their family, goals, dreams, and plans; those things that make them unique. People will share their heart and soul with you if you ask them and show genuine interest. With the pandemic still in full force, people are lonely and are delighted to visit with you in their home, in person (with a mask), on a Zoom call, or on the phone. They will share their passions with you. Asking good questions and listening will help you deepen your relationship with your key donors.

• How do you feel about our ministry’s ROI and SROI? What do they really think about your organization? This can be a daunting question but listen and take copious notes. Do they feel your organization wisely uses their hard-earned money? Do they feel positive about their return on investment (ROI)? Do they see clear evidence of a spiritual return on investment (SROI)? What aspects of your work interests them most? This discovery phase is your opportunity to ask, inquire, and probe. Asking good questions moves your relationship forward and builds trust that might culminate in a major/mega gift.

• What brings you the most joy in your giving? Ask them about other organizations they support and why. Who else might be influencing their stewardship practices? You are asking about their stewardship/philanthropic vision; most donors love sharing their passion to help impact our world. Perhaps you will discover another giving interest they have that could also align with your ministry.

• Ask for advice. Convert them from a customer to an owner. Your major donors are smart people and often will share good ideas. “Do you believe the community will support this project? Do you know any donors who might be able to assist us? Who can become a “Friendraiser?” Who can help us open that door and make an introduction? Who should be involved in the ask?” Remember, the number one reason why people give is because of who asks. People give to people not to proposals or organizations. 

• How could you see yourself becoming more involved with our organization?  Good question! Ask and then W.A.I.T. Don’t make assumptions. Drill deeper in your conversation with each ministry partner. Could this be a family gift, from a trust, or from a donor directed fund? Would they be willing to serve your organization as a volunteer, perhaps in a capacity where they could involve their friends, family, and colleagues? Ask, listen, and W.A.I.T.

• Final question: If you were to give a lead gift what would you want your gift to accomplish? Here again we see what the donor values. “What other information could we provide to help you make an even larger impact on the people we serve?” Major donors will fund your organization’s 3 P’s: programs, personnel, and property. Program – donors will support strengthening existing programs, starting new programs, and finding innovating ways to help your organization be better and sometimes bigger. Personnel – some donors will invest in new staff/team members knowing that it takes deeply-committed, highly-qualified people to run your ministry effectively. Property – perhaps you need new or expanded facilities to maximize your ministry. People give to what you ask. Listen to their heart and present them with a tailormade proposal.

W.A.I.T. means listening your way to an upgraded gift; from low to mid-range, or from a mid-range to a major or mega gift. Learn to include these great questions in all your donor conversations. Good things come to those who W.A.I.T.!

Author: Pat McLaughlin, President and Founding Partner