EVENT
FUNDRAISING
HANDBOOK
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR ORGANIZING AN
AWESOME FUNDRAISING EVENT
BOOKS
CONTENTS
02
Event Fundraising
Basics
05
Benefits of Event
Fundraising
08
Stages of Event
Fundraising
15
Marketing Tips for
Events
19
Incentives for
Fundraisers
Walk before you run.
What is the point of event
fundraising?
A road map for event
fundraising success.
Get your community excited for
your event.
Eyes on the prize.
INTRODUCTION
Event fundraising brings people and
communities together around a cause.
Event fundraising can look different in practice, but at its core, it's all
about rallying people together to support a cause. Whether you're
organizing a marathon, walkathon, school fundraiser, tournament or
other event, Mightycause has all the tools you need to organize and
manage your fundraiser... and tips to help you succeed along the way!
In this guide, we’ll discuss how
event fundraising works, why
Mightycause is the best platform
for it & how to make your event
awesome!
1
EVENT
FUNDRAISING
BASICS
HOW DOES EVENT FUNDRAISING
WORK?
HOW IT WORKS
Before we can get into the nitty gritty of
running a event, we need to define some
terms we’ll be using throughout this guide.
Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a fundraising method where you raise
money by appealing to a group of people, who typically give in small
amounts. In traditional crowdfunding campaigns, an organizer (such as
yourself) uses a platform (such as Mightycause) to appeal directly to a
group of people (such as your nonprofit’s donor base or social media
followers).
Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising. Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising is an
approach to crowdfunding that empowers those who support a cause
or an organization to fundraise on their behalf by soliciting donations
from their social network. Instead of a nonprofit appealing directly to
donors to reach a funding goal, individuals create fundraisers and solicit
support from their friends, family, coworkers, and social network.
Donors give through the page the fundraiser’s organizer has created
and funneled to the cause they’ve chosen. Peer-to-peer campaigns can
be organized by a nonprofit, but they can also be initiated by the
individual.
EVENT FUNDRAISING BASICS
3
Event fundraising. Event fundraising takes the concepts of
crowdfunding and P2P fundraising and adds complexity, gamification,
and more people. On Mightycause, event fundraising can involve an live
event (such as a marathon or walkathon) or be entirely digital.
In an event fundraiser, an event organizer creates the event on
Mightycause, then invites others to join. The people who join will either
fundraise with others (as part of a team) or individually to help the
event reach its funding goal. Teams and individuals will each have their
own pages, where they can direct their social network to make
donations. They’re ranked on one or more leaderboards, to add the
element of friendly competition and track the collective progress
toward the overall goal. Mightycause also has an Eventbrite
integration, so you can manage registration, sell tickets to your event,
and more.
EVENT FUNDRAIAING BASICS
4
BENEFITS OF
EVENT
FUNDRAISING
WHY IT WORKS
Benefits of Event Fundraising
On Mightycause, event fundraising campaigns receive 60% more donations than
solo fundraisers. The transparency of a leaderboard subconsciously engages
event members to be more competitive and try to raise more funds. After all, who
wants to be last place on a leaderboard? Or worse, who wants to be second place?
When your success is publicly displayed and can be compared to others, it helps
motivate you to try even harder to compete to raise funds. Plus, with an event
organizer available as a resource to motivate you and provide best practices, it
can make your fundraising efforts even more successful and help you raise even
more money for a worthy cause.
Build camaraderie. When event members compete, they feel more committed to
their event’s goals. For instance, it can feel easier to share your event’s goals
rather than your own to encourage your network to give.
Event members can use a message like: “We are coming together to raise
$10,000 by July 4,” which can make the goal feel less arbitrary than saying, “Help
me hit my goal of raising $10,000 by July 4.” With the shared message, this
collection of fundraisers is working towards a common goal. This can help you
feel a part of something bigger.
Great event organizers will build camaraderie by adding events and volunteer
work around their event fundraising campaign for fundraisers to get to know one
another and work together in person. Or, they’ll host an in-person activity to cap
the end of the event fundraising campaign and celebrate the event members’
efforts.
BENEFITS OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
6
Expand your network of supporters. Another benefit to event fundraising is the
opportunity to grow your network with new supporters. Let's say your average
peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraiser has 15 donors. If your event has 10 P2P
fundraisers sign up, your organization could potentially add 150 new donors to
their database of supporters.
Why is P2P fundraising an effective way to bring in new support? It’s simple: Your
nonprofit can’t solicit your supporters’ family members and friends to support
your cause, but your supporters can certainly talk to their own family members
and friends about your nonprofit and encourage them to donate to a page they’ve
set up on your behalf.
We liken this to the “Faberge method” of fundraising: The iconic 80s commercial
said that if you like it, “Tell your friends, and they’ll tell their friends, and so on …”
The same is true of P2P fundraising - you’re more likely to support an
organization a friend supports than to support an organization a stranger tells
you about.
Increase engagement among donors.
Event fundraising can be an easy
opportunity to make donors true
supporters of your cause. With
platforms like Mightycause, you can
invite fundraisers to join your event’s
fundraising efforts with a click of a
button, and it takes them just two clicks
to set up their page to start fundraising.
By eliminating the amount of steps it
takes to get a fundraising page up and
running, you’re increasing the
opportunity for event members to be
successful.
Plus, event organizers that effectively
manage their event focus on the group’s
efforts as a whole through updates and
event emails. By reminding the event of
milestones and recognizing the top
fundraisers for the week, event
organizers are indirectly continuing to
build up the sense of community for
supporters.
BENEFITS OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
7
STAGES OF EVENT
FUNDRAISING
5 STEPS TO AN AWESOME CAMPAIGN
STAGES OF EVENT
FUNDRAISNG
Preparation is key!
One of the great things about event fundraising is that the workload is
shared. Individuals and teams do most of the legwork -- they’re the ones
who ask their friends and family to donate to the cause, they bring in
the money, and they make that progress bar move. But that doesn’t
mean that organizing an event is a passive process. Here are the steps
you’ll need to take to ensure that your event is a success.
Read on for five simple stages to
take you, your team, and your
supporters from start to finish.
Boost Your Event
With a subscription to Mightycause
Advanced, you can amp up your
fundraising with our integrations
(including Eventbrite, Salesforce &
MailChimp), Text-to-Give, and so
much more!
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
9
Stage 1: Planning
This is really the most crucial part of planning a fundraising event. The
work for organizers tends to be front-loaded -- you’re getting
infrastructure in place and setting your fundraisers up for success.
Campaign planning. What are you doing? A walkathon, marathon, or
other live event? An online fundraising challenge? Do you have a
theme? The possibilities are endless with events, so don’t be afraid to
think outside of the box! We’ve seen art-a-thons, write-a-thons, read-athons, Board of Directors challenges, groups climbing mountains for
charity, and beyond. Think about what will make your event fresh,
exciting, and engaging to both fundraisers and donors.
Goal-setting. Your Event page on Mightycause will have a goal and
progress bar with your financial goal displayed, so obviously you’ll need
a goal for how much you hope to raise with your event. You’re not
locked into the goal you set on Mightycause, so you can start with
something achievable, and adjust your goal at any time based on your
event’s performance. (It’s a good idea to set a few stretch goals, too!)
It’s important consider how many people and groups you can
realistically expect to participate as fundraisers, and do the math to
figure out how much they’ll need to raise, individually and as teams.
You’ll also want to consider non-monetary goals, like donor acquisition,
donor retention, and raising awareness for your cause.
Preparing a toolkit. So, this is optional, but it’s a darn good idea to do.
You want to set your fundraisers up for success! Think through what
they might need: images for their pages, some talking points and copy
they can use to talk to donors, ideas for reaching out to their social
networks, maybe even email templates they can copy-paste and send.
Preparing these things in advance for them will help them feel
confident and supported throughout the fundraising process.
Mightycause has resources available to make creating your toolkit even
easier!
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
10
Stage 2: Build Your Event
Create your Event. On Mightycause, creating your Event is easy. Just
go to Mightycause.com/nonprofits to get started. Mightycause will
walk you through the setup process.
Build your Event page. This page is where your supporters will go to
learn more about your event. Add a logo, a background image, choose a
theme color, and fill out your story. If you have additional information
to communicate, like event times, directions, parking information, or
even just tips for your fundraisers, you can add custom tabs to keep
your main story focused on the most important facts about your event.
On page and self serve editing tools means you can quickly and easily
build a powerful fundraising campaign.
Customize your URL. In your Event page’s Settings, you can customize
your URL -- make it something snappy and easy to remember so you
can add it to marketing materials and easily tell people about it!
Purchased your own url? Domain masking is available for a completely
branded experience.
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
11
Customize your event settings. Do you want to allow anyone to join
your team, or keep it invite-only? Do you want to accept offline
donations, such as cash and checks? Do you want to add a "General
Fund" so that donors can just give directly to your organization if they
don't have a participant in mind. Before you go live, make sure your
Event settings are in place to run the kind of event you want!
Build a fundraiser template. You can help your fundraisers get up and
running more quickly by creating a template! The template will pre-fill
all the essentials parts of your fundraisers’ pages, like their photo, story,
goal, and so on, so they can build their page and accept donations with
just a few clicks. (Of course the saavy participant can still customize
their page if they want. )
Integrate Ticketing & Registration: We’ve integrated Eventbrite into
our event fundraising platform, so you can register attendees for your
event, sell tickets, and seamlessly incorporate peer-to-peer fundraising
in your event
Stage 3: Invite People to Join
Now that your Event is live, you can start getting people involved! You
can send invites directly from your campaign, or share your campaign
on social media and email with an invitation to join!
Teams: One thing you’ll want to make your fundraisers aware of is that
they can fundraise as a team. So, if your Board of Directors wants to
team up, or you have a corporate partner that may want to fundraise
together, they can create a team when they join your event. This will
give them a page with their own leaderboard where they can track their
progress as a team, and each team member will be able to create and
customize their own fundraiser, linked to the team and your Event.
Who should you invite? Anyone who supports your nonprofit! But
you’ll find the most eager fundraisers in your Board of Directors, your
staff, your volunteer base, and engaged donors. Signing up to fundraise
for your cause is a public way to show support, so look at whose support
you already have. But it can also be a great way for people who love
your cause but can’t provide much money to show their enthusiasm, so
don’t be afraid to cast a wide net by posting an invitation on social
media and to your email list.
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
12
Stage 4: Managing Your Event & Motivating
Fundraisers
At this stage, you can step back a little and move into management
mode. Mightycause has all the tools you need to keep tabs on your
fundraisers, whether they’re teams or individuals. Here’s how to keep
your event moving once you’ve gotten it off the ground.
Stay in touch. You can contact your fundraisers directly through the
platform. Your reports will show you who has published their page, and
how much they’ve raised, so you can reach out to anyone who might
need a helping hand getting their page finished or getting those first
donations. You can also download a report of all of your members, if
you’d like to send them regular emails through a your email marketing
software. (Lots of successful organizers will send weekly tips to all of
their fundraisers to keep them engaged and share new ways to get
support for their pages!)
Celebrate milestones. Celebrating successes will help keep your
fundraisers motivated! When you hit a milestone, like raising your first
$1,000, or getting halfway to your Event funding goal, be sure to reach
out to your fundraisers to let them know and thank them for all they’ve
done to help get you there.
Stoke the flames of (friendly) competition. What makes event
fundraising so great is the group aspect -- and as we’ve already
discussed, competition can be a huge motivator. Keep everyone
fundraising for you motivated and feeling competitive by including
shoutouts to the teams and individuals currently at the top of the
leaderboard when you send out updates! (And if you’re offering prizes
for the top fundraisers, make sure to remind your fundraisers of your
incentives!)
Provide support. One of the perks of choosing to host your event
fundraiser on Mightycause is that we provide customer support to
organizers, fundraisers, and donors. But as the organizer, you should
make yourself (or someone on your team) available to answer any
questions that may come up. Make sure your fundraisers know how to
contact you if they have any questions!
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
13
Stage 5: Wrap-Up and Follow-Up
When you’ve reached your deadline, had your live event, and hit your
goal, all that’s left to do is wrap it up! By handling this stage with care,
you can plant the seeds for your next event fundraiser -- making sure
your fundraisers come back to do it again.
Wrap it up. Send out an update reporting on your results. If you had prizes
available for the top fundraisers, announce the winners in an email! You can also
consider adding an in-person event, like a dinner at a local restaurant or a happy
hour, to give your fundraisers a chance to celebrate their success (and connect
with them to build relationships).
Follow up. The conversation shouldn’t end as soon as your event is over. Stay in
touch afterward to let them know what their fundraising efforts helped make
possible. For instance, if you were raising money for #GivingTuesday, or were
fundraising for a specific program or initiative, give them updates to show what
their hard work has helped you accomplish.
STAGES OF EVENT FUNDRAISING
14
MARKETING TIPS
FOR EVENTS
TIPS FOR STANDING OUT
MARKETING TIPS FOR
EVENTS
Set your event up for success this year, and in
the future, with a strong marketing plan.
By getting your supporters involved in the fundraising process, you’re
passing the fundraising baton to them. They’re responsible for marketing
their own fundraisers and raising money for your cause. Which sounds like a
pretty good deal, right? But it does require a few key shifts to your marketing
strategy. Here’s how to market your event so that it’s a success and you’ve
got an army of eager fundraisers behind you!
Focus on recruitment.
The heaviest lifting for an Event organizer is getting new members to join
and start fundraising. You can make this process easier by being strategic
about who and how you ask.
Look for your biggest supporters first. Your biggest supporters are
people who have already shown up for your cause: Board members,
volunteers, staff members, business sponsors and partners. Ask these
groups to join your Event first, and help them get set up on Mightycause.
A little extra effort with this group will pay off. Ask personally whenever
possible. Meet with them, call them on the phone, or send out a personal
email. Tell them about your campaign, what you’re hoping to achieve,
and ask for their help.
16
Do a “soft launch.” With your smaller group of dedicated supporters,
you can do a “soft launch” of your Event. Ask for feedback about the
process, identify any pain points for them in joining and setting up their
fundraiser. Their feedback will help you make sure you are prepared for
any questions your members might have when you fully launch your
campaign, and help you get everyone else signed up and published
much faster! And the other benefit to a “soft launch” is that when you
invite more people, they’ll see that your Event is active and already has
people on board.
Think about what motivates people to join. While there are plenty of
people who will sign up to fundraise for charity out of the goodness of
their hearts, it can help you attract more participants by sweetening the
pot. What’s in it for people who participate in your event? Leveraging
incentives (which we’ll discuss more soon) can help you get more people
involved, keep them motivated, and help you reach your goal.
Brand Your Event
So, if you’re running an event, you probably have a brand as an
organizer: the nonprofit’s brand, a company brand, and so on. But to
really make your event memorable, create a brand for your event.
Famous marathons across the country, galas, charity walks, and so on
are successful year after year because they have become a force in their
own right. The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, New York Marathon,
The Color Run, American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life -- they are
famous because the organizations behind them branded their events.
Give it a snappy name! Having a simple, easy-to-remember name that’s
also unique and makes it clear what your event is all about sounds
easier than it actually is. But it’ll pay off in the long run. Try holding a
contest among staff and volunteers to come up with the best name for
your event! You’ll find the name for your event and start building up
excitement at the same time.
Create an event logo. A memorable logo can go a long way to brand
your event. If you don’t have the budget for a graphic designer, check to
see if you have any designers in your volunteer base who might be able
to help, or host a contest to create a logo. Your Event page on
Mightycause puts your logo front and center, so it’s important to make
sure it represents your event well.
MARKETING TIPS FOR EVENT FUNDRAISERS
17
Create some merch. Not only can merchandise with your event name
and logo serve as incentives for fundraisers and a way to market your
campaign, it can be a great way to pique the interest of prospective
sponsors. It could allow you to add a new sponsorship tier where your
sponsors can have their name or logo on a t-shirt, mug, or other piece of
merchandise. Working with local vendors, or using sites like CafePress,
can help you get event swag for affordable prices.
Use an Integrated Approach
Even if your event is digital, it doesn’t mean all your marketing efforts
need to be! Get your community excited about your event by creating
an integrated marketing plan that will help you spread the word.
Create some traditional collateral. In the digital era, it’s easy to forget
about the power of a simple flier or sign. Work with sponsors or
vendors to create marketing collateral for your event -- signs, fliers,
pins/buttons, pens, whatever you think will be useful to people in your
community. Come up with a plan to distribute them to spread the word.
Have volunteers or staff members post fliers and signs in strategic
spots in your community, ask business partners if they’ll help you
promote your event, and make sure that everyone who enters your
lobby knows about your event.
Reach out to media contacts. Does your nonprofit have a contact at the
local news station, or a regular spot on the morning news? Reach out
and get some press! If you’re still working on developing a media
contact list, an event can be a perfect reason to reach out for the first
time. Start with local news outlets, papers, and radio stations. You can
also create a press release about your event to drum up interest and
make it easy for the media to report on your event.
Build in reminders. Use your email signature as a reminder of your
event, and instruct your staff to do the same -- stick the name of your
event, date and time, and a hyperlink in your email signature. (You can
also go the extra mile and build a template in a word processing
document that your colleagues and just copy and paste into their
signatures.) Be sure to drop bread crumbs reminding your supporters
wherever you can -- build reminders in your newsletter (both digital
and paper, if you do both), stick it in emails, post about it on social
media, put it on the homepage of your website.
MARKETING TIPS FOR EVENTS
18
How to Amp Up Your Event with
Email Marketing: Use our integration with
MailChimp to create an automated email journey for
new event participants!
Sell Tickets: Sell tickets with our Eventbrite
integration.
Text-to-Give: Create a unique keyword that will
make donating as easy as sending a text!
Advanced Branding: Make your event stand out
from the crowd with advanced branding controls
that put your nonprofit front-and-center.
Start Stewarding: Lay the groundwork for lasting
relationships with your participants & donors with
our CRM, which tracks donors and fundraisers and
event participants. (Already a Salesforce user? No
problem, we've got an integration for that!)
Donor Data Collection: Make sure you're getting all
the information you need from donors with our
advanced donor data collection.
mightycause.com/pricing
MARKETING TIPS FOR EVENTS
18
INCENTIVES FOR
FUNDRAISERS
USING PRIZES TO MOTIVATE WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK
INCENTIVES FOR
FUNDRAISERS
Keeping fundraisers for your event motivated
is part art, part science.
And leveraging incentives can be an easy way to keep your fundraisers
engaged -- with their eyes on the prize. We know that when you’re
planning an event, there’s not always a lot of room in the budget for
things like prizes. But it’s worth finding a little room for prizes in your
budget, or finding creative ways to provide prize incentives .
How to Secure Prizes
You don’t have to start from scratch when you’re coming up with a plan
to provide prize incentives to your fundraisers! You may already have
lots of great options and connections all around you.
Use what you’ve got. Do you have merch for your event, or general
nonprofit merch, just sitting around? We’re talking tote bags, bumper
stickers, buttons, t-shirts, keychains, and so on. Take an inventory of
what you’ve got on hand, and see if you can put together prize packages
based on what’s already in stock at your nonprofit!
INCENTIVES FOR FUNDRAISERS
20
Ask your board for help. Many board
members are well-connected. At your next
board meeting, let them know you’re
looking to put together prize packages for
your top event fundraisers. Board members
may be willing to donate a prize (for
instance, a gift basket, or gift certificate) or
can work with their community contacts to
help you get the prizes you need to really
motivate fundraisers.
Look to community partners. Prizes can be a
great way to engage with community partners
and sponsors for your event. For instance,
what if a local t-shirt printing company printed
the t-shirts for you in exchange for being
listed as an event sponsor? Think outside of
the box and leverage partnerships to offer
incentives!
What to Offer
You may think that your prize needs to be amazing in order to motivate your
fundraisers -- but you’d be surprised by how powerful simple prizes can be! You don’t
need to offer the sun, moon and stars to your top fundraisers. Simple, meaningful
prizes can inspire just as much competition as something expensive and shiny.
INCENTIVES FOR FUNDRAISERS
21
Connect your prize to your cause. While you may think that shiny
things and decadent prizes would be the most motivating, think about
cool prizes you can offer that would be meaningful to your fundraisers
and connect the prizes back to your cause. For instance, if you’re an
animal shelter hosting a charity walk for animals, gift bundles of pet
supplies would be a low-cost and relevant prize for your top
fundraisers. Bay Area Urban Debate League, a nonprofit that’s run
many successful events on Mightycause, once offered a vintage
Scrabble game as a prize for their top fundraiser. Fitting, because the
nonprofit is all about the power of words! Don’t be afraid to get
creative.
Offer experiences. You don’t necessarily need to offer objects as
prizes. Experiences count too! And, depending on your nonprofit’s
work, these can be great low-cost (or even free) alternatives to gift
baskets and swag. Things like lunch with your executive director, a
personal tour of your facilities, and so on can be just as motivating to
your fundraisers.
Offer a match. A matching grant is sort of a “buy one, get one” deal for
donations. You find a donor, board member, or sponsor who is willing to
provide a matching grant up to a certain amount, and then they “match”
the amount raised. Let’s say a board member ponied up a matching
grant up for $1,000. They will match each donation, 1:1, until the
$1,000 threshold is met. Mightycause has a flexible tool you can use to
enter matching grants for an event. But you can also offer a matching
grant as a prize to help fundraisers’ efforts go even further!
INCENTIVES FOR FUNDRAISERS
22
THERE'S NO TIME LIKE
THE PRESENT.
GET YOUR EVENT
STARTED!
Whether you're hosting a marathon, charity
walk, school fundraiser, read-a-thon, or
something totally out of the box,
Mightycause is ready to support your
event! Getting started is easy and intuitive,
so get a jump start and sign up today.
Start fundraising at
Mightycause.com/teams
Contact us at support@mightycause.com