When it comes to fundraising events, bigger isn’t always better.
I have never been comfortable being anything less than exceptional. Did this start when I was young and haunt me into young adulthood? Absolutely.
With that in mind, you can imagine how my heart sank one evening last month when a fundraising event I had been planning for weeks brought in exactly one dozen attendees, myself, my husband, and the guest speaker included.
I floundered. I panicked. I apologized profusely to the speaker.
The speaker, a dear friend who runs a nonprofit in Uganda, answered me in her perpetually sweet way, “The people who are here are the ones who need to be here.”
I tried my best to believe her and forged ahead with the event—mostly—as planned. We nixed the stage setup and pushed two tables together, all of us joking and laughing as the smell of barbecue filled the massive church sanctuary.
My friend told her life story, from running away to avoid being sold into child marriage, to taking in other girls facing the same fate when she was in college, to traveling the world on international fundraising journeys. Though I have heard and told her story dozens of times, it still gave me chills and threatened to bring me to tears.
Her goal on this trip was simple: to increase her number of monthly donors. In my mind, that meant telling her story to as many people as possible. After all, only a certified grinch could hear her story and mission and not feel the urge to give. I talked to friends, coworkers, strangers in line at the grocery store (almost) about it . . . yet only a dozen people showed up.
Continuing with the plan, we ended the evening with an ask. I passed around her website and the giving page. Then, we went home and ate ice cream. A lot of ice cream.
The next morning, other fundraising partners of hers came by our house to pick her up. Both of those partners are far more seasoned fundraisers than I am. As I told them about our disappointing, unsuccessful evening, their eyes twinkled.
“Listen, from your efforts we got one individual donation and another donor set up monthly giving,” one told me excitedly. “That’s very successful in our eyes. You’re helping accomplish the goal of this trip!”
As much as I did—and occasionally still do—see that event as a failure, it taught me a number of important things about philanthropy.
1. No matter how amazing, how important, how tearjerking and heartstring-pulling the mission of your organization is, you cannot convince people to do something they just plain aren’t going to do.
A few days later, one of my friends from the event reached out and told me she and her husband were the ones who signed up for monthly giving. They had been looking for organization to give to that they were truly passionate about. They walked into the event with hearts, and wallets, open.
2. A larger audience doesn’t always mean a larger ROI.
This same friend told me she actually appreciated how small the group was. She got the chance to ask the speaker questions and interact in a way that made the speaker feel like a real person. The intimate setting was actually an advantage, not the liability I thought it was. If you’re not careful, a larger audience can leave people feeling like they’re listening to a sales pitch—talk about a way to make hearts and wallets snap shut.
3. Fundraising is a team sport.
Before that evening, I was determined to put together the best event on the speaker’s American tour. I was going to have her favorite food (which we did), the best accommodations (which I think we did), and the largest crowd (which we decidedly did not). That third may not have been the failure I initially assumed it was, and the first two were only made possible by the generosity of others. The church we gathered at provided gracious hosting and catering, and my husband opened our home to this friend of mine for two days of one of the busiest weeks of our year. Genuinely, fundraising success depends on cooperation, collaboration, and kindness.
4. It’s not personal.
The small crowd size had me rethinking so many things, including my own worth. Am I just a subpar fundraiser? Do people not like me enough to come to my events? Do I need to quit my job because I can’t hack it? We’ve all been sucked into those self-doubt spirals, but we need to yank ourselves out of them. People have lives outside of us and the organizations we raise money for. No one who missed that event texted me to say, “Oh, by the way, I hate you and think you’re a terrible person so I didn’t go to your event.” It might not be fun to acknowledge, but if you’re going to keep your head up as a fundraiser, you have to remember that you’re not the main character in other people’s lives. And remember: your organization and your mission can play a very important role in the lives of your givers.
