Noel Beebe

Worth a Thousand Words...

You may remember that Convio published our 2011 Peer-to-peer Benchmark Study in October.  As a follow up to the report, we're offering this nifty infographic that highlights some of the top findings.  In case you don't have time to download and read the full report, you can enjoy the handy "CliffsNotes" version below:

Enjoy!

Innovator Spotlight: The American Heart Association

At the Convio Summit earlier this month, we honored The American Heart Association (AHA) with an Innovator Award for the Best Team Event for their Youth Market Events, Jump Rope For Heart and Hoops For Heart!  These campaigns are aimed at elementary and middle school students respectively; over 40,000 schools participate each year, teaching kids about the importance of exercise, heart health, and helping others.  As part of the program, students are encouraged to register online using Convio’s TeamRaiser tools, set up their personal page, and send e-mails to friends and family and raise money to help kids with “special hearts.” 

In 2010, AHA partnered with Convio’s Strategy Team to drive higher adoption of the online registration and fundraising tools.  The team developed a new coaching e-mail campaign to coach students to use their fundraising tools, and re-recruit participants from previous campaigns.  Convio and AHA worked together to conceptualize new interactive activities to incorporate into the “HeartQuarters,” or Participant Center, for Jump and Hoops participants to use.  Convio partners See3 Communications and Pursuant worked closely with both AHA and Convio to develop two custom interactive tools for students to use in their fundraising efforts.

Pursuant’s Personalized Video allows Jump Rope For Heart participants to input their name and school's name to appear in the video, then send it to friends and family to show how they can make a difference. Click here to check it out.

See3’s Photo-Upload eCard allows Jump and Hoops students to select a card, upload their photo, and have their picture appear in an eCard to send to friends and family. Click here to see it in action.

RESULTS:

Thanks to these tools and the fantastic team on the ground at AHA, the Youth Market events saw tremendous growth.

• Significant lift in online registrations and donations
• 84% of students gave the online fundraising tools favorable ratings (“liked it” or “liked it a lot”).

TeamRaiser Benchmarks are Here!

Howdy folks!  It feels good to be back in Texas after an action-packed Convio Summit in Baltimore last week!  Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the session I presented with my colleague Robyn Mendez, Let’s Get Nerdy – Taking a Data-Driven Approach to Event Strategy.  We had a great time hearing about the new and innovative ideas buzzing around the event fundraising community.

In case you missed it, we also unveiled our brand new 2011 Peer-to-Peer Event Benchmarking paper, and talked through how to use data to inform your event strategy.  If you host a fundraising event, this guide will help you understand who your peers are, how to measure the success of your event(s), and how to improve performance for each metric. 

Pick up the guide here >>

You can also review the presentation below (using Prezi):

Here’s wishing you all a great Fall event season – now let’s gear up for Spring! 

My Letter from Convio Summer Camp

Dear Event Fundraising Fans,

I hope everyone’s enjoying the summer and looking forward to a fun 4th of July!  I’ve been hard at work here at Camp Convio with a dedicated team of analysts and event experts, drumming up our 2011 Peer-to-Peer Benchmark report.  The paper is still underway, but I wanted to give you a quick glimpse at what’s to come…

1. We’re updating the event types to include Marathons and Third Party Events this year!
2. In addition to our general benchmarks, we’ll be highlighting exactly how valuable Team Captains and Returning Participants are to the success of your events.
3. We’re adding some super-cool visuals to better tell our story – and help you better understand where to focus your fundraising efforts.

Keep your eyes peeled for the 2011 Peer-to-Peer Benchmark Report, and come join our session at Convio Summit 2011 - ELEVATE for discussion!

Have a happy and safe holiday weekend.

Yours truly,

Noel

The Party's Over...

Your balloon arch is drooping.  The last of the volunteers is packing boxes of left-over t-shirts into a minivan.  The police are picking up the traffic cones that identified your route.  As it all slowly disappears, you realize… it’s over!  I’m done!  I survived another [[Race/Ride/Walk/insert event name here]].  I can hibernate for 6 months before I really have to think about this again! 

Well… not so much.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m here to remind you to think about the last thing anyone wants to think about after their event is over… what happens next. 

I know, I know – you’re exhausted and you deserve an entire week to sleep it off.  So take a rest and come back refreshed, because post-event is the prime time to capitalize on all the excitement and press you’ve been generating over the past few months.  I won’t lie; it will be tough – with your event over, you’ve lost your deadline, your press, and your Team Captains… now it’s up to you to tell people why they should continue to support your mission.  It’s up to you to provide opportunities for engagement for all the people who just told you that they are open to supporting you, whether directly or indirectly. 

I don’t just mean sending a big “thank you” e-mail either; I mean real engagement opportunities. Here are a few ideas on how to continue to engage your participants and donors after the event:

Post-Event Survey
Surveys are a great way to learn what people enjoyed about your event, and where you have room to improve.  They are also a great way to get more information about your “market,” or the type of person that participates, and what motivates them.  Along with your thank you e-mail, send a link for participants to provide their feedback and USE IT – incorporate participant feedback into your plan for next year’s event.  Give your survey responders an opportunity to tell you what what else about your mission or organization they are interested in (i.e. volunteering, advocating, becoming a board member, etc.) and use this information to cater your communications to their preferences.  

Sustaining Donor Conversion Series
Your event participants have told you point blank that they want to support you.  They are willing to spend time and money to support you, and in many cases, they are willing to ask their friends and family to spend time and money to support you.  That’s amore!  Create an e-mail conversion series to educate your participants about your ongoing programs and how they can support you throughout the year by making a sustaining donation. 

Volunteer & Advocacy Recruitment
I know that, unless you’re a one-person shop, you have different people on your staff that communicate with donors, advocates, and volunteers.  I know that you probably maintain different lists or groups, maybe even different spreadsheets or databases where these different types of contacts “live.”   I know that.  But your constituents don’t.  Not only do they not know that different people manage these different departments, they probably don’t care.  They expect you to know that they participated in your event, that they donated, that they volunteered their time, and that they called their local or state government representative on your behalf.  Share your participants with your co-workers, and work together to create a unified communication plan for communication and recruitment.  After all, participants beget volunteers beget advocates beget donors… and so on. (See this post to learn more). 

Segment - All Year Long
Your participants, and especially your team captains, are special.  They did a lot of work for you throughout your event, and they deserve special treatment.  Throughout the year, consider whether event participants and/or captains should receive a different version of your appeals or newsletters.  Show your appreciation all year long.

Third-party events
Another great way to keep participants engaged is to provide them with the tools to create their own fundraiser.  Segment your top fundraisers and team captains and ask if they’d like to organize a grassroots event.  Provide them with everything they need to set up a fundraising web page and throw a house party, bake sale, haunted house, poker night, or any kind of event they choose to benefit your organization.

Welcome your Peer Donors
Finally, the toughest nut to crack – peer donors.  I’m talking about all of the people who gave money to your participants because the participant asked them to.  These folks may or may not be familiar with your organization; now is the time to educate them and convert them into direct supporters of your mission.  Develop an integrated marketing campaign – include an automated welcome series, follow up with direct mail (see tips from Douglas Broward from earlier this week), and even give them a phone call if you have the resources.  This is your chance to make an impression – make it a good one!

These are only a few ways to reach out to your supporters and leverage the excitement and energy of your recent event.  Now it’s your turn - How do you engage your participants and donors once your event is over?  We’d love to hear from you!