Fundraising Update

Welcome to Fundraising Update. This week, fundraisers share what they’ve learned about hosting successful virtual events. Plus, new data on donor intentions and DAF payouts.

I’m Eden Stiffman, senior editor at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. If you have ideas, comments, or questions about this newsletter, write me at eden.stiffman@philanthropy.com.

Thanks to sponsor Data Axle for supporting Fundraising Update.

Better Virtual Events

The Covid-19 pandemic has stretched into a second calendar year, and fundraisers expect the bulk of their events will continue to take place online. But after a year of Zoomathons and online galas, many fundraisers say they’re better prepared to plan virtual events — and many expect they’ll continue to some degree even once in-person gatherings resume.

Still, planning and hosting these online events is a point of stress for many fundraisers I’ve spoken with in recent weeks. As the leader of a small theater group recently told me, “I never intended to be in charge of a television station.”

My colleague Emily Haynes asked a handful of fundraisers and event planners what they learned about hosting virtual events in 2020. This week she reports back with their advice.

Joshua Franzos, Treehouse Media

Choose your streaming platform — and design — wisely.

The streaming platform is the new hotel ballroom. Fundraisers should choose their technology with as much care as they would a physical venue, experts say.

Think about how attendees will view the virtual event, says Samantha Swaim, a fundraising event consultant. Would the event stand out best on Facebook Live, with an attendee watching on a computer or phone, or would it look better on a television screen? Now that smart TVs — which enable users to stream videos — are ubiquitous, YouTube is an especially appealing platform for virtual events, Swaim says.

Thoughtful design is also critical, says Megan Kincaid Kramer, vice president for community and convening at Catalyst, a nonprofit that promotes women’s workplace inclusion.

“It’s the difference, in an in-person event, [between] putting a speaker on a completely blank stage versus putting them on a stage where you thought about the lighting, thought about the draping, thought about what the slides behind them look like,” Kincaid Kramer says.

Go for something “clean and well-branded,” she suggests. With the help of an event production firm, Catalyst ensures its virtual events include chyrons identifying a speaker’s name and title, closed captioning, and screen backgrounds with the organization’s and sponsors’ logos.

Keep invitations casual but creative.

Just because the event happens online doesn’t mean that promotion must be entirely digital, too. “When people have something in their hands, the viewership goes up,” Swaim says. It doesn’t have to be as formal as a traditional gala invitation with an RSVP card. Just a save-the-date postcard will do, she says.

At the Children’s Tumor Foundation, the chief marketing officer, Simon Vukelj, tapped volunteers to call supporters and invite them to upcoming virtual events. “Old school is the new school,” he says.

When it comes to virtual outreach, fundraisers at Pittsburgh’s Kelly Strayhorn Theater have reached new supporters through Instagram — doubling their followers from March to July. In July the theater hosted a collaborative virtual fundraising event along with six other local performing-arts groups called Hotline Ring. They posted a video promoting the event to their Instagram page. And, along with the other participating organizations, they emailed the video to their supporters and included it on their website’s event page.

Keep your event page simple, fundraisers advise. Use a single streaming link there, and be sure to embed it in every email and social-media post advertising the event so it’s easy to find.

Now that so much of work and social life happen online, Swaim has also found success with an even simpler digital tool: the calendar event. Nonprofits should ask board members to email meeting invitations to their contacts.

“It’s like you’re doing the work for them,” she says. “It’s not incoming information that they have to do something with. It’s just there on their calendar.”

One of her clients, a statewide charity that typically hosts a 100-person annual gala, emailed virtual invitations to its supporters last year. In addition, volunteers sent calendar invitations to their connections. “That was their only marketing tool,” Swaim says. It worked: About 600 people attended the virtual event.

There’s so much more smart advice in Emily’s story. I hope you’ll take some time to read it.

Plus, check out this handy checklist for virtual-event presenters.

Your Advice

What have you learned about hosting virtual fundraising events over the past year? Drop me a line and let me know. We might share your tips in an upcoming newsletter.

Don’t Do This

Over the past month, you may have seen reports of health systems offering donors and board members a special perk: the chance to get a coveted Covid-19 vaccine. This at a time when efforts to get shots into the arms of frontline workers and the elderly are faltering.

In case there’s any ambiguity — and judging by the number of examples, there appears to be plenty of that to go around — the Association of Fundraising Professionals has made it clear that these preferential activities violate its ethical code.

“The idea of hospital systems, or any charity, ignoring protocols, guidance, or restrictions — regardless of origin — and offering certain donors and board members the opportunity to ‘skip the line’ and receive vaccinations ahead of their scheduled time is antithetical to the values of philanthropy and ethical fundraising,” AFP president Mike Geiger said in a statement issued Tuesday.

The fundraisers’ association requires members to comply with its Code of Ethical Standards. The activities mentioned in recent media accounts violate at least two standards of the AFP code, Geiger said. They harm the reputation of the organizations involved and conflict with a fundraiser’s ethical obligation not to put their nonprofit in jeopardy. Besides, he says, they may even be illegal.

Need to Know

— Share of adults who plan to donate to charity this year

More than 70 percent of respondents said they made a charitable contribution last year, compared with roughly 62 percent who said they did in 2019. That’s according to a new survey of 1,130 U.S. adults from DealAid.org, a discount shopping website that donates a portion of sales to nonprofits. Emily covered the report, which also asked respondents about their plans to volunteer in the new year.

People who gave in 2020 donated an average of $348, the survey found, down roughly 8 percent from 2019’s $379 average total. People who expect to contribute this year plan to increase their giving by nearly 14 percent, to $396, on average.

Health charities were the most popular recipients. More than 55 percent of donors said they gave to health-focused nonprofits in 2020, and respondents say they’re most likely to continue giving to health causes this year.

Plus:

• Donors increased the amount they provided from their donor-advised funds by nearly 30 percent over the first six months of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, according to a new report from the National Philanthropic Trust. The 2020 figure comes from organizations that typically account for half of the total outgoing donor-advised-fund charitable grant dollars issued annually so the National Philanthropic Trust said it was a good gauge of how the rest of the funds responded, my colleague Michael Theis reports. The donor-advised-fund world is so lopsided that just 13 DAF sponsoring organizations provided half the money. The 30 percent year-over-year jump pushed their total estimated disbursements in the first half of 2020 to $8.3 billion, up from $6.4 billion during the same period the year before.
• When crafting the latest Covid-19 stimulus bill, lawmakers restricted the Paycheck Protection Program to businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 300 employees, down from a cap of 500 in the first round. That means some organizations that received a loan under the program last year are now ineligible. Michael spoke with nonprofits that have been left out about how they’re responding and what other supports they’re seeking out to weather the pandemic.

Tips & Tools

• Why You Need a Long-Term Fundraising Plan: 7 Compelling Reasons: While fundraising plans are always a good idea, they can be especially helpful during challenging times like these as nonprofits grapple with Covid-19 and the recession set in motion by the pandemic.
• ‘Not Business as Usual’: How Managers Can Promote Employees’ Mental Health: Here are ways that nonprofit leaders can promote the mental, emotional, and physical health of their employees without spending a lot of money.
• Your Discriminatory Database May Be Turning Off Donors. Here’s What to Do About It: Accurately recording donors’ names and identities is vital to effective fundraising and strong donor relations.

What We’re Reading

• The Robinhood stock-trading app sparked outrage after it halted trading on GameStop and other companies at the center of a battle between small investors and hedge funds. But organizations that share the company’s name, including Robin Hood, the New York City-based anti-poverty nonprofit, have seen an uptick in small donations after using the moment to reintroduce itself to the internet, NPR reports. Communications director Kevin Thompson said some new donors told the charity that the money they were donating came from profits they made from of sales of their GameStop stock.
• GoatToMeeting. Animal nonprofits have an unfair advantage when it comes to video content. (Exhibit A: the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s giant panda sledding down a snowy hill.) But this fundraising idea is next level. You might even call it the Greatest of All Time. Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Britain has raised more than $68,000 by hiring out goats for Zoom meetings. The goats, who join meetings with a little help from farm staff, have appeared in virtual meetings all over the world, including in the United States, Russia, China, and Australia. Some people have donated far more than the requested 5 pounds for a goat visitor, the farm’s owner recently told the BBC. Farms have also embraced the idea stateside. Sweet Farm, a nonprofit farm animal sanctuary in Half Moon Bay, Calif., has had such overwhelming demand for its GoatToMeeting visits that it’s partnered with other sanctuary farms across the country.
• In memoriam: Captain Tom Moore. The former British Army officer who served in India during World War II crowdfunded nearly $40 million for British health workers by walking laps in his garden. He became a pop-culture phenomenon and one of this newsletter’s very favorite fundraisers. Moore, who was being treated for pneumonia, died yesterday at age 100. He tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday. “Part of the money he raised is being used to create therapeutic facilities for doctors and nurses to decompress after their work treating Covid patients,” according to his New York Times obituary. Moore viewed his fundraising as a way to support health workers, just as he recalled his country supporting him and his fellow soldiers during the war.