6 opportunities for fundraising events

Since there are more and more fundraising events, distinguishing your fundraising event becomes essential. This article discusses the opportunities we see for fundraising events.

1. Focus on participant retention

The revenue of fundraising events is increasing for years. A lot of events have 'grown up' and have become a lot more professional. The biggest challenge is to retain your participants. The increase in participants in fundraising events has stagnated in the past few years. The number of participants in fundraising events from 2014 to 2018 has risen only 2%. They did raise more money (the revenue has increased by 32%).

Participant retention is most important. These participants already have fundraising experience. The research 'The State of Modern Philanthropy 2019' states that returning participants raise more money than first-time participants.

You can convince people that have participated before to join again by:

• Picking a new destination for the revenue
• Innovating: new distances, other variations (like introducing a new sport to your sporting event) or extra facilities or entertainment during your event.
• Adjusting your communication for returning supporters. They're already familiar with your cause and event.
• Offering them a 'discount' on the registration fee, like an 'Early bird discount'.
• Offering them different objectives for fundraising, surrounding the event. A higher fundraising goal if you want to give them a more significant challenge, or a lower goal if you're going to lower the threshold for your participants. 
• Put your returning participants in the spotlight by highlighting their pages (with badges, for example).

 2. Simplify your process for mobile devices

People visit event fundraising platforms more often on their phone (69% is mobile). Being mobile gives us the benefit that fundraising can happen at any time, at any place. The user experience of a mobile visitor is different from a desktop visitor.

With the ever-growing share of mobile traffic, simplifying sign up and donation flows is increasingly essential. Having to fill in (a lot of) information via a smartphone is an unpleasant experience, which can lead to people leaving your platform.

Take a second look at your (sign up) flow. Ask yourself: what information is vital, and what can I ask for later? The less information they have to enter, the lower the threshold for participants.

Kentaa offers multiple functionalities aimed at making donating as easy as possible. For example, QR codes. Using QR codes that link to donation forms will simplify the user experience.

3. Use your platform in collaboration with companies

An event is a great way to collaborate with companies. You will both benefit by providing sponsor packages for events. It gives companies good exposure by helping non-profits. It will provide you with extra participants and a chance of higher revenue. Collaboration can lead to new target groups and a wider reach for your organisation.

4. Communicate with your participants in new ways

To keep increasing your event's revenue, it's essential to guide and support your participants with fundraising. A common way to offer support is via email. Another way to help your participants is through webinars. Share tips during your webinar about making your sponsor page even more effective and give them all the ins and outs about the event. 

Let participants ask questions in the live chat. Interaction in webinars makes communication feel personal, without having to spend extra time on individual participants!

Also, consider answering questions via WhatsApp (something we often see at helpdesks) or chat(bot) on your corporate website.

5. Use different data for a complete overview of your participants and donors

More and more organisations link the data from our platforms to other systems such as Salesforce. These implementations give charities a comprehensive overview of their participants and donors. In time, this can help personalise user experiences. 

6. Set achievable goals using statistics 

Statistics of event fundraising platforms can determine the settings for future events. For example, by looking at the average revenue per participant,

you can decide on your financial goal for upcoming events, but also steer revenue per participant by setting different default target amounts. It's also interesting to look at the most chosen donation amounts and giving donation suggestions, in hopes of getting higher donations. You can do this by linking impact to specific donation amounts or rearranging suggested donation amounts smartly.

Is your organisation planning a fundraising event? Kentaa Event Fundraising is a great tool to help you increase your revenue.