Ep. 131: Ditch The Gala: Fundraise Smarter, Faster, and Bigger
EPISODE 131
Ditch The Gala: Fundraise Smarter, Faster, and Bigger
About the Episode:
Let’s talk about galas. The often over-the-top events that take forever to plan and leave you feeling more drained than excited, and leave you thinking “Is this even worth it?” If so, you’re not alone. In this episode, we’re having an honest chat about why these big fundraising events can do more harm than good. Raising more money doesn’t have to mean throwing another black-tie affair. I’m sharing what’s working for nonprofits right now—fun, low-key events, creative pop-ups, and innovative digital strategies that bring in big results without all the stress. If you’re ready to rethink fundraising and finally ditch the overwhelming event planning, you’ll love this one!
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why traditional galas and big events might be hurting your nonprofit’s growth
The real cost vs. profit of large-scale fundraising events
Smarter and faster alternatives that engage your audience and raise more funds
How to measure ROI on fundraising efforts and what to stop doing
The power of low-lift, high-impact events like brewery pop-ups and porch parties
How a Social Street Team™ can multiply your fundraising efforts effortlessly
The five-hour rule for evaluating fundraising activities
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“A hard truth about galas is that they look glamorous, but the return is probably not what you're hoping for.”
“If it takes months of planning to do the gala, and the time and the expense of putting on the event your investment isn't 5x, you need to rethink it.”
“Galas demand an enormous amount of time, not only from your staff but also from your board.”
“We're looking for something that does not cost you a lot of time or money but has a high impact.”
“A micro event can raise 50k, bringing in more new donors than your gala with a barrier to entry at a $200 per person ticket.”
“You need to decide what your audience wants, what sounds fun, and what is accessible for you and your team.”
“Digital fundraising and partnering with an influencer or a creator is a great use of your time and impact.”
“The five-hour rule means if it takes you more than five hours to plan and doesn't 5x your time into dollars - stop it.”
“Your Social Street Team™ helps you sell out the event.”
“The sooner you move away from this time suck gala style event, the more impactful your organization will be and the faster your organization will grow.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 0:12Today we're digging into the gala. Oh, the nonprofit Gala, the big event that often takes months and months and months and months to plan the signature thing that brings your community together and is your signature fundraiser, and you're going to hear some tough love today. So whether or not you have a gala, an auction, an annual thing, an annual gathering, this conversation is for you and perhaps for your leadership or your board, I'm going to share with you the huge shift that I've seen in the past decade, and even more recently, like past two years, in this whole event fundraising strategy and the decisions that our clients are making with events that is changing the fundraising game. So before I dig in, I want to share that the club is open. My coaching program, the purpose and profit club is open. If you're listening to this the week this episode comes out, I want you to schedule a call with me if you're curious about joining the club. We also hosted a webinar about about the social Street Team method, where I teach my clients to double their next fundraiser or unlock another 50k in funding by partnering with the Creator economy. This is what my clients are doing in the club, and let me tell you, it's a lot faster than planning an annual event and a lot more impactful. So we're going to dig into how you can start to change and recalibrate your fundraising strategy this year. One of the things that I had everyone in the club do at the beginning of January was look back and look back at the buckets, the categories of revenue that came in for your organization. And it's really interesting between like, what you think happened and what actually happened. So you know how much came in online, how much came in from your street team, how much came in through recurring giving, how much came in through grants, major gifts, etc. And then from there, we kind of went underneath and said, What was that time suck? What felt like easy money, what felt like a high return on the time investment, what felt like, so successful and impactful, and it connected for your audience. Do more of that. What do you want to sense sunset and oftentimes, organizations get stuck in the we've always done this mentality. Our audience loves this Christina, we can't change it, even if it feels hard, even if it's draining your time, your money, your budget, right, your energy, your bandwidth, you're thinking, we gotta keep doing the event we got to so let's start with the hard truth about galas.
A hard truth about galas, or any in person event that's like the big to do of the year is that they look glamorous. They look so fun. Everybody gets dressed up. It's a moment, there's a step and repeat, there's great photos, there's delicious food, right? But the return is probably not what you're hoping for. So if you felt stuck on the hamster wheel of planning one big night that also has God, the pressure of make it or break it to keep your nonprofit afloat for the next six months or sometimes even longer. This episode is for you. Okay, so we're going to talk about ways to break off of this cycle and make a bigger impact with less stress. That sounds nice, right?
So let's start with this. What's going on with the gala and why it's totally holding your funding back. So the ROI problem that I see is that galas look great on paper, right? Think about it. Like I said, we've got great social content. We've got great social buzz, all these photos, all these videos, all these smiling, happy people, right? But it takes months of planning. And if you've ever planned one, you know this, I remember when my child preschool was a co op, and they volunteered me that I was going to be on the auction committee, so we all had to do community or service work for the Co Op, which was fine. They said, Christina, you're going on auctions. And this was their annual event, and it was a fundraiser, and it was a beast to plan. And I've planned events before, and I already know that that is not something that I enjoy doing. Events are like, You need somebody who is in their zone of genius to plan events, like Joey goon, excellent. We had him on the podcast. That's his zone of genius. He loves this, right? So events are a beast to plan in the time when you think about getting the venue just even that step one, where are we having it? Well, you as a nonprofit, you don't want to spend $10,000 to secure that venue, right? You. You want to negotiate it. You want to make sure you can get it in kind or for a very, very low fee. Just step one of that process can take weeks because you have to tour the venues, you have to negotiate you have to ping pong it back to your board see what they think, right? so the months of planning really starts right out of the gate. From the moment you're like, we're having our gala, even if your gala is at the same place every single year, there still is the same dance of figuring out all of the vendors, figuring out the dates, the times, the getting all the auction items, or whatever it is that is part of your event, the talent, music, DJ, maybe there's a performance so much time, and most organizations, I find their staff is already doing the job of two people or more, right? So when you add event planner, project manager. On top of this, it hurts somewhere else. It hurts in your donor relations. It hurts in your outreach. It hurts in your retention and follow up. And it's not your staff first fault. It's not your fault. It's because you're literally putting on the hat of event planner for the next six months, the next three months, right? So I really want you to think of if it takes months of planning to do this and it doesn't 5x my investment, then we're not doing it anymore. Let that sink in. If it takes months of planning to do and the time and the expense of putting on the event your your investment isn't 5x you need to rethink it. So boards believe that galas are essential because donors expect them, and this is the chicken or egg, right? We've now trained the donors to expect them, so they're like, I guess this is the thing we go to every day or every year, right? So donors don't have to expect them, and in fact, oftentimes don't want them. Yes, they are craving something in person. Many of them, yes, they are craving connection, and we're going to get into that, but you could spend your time but you could spend your time channeled into something far more effective. So boards think that you know this is what your audience wants, but that's not always true, and I want you to really be open with this episode today and think about because I'm going to share with you some actual events that have worked for our clients, that are great, that are low lift, high impact. Okay, here's the other thing. I was on a I don't know if I was on a call, I don't know if I was in person, but I was talking to somebody, and I was telling them about the work that I do, and they said something about, oh yeah, the gala is like, Ah, those are the those are the big fundraisers. And I was like, not really. That's kind of the big secret is that not only is it public facing, everybody thinks these are the big money makers, but in reality, not only of their time sucks, their expense sucks, so don't tell me your organization raises $200,000 from your annual gala. I want you to tell me how much you profit from that annual gala. Top line revenue does not matter in this case, right? If it takes you $100,000 $50,000 etc, etc, etc, to put it down and you're netting 50. That's not good. That's not a good ROI of time. You could run a street team campaign and net 50 without ever leaving your beautiful house. Think about that. Okay, so time and expense, but black hole was like huge red flag. This is what's happening.
Galas demand an enormous amount of time, not only from your staff, but also from your board. Sometimes it's like me, if you're on a committee, suddenly this is your one big thing you're focusing the whole year on, instead of any other marketing and fundraising initiative, any other prospecting and outreach, outreach initiative. And it leaves really a little bit of tiny time left for innovation and connection. And here's the big thing, you think your donors want it, but here's why they don't. It's really inconvenient. Even your most loyal supporters might not be able to make it. This happened to me this morning. I'm not kidding. I got an email from an organization I've supported that's here in Atlanta that I really, really like, and I'm like, no way it happened again. They invited me to an event, and I have a conflict. I know I won't be in town. That's it. It's as black and white as that. And the last time they invited me to an event, I had another conflict. And I'm not kidding. I am not being facetious. The time before that they invited me to event, I had a conflict. I like this event. I like this mission so so much, and it bums me out that it's there are so many conflicts. And when you for in my schedule, which, by the way, it's not like I'm going to events all all the time, or traveling all the time, it just keeps happening. It's just one of those things where it just doesn't work out for me. And it's like, when you put all your eggs in one basket, I'm not the outlier that I'm not available. This is like the life we live in, right? And I think about this executive director, I think about her team, and I think about them planning this event, and how much time it takes, and it just bums me out that a portion of the people who want to be there can't, and that I have to wait another year before I can maybe hopefully make it so we're going to talk about letting it go, lovingly, sun setting this event. And the reason why you might choose to do this, or you might choose to re imagine and rethink this event, that's another alternative, is because you want to have a breakthrough year. You're listening to this podcast because you don't want to grow by 2% this year, you're listening to this podcast because you want to double your next fundraiser. You're listening to this because you're tired of having a wait list for your programs or services, and you want to see a bigger impact this year. That is going to require you to change. That's going to require you to do something different. So yes, galas may be familiar to you. Auctions may be familiar to you. It might even be on a 5k or some other event that you do that again is familiar. You now understand the process because you've done it before, again and again, and that doesn't mean you should be doing it just because it's familiar.
Okay, so I want you to think about better ways that are smarter, faster and more impactful to fundraise, because the sooner you embrace it, the more money and awareness you'll raise. Let's dig into that. What are some smarter, faster alternatives to this old school fundraising, this fundraising that you read in a book somebody told you about that worked, y'all, it worked 25 years ago. It might have even worked 10 years ago. It does not work anymore.
So whenever I'm thinking about any sort of event, especially in person. I will say this to you again and again. Low lift, high impact. Low lift, high impact. What is not costing you a lot of time or money, but has a high impact. That's what we're looking for. That's that recipe of like, Yep, let's do it. That's green lighting. So here are some examples. I've had clients who have hosted brewery, pop ups, porch parties, barbecues, bingo nights, Garden Parties, the bingo night we just talked about in the club, because one of our clients in the club went to a, actually, it was a daytime bingo, a bingo day, and it was, I think, at a restaurant or brewery or something like that, very family friendly. And she said, Oh, I'm gonna have to go back. I think they raised either 10 or 20,000 No, they raised 40. It was $40,000 that's what it would raise. Community driven, grassroots event, low lift, high impact. And I also love how accessible it is to be like do you want to come to our bingo day? Here's where it is, here's the date and time. There's not the pressure of the gala to sell it up front when it's something that isn't a big expense eater. So for example, if you know that your gala costs $100,000 to put on, between venue, between food, between entertainment, etc, etc. Then how do you feel in the two months leading up trying to sell those, those gala tickets? You're like, white tight knuckled going, who can I sell a table to? Who will sponsor a table? It's all you can think about. It's all you can think about because you're like, I gotta at least sell $100,000 worth of tickets to break even on this event. Think about that, and it's all you're spending your time thinking about, and it's all you're telling your staff. It's all you're you're telling your board to do. And is such a terrible use of time versus something like a bingo get together, sounds so fun, and you're like, This is what we're doing. Here's what it is. You send out some emails. You let your board know they invite their friends, low lift, high impact. garden party, same thing. Brewery event. So fun. One of my clients did this. It was hosted by one of their board members, and they've really been dipping their toe into reimagining events. When I first started working with them, they were stuck in the golf outing. You know, the golf outing. This is very tried and true. This is adjacent to the gala. So this is like fundamental events, 101, for nonprofits. And there was a time where the golf out. Didn't work for them. It was great. Sponsors, huge show up rate the whole deal. And what they saw was this, this depreciating return. They saw that it ended up costing a lot of time for their small staff to plan, invite, follow up, beg, plead, hope, pray, people will come to this right and put on the event. It was like such a bandwidth, either eater, and then these, I said, Does your audience even want this like? Or another way to think about it, is what might they like as much, or even better. So one of the things that their board member said was, hey, I'm gonna there's a brewery I love that's near us, and I'm going to host this, like, pop up of event. I've talked to the owner. They're all in. There was no fee for them to do this. Y'all why? Because it's a win win for the brewery, too. And there's like, I'm smiling because we were, they're working on this annual report, and I'm smiling because I'm like, Oh, we're going to pop some of those in there, some photos of this they had, you know, the the board, I think it was the board member that hosted, like, behind the bar, pouring, pouring drinks. It was like such a fun night. It just like I looked at some of the photos from this event, all smiles, all smiles they had. Were able to gather people locally. This is a international organization. So they even were able to do this, even though their organization isn't local, but they were able to gather a subset of their donor supporters volunteers together for this, like easy, breezy, fun night so fun brewery pop ups. What else? Yes, porch parties. So I'm in the south, so that that's, that's what I would call it. But like, what if you have a board member, a volunteer, a supporter who's like, I'm gonna host a porch party, so instead of inviting 300 people, right, this is like a more micro event, yo, a micro event can raise 50k Did you know this? A micro event can raise 50k a micro event can bring in more new donors, then your gala that has a barrier to entry at a $200 per person ticket. Think about that. Because if you're, like, inviting a friend, or maybe you're going to a gala, and you're like, oh, let's invite this group, or this couple in this couple, $200 a ticket may be a no for them. They're like, I've never been to this event. I don't really know. But if you're instead, like, I'm going to my friend's porch party. So fun for this cause I care about $25 a ticket. Do you want to come? Or it's free to attend? Do you want to come, a porch party? Can raise this so you need to decide what your audience wants, what sounds fun, and what is accessible for you and your team that's really, really essential. And if the answer is it's not in person, totally fine. We have organizations in the club who only do virtual events. I have organizations I've worked with that bring their community together virtually once a month or once a quarter. This is possible, and this raises so much more in, I don't even want to say half the time, because that's not even fair. This raises so much more in, like a 10th of the time, a 10th of the time. I've helped plan some of these events for clients in the past, and they come together so quickly. What do you need? You need a zoom link. You need a work, kind of run a show a workflow. You need a thought leader or a guest, and that's it, and you need to be an unapologetic fundraiser. Okay, that's it, too. So anytime you're hosting an event, and this is like a sidebar, you want to make sure that this is a fundraising event front and center, if that's the goal, if it's not the goal, and it's more of just a thank you Event, that's something else. But a lot of times in events, I do see when they don't have a high return, it's because somebody was scared to make it a fundraiser during the actual event.
So let's talk about some smarter ways besides the low lift in person event, besides the online version, right? But there's also just digital fundraising y'all so peer to peer, online challenges, virtual mini events. Digital fundraising and partnering with an influencer or a creator is such a great use of your time and impact. So think about this, if you partner with a creator, and that creator already has an engaged audience, aka, this is partnering with a street team, or, like, bringing somebody on your street team, and you want to CO, CO, create something together. CO brand something co create a pop up night together with their audience. How fun would that be? So fun? Maybe you're being brought on as a thought leader or expert to talk about something that their audience cares about. or maybe like some creators who already have an engaged audience that gathers together already. Let's say they gather together once a month. Maybe this is an online entrepreneur, and they do a journaling meetup once a month. Online, you could be the beneficiary of that journaling meetup, right? You could be part of that. It's like, where are people already gathering together online or in person, and how can your organization have some mission alignment with that and be part, be the beneficiary, be part of that Gathering together. There's so much opportunity there that no nonprofit is doing very few unless you're in the club. You're not doing this right?
So as you're listening to this, I want you to do a little litmus test, and I'm calling it the five hour rule. The five hour rule means if it takes you more than five hours to plan and doesn't 5x your time into dollars- Stop it. Think about that. And if you don't know the answer to this and this, this can be like a tough one. Sometimes you have a gut check of like, did this feel like a good use of time? Good ROI, but for something that is a little bit more of a longer trail, or just feels like, oh, well, I only, I only work on the event, you know, planning in the morning, blah, blah, blah. I want you to start tracking your time. Go to toggle T, O, G, G, l, it is a free time tracker. And every single moment that you are on the phone, writing an email, writing any piece of marketing, talking to vendors, anything that is talking to board members, committee members, anything that has to do with the event. I want you to track it so that even if this event is still happening, so that you can return, you can log and go back and say, Wow, this took me 100-150 hours to plan. Now we have other staff on this too, but just me alone, it took 150 hours, and I want you to look at how much you made, again, not top line, but I'm talking profit, how much profit was made from the event after you took all the expenses out, food, Drink, entertainment, takeaway items, anything that was an expense favors, party favors, things like that, right? Anything like that. And then I want you to compare, was it 5x if it's not 5x I want you to re imagine that event.
I want you to think about what are events that you want to attend. What are the last five events that you took time out of your schedule for your Saturday night, your Thursday night, your Sunday morning, and you spent your time or money or both right to attend, and what took you from a maybe or a no to a yes. What was that event? And ask yourself, was it a gala? Was it an auction? Where you see the same stuff at an auction? Y'all, it's the same stuff. It's the same stuff. A gift card, a spa basket, it's the same stuff, right? Was it a like? What was it and why was it a yes for you? And then I want you to do the same exercise for your ideal, your perfect fit, your already current, awesome donor, donors, think about them. And I want you to just think about like, what would be a heck yes for them? Is it the current iteration of the events you're planning? Is it that, or could it be something else? Could it be? I just saw another one that looked really fun, and it was just like a pop up karaoke night, and it has two tiers of a karaoke night. And it was like, it's at a community center. Was like, how fun. Low left, high impact. It had two tiers. It had the what do they call it? They call it like the PG version, which was like, all you know, PG related songs that were happening during the day, and then at like, eight o'clock there, or there was an intermission, and then at eight o'clock it moves into any song you want. And it was adults only, right? And I was like, What a fun way to get people together. What do you need for a karaoke united, a community center? What do you need? You need a karaoke machine. You need people who want to sing or cheer people on, some food, some drinks. Make it a fundraiser. Don't apologetically, don't, you know, bury the lead. I want you to be a fundraiser, front and center, and we go, and that's it. If you hosted a couple of those, not only, not only, would your fundraising revenue grow, but your donor like you would bring in new donor leads. Because think about who goes to a karaoke night. You're like, I'm not going alone. You're bringing a friend. You're bringing a hype crew to that. So what a way to bring people together and lead gen? All right? A couple other examples, and then we're gonna wrap up. You.
Speaker 1 25:45
Up. I'm actually going to redo that get rid of a couple other examples.
Christina Edwards 26:01
So my hope for you in this episode is not that you say we can't do an event anymore. Here's, you know, we're sunsetting all events because you're saying events are bad. Events aren't bad. People are craving connection. Your donors and volunteers do want connection. That connection can be in person or that connection can be online, but your mission is craving profit. So if your event isn't profitable and it's not a profitable use of your time or your money, it has to stop you need to be thinking about your organization this way, first, through this lens, first, because you're listening to this podcast, because you want to scale and you want to have an amazing impact this year, and that means you need more donors, more new donors right in your pipeline. Yes, we need that. And we need more donations, more funding. And so the event, the dinosaur event of 10 years ago, and you know, yesteryear needs to stop. And instead, I like this idea of pop up events or mini events or low lift events. You get to pick the word that makes sense for your mission and your organization and and street team first. This is what I would say for you, is until we have our street team rocking and rolling, we have our first 10 street teamers made up of online influencers and creators together, right until we've launched our first campaign, we've unlocked another 10k in funding, 20k in funding, 50k in funding, we've brought up more visibility or more enrollment, whatever your goal is for your street Team. Until you've done that, do not waste another moment planning an event, because the event isn't the thing that makes your organization wildly successful. Like, I think about large organizations, or I think about organizations who have grown very quickly in a short amount of time, because they've grown largely right and I'm like, it ain't because of a gala, it's just not and it's not because of an auction. It's because they brought their community together online and they created a digital ambassador program. It's because they were bold. It's because they were bold, unapologetic storytellers and fundraisers. It's because they knew their unique voice and their unique, you know, impact in this world, and they were like, here we go. And they didn't do it alone. When I look at a solo executive director or a very small team who is responsible for everything, for the mission, for getting the word out there, for getting enrollments up for getting people to show up, for getting people to come volunteer, for getting people to donate, and it's all on that one person or three people that is a recipe for 100k organization, or at least a 500k organization is your very, very top you will ever raise like that. You have to go out. You have to have a ripple effect a movement online. And I am not talking about spending a whole lot of time on your social media strategy. I'm not talking about creating the most beautiful social posts or the most polished videos, right? I'm not talking about that. I am talking about creating an army of ambassadors who create a movement, a vocal movement, for you online. That's what I'm talking about. Get that going. Get your first 10 if you don't know how which you don't, because I'm the only one who created this method, join the club. Book a sales call with me. We will link to it here. That's your first step. Then once you have that, plan the event. And here's the fun part. Once you plan the event, you're like, we're having the event. Christina, we got our street team. We're now we're having the event. Guess what makes the event sell out? Guess what makes the event more profitable? Guess what makes the event double year over year?
Speaker 1 29:55
Your street team? Right? It actually helped. To
Christina Edwards 30:00
you, your street team helps you sell out the event. One of our clients in the club sells out her events a week early, two weeks early, right? Because she is not the only one selling them. Because it's not just her brand, her organization, selling them. She has a digital Ambassador team lifting her up. All right? So that's your homework. Take a hard look at your events, or maybe the events that you were hoping to put on this year. I want you to take a hard look at your ROI profit, not top line revenue. Know your expenses. Look at that. Then I want you to go social street team, first back burner, second for how you're going to brainstorm your next low lift, high
Speaker 1 30:42
impact event. Okay,
Christina Edwards 30:53
Remember, the sooner you move away from this time suck gala style event, the more impactful your organization will be, the faster your organization will grow.
Christina Edwards 31:29
if you want help with this, I highly recommend booking a game plan. Call with me. We will link to it here. It will help you. We can kind of pull out where your time is going, from low ROI activities to high ones, and I'll support you inside the club. Until then, I'm cheering you on See you next time you.