4 Ways to Incorporate Event Content Into Fundraising
For many associations, events are their number one method of engaging members. A large annual conference can bring your community together, cement the value of your memberships, and entice prospective members to join your association.
Savvy associations can get even more value out of their events by integrating their event and fundraising strategies. In this guide, we’ll explore four ways your organization can use its event content to boost fundraising.
1. Showcase event videos
Between interactive content, presentations, and large crowds of attendees, events show off the best of what your organization has to offer. By capturing your event on video and taking pictures, you can share these compelling visuals with potential donors.
A few strategies for creating compelling event videos include:
- Capturing high-quality video. Ensure your events look as good in video as they do in person by using high-quality recording materials. In particular, consider how you will record audio. Often, large venues have issues with echoing or excessive background noise. To get clear audio, have all speakers use microphones, record any interviews in quiet spaces, and use editing tools to isolate and minimize background noise.
- Using event footage in creative ways. Event videos can be used as fundraising materials, promotion for your next event, and as thank-you messages for event attendees. For example, you might record a post-event thank-you video during the event itself, simultaneously showing your appreciation for attendees and reinforcing the positive experience they had at your event.
- Incorporating storytelling techniques. At events, capture a variety of footage to tell your event’s story. This might include clips of presentations, b-roll of crowds, and interviews with attendees. When edited together, you can create exciting promotional materials that showcase all the best aspects of your event, potentially boosting attendance for future ones.
Attendees who see these videos will remember the positive experience they had, making them more likely to support your fundraiser. Meanwhile, for supporters who missed your event, you can spark interest in attending your next one.
2. Offer limited live stream access
Live events are powerful community-building opportunities that spark collaboration, allow for hands-on engagement, and create lasting one-on-one connections. You can entice supporters to attend events in person by offering limited live streaming support.
When planning your event, select specific workshops or presentations to live stream. For these offerings, you can still hold your primary event in person, while improving event fundraising through digital ticket sales. Plus, the live stream can serve as a sample of what your events have to offer, pushing online-only attendees to show up in person for the full event next time.
Additionally, EverTrue’s guide to donor segmentation emphasizes the need to consider your supporters’ geographic locations when planning fundraising strategies. Traveling to your events may not be feasible for certain audience segments, and live streaming allows them to still be a part of your organization, feel the value of their memberships, and connect with other online attendees via an event live chat.
3. Convert event content into marketing materials
After each event, round up the materials for popular workshops, presentations, and interactive demos to create marketing content. Transcripts, recordings, hand-outs, and slideshows can all be used to promote future events by turning them into marketing materials, like:
- Video clips. Post short video clips of your event on social media and your website ahead of future events to show off the kinds of experiences attendees can expect.
- Blog articles. Invite event speakers to create follow-up blog content or use transcripts from presentations to create blog content yourself. This gives your event presenters more opportunities to connect with your audience, while also showcasing the high-value content your events have to offer.
- Gated content. Long-form event content, like full recordings of presentations, can become gated resources. You can offer these to members for free to improve the value of your memberships, or ask a small fee for non-attendee access to both maximize event revenue and incentivize future event attendance.
Share your event content across multiple channels to reach your entire audience and create multiple touch points. For example, ahead of your next event, you might post event video clips on social media, send out an email promoting gated content, share blog content on your website, and send physical event invitations via direct mail.
To decide what event content to turn into marketing materials, pay attention to engagement data. For example, you might create content on the same topics as workshops and presentations that drew high attendance. Or if a particular presenter was highly rated by attendees, you might invite them back for future events and highlight their sessions in your promotion materials.
4. Attract and retain sponsors
In addition to being high-value donor acquisition opportunities, events are also key for building relationships with corporate sponsors. With these connections, your organization can earn valuable non-dues revenue that can be leveraged to create even higher-value events in the future.
At events, you can lay the groundwork for attracting new sponsors by:
- Gathering sponsor-related metrics. The better you’re able to demonstrate the value of sponsoring your events, the more likely you are to attract new sponsors. Use your event management software’s sponsorship engagement tools to track sponsor booth visits, sales, demo attendance members, and other relevant metrics. Then, share these results with prospective sponsors to demonstrate that your events are worth supporting.
- Solidifying relationships with current sponsors. 360MatchPro’s guide to corporate sponsorships emphasizes that stewardship is essential for maintaining partnerships and may even lead to new ones. For instance, a current sponsor might agree to set up an introduction between your organization and a fellow business they work with.
- Planning future sponsor engagement opportunities. Earn more funding by using events as springboards for additional sponsorship opportunities. For example, you might plan a pop-up event for a popular sponsor to show off their new interactive demo, or you could agree to host ads for your sponsors on your community website.
Between ticket sales, donations, and sponsorship, events provide access to a wide range of revenue streams. While planning your post-event fundraisers, consider all available funding channels to maximize each event’s revenue-generating potential.
Event content powers your fundraisers by highlighting the value your organization can provide members. Get your audience excited for your next event and encourage donations by taking videos of your events, creating follow-up content, and exploring additional revenue channels. To get started, consider your event management and marketing software to set your next event up for fundraising success.
Hannah Davis
Hannah Davis is the Senior Manager of Growth Marketing at EverTrue. She works with nonprofit advancement teams to help fundraisers connect with more donors in meaningful ways. Before joining EverTrue, Hannah worked in higher education advancement at the University of Connecticut Foundation, leading annual giving communications and donor engagement efforts. Her experience in fundraising fuels her passion for helping nonprofits modernize their outreach while staying donor-centric.