Panel Discussion:
Hosting an Engaging and Successful Virtual Event


August 26, 2020



Part of the Professional Development Workshop Series brought to you by Junior League of Boca Raton and hosted by Nonprofits First.



Moderator:



• Christina Lambert, Managing Director of Productive Power.



Panelists:


• Melisa Poole, Digital Productivity Coach & Event Coordinator at Productive Power  
  
  
• Ck Swett, Co-founder and International Auctioneer at Lot 1 Auctioneers
  
  
• Clay Williams, Managing Partner at Achieve
  
  

Useful Tools to Support Your Virtual Fundraising Events



Online Donation Tools



There are literally hundreds of online donation tools, platforms and plugins on the market today. Prices range to a few extra pennies per transaction to hundreds of dollars a month, so make sure to shop carefully for a tool that fits your needs.  Make sure the tool you select supports these features:



• Integrates seamlessly with your website so that donors are not directed off of your sites.  This gives your donors a sense of security and consistency.
• A simple and “frictionless” donation process so the software doesn’t get in the way of the transaction.  (Don't require more information than you need and makes sure the tool works as well on a phone as it does on a desktop.)
• Easy buttons for preset donation levels and the ability to associate amounts with a need (e.g. $100 feeds a family of four for a week)
• Ability to add tracking codes like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel so that you can measure ROI for your marketing efforts



Most of the tools today also include event registration functionality. Event registration is a little more involved than making a simple donation so make sure any software you select has the features necessary to manage the types of event that your organization promotes.



Here are some donation tools that we really like at Achieve:



Qgiv – Qgiv is one of our favorite nonprofit website tools. It is easy to use, and easy to integrate seamlessly into your website. It is also packed with features.



• There is no monthly fee to use the online donations and event registration tools, making it an ideal solution for organizations looking to improve their online giving experience.
• Qgiv charges a modest transaction fee and has a feature called “Gift Assist” that allows the donor to include the fee in their donation.  Our experience with the tool suggests that 70-80% of donors offer to cover the transaction fees in their donation, making it even less expensive than using your own merchant account.
• Qgiv also has a data service that connects their software to many donor management systems so that donations and registration data are automatically recorded for you.
• Qgiv's advanced tools include peer fundraising and online auction software. These advanced tools have modest monthly fees associated with them, but Qgiv will allow you to upgrade and downgrade your service at any time. So you can add the auction tool for a month or two then turn it off after your event.
• Visit Qgiv's blog for useful tips and fundraising ideas.
• If you would like to see examples of Achieve's clients that use Qgiv or to arrange a demo contact Achieve. 



onecause You may have used a tool called BidPal at charity event auctions in the past. Before smart phones were in everyone's pocket, they handed out Apple iPod Touches to bidders at events to allow participants to bid on silent auctions. Now BidPal works through your smart phone. onecause is the parent company behind BidPal. They offer a suite of powerful virtual event and fundraising tools.



You can visit their website and request a quote for any of their products and services. The onecause blog also has some great content about virtual events.



Others online donation tools to consider:



• Donately
• Fundly
• Funraise
• Givebutter



Before you invest in an online donation tool check to see if you donor management system has embeddable forms. If you use one of these popular systems check to see if their embeddable forms will work for your fundraiser:



• Bloomerang
• Salsa Labs
• Raiser’s Edge NXT
• DonorPerfect



Tools to Help Promote Your Fundraiser



The panelists spoke about using email and social media to promote your event to your supporters and to engage new audiences.  Here are some tools that may help make that easier.



Email Service Providers



Some of the donor management systems listed above also have email “blast” capabilities for sending out newsletters, announcements, and the like. If you want to take it to the next level you should try out a system like Mailchimp or Constant Contact. Both services provide robust list management, subscription forms for your website, easy to use templates and other powerful marketing automation tools like drip campaigns. Best of all, both providers offer significant discounts to nonprofits.



Social Media Tools



Scheduling Software: Managing social media posts can be challenging so using a scheduling tool allows you line up weeks of social media posts all at once. Hootsuite and Later  are two popular scheduling tools that can save tons of time for your marketing team.



Are Your Social Media Accounts Ready?



• Enroll your organization with Facebook Payments. Enrolling allows your organization to get paid faster and Facebook doesn't charge credit card processing fees or transaction fees for donations on the platform.



• Add a Donation Button to your Facebook Page



• Allow people to fundraise for your organization and add donation buttons to their posts



• Add a Donation Button to your Instagram Account



• Make sure that you have added your Facebook Pixel to your website.  This is how Facebook tracks user behavior and allows you to target website visitors in your promotions.



Turn Your Supporters Into Ambassadors by Giving Them Tools to Succeed



• Show your ambassadors how to create their own fundraiser for you on Facebook



Finally Supercharge Your Social Media Advertising with Facebook Business Manager



Business Manager allows you to create and manage audiences from different data sources. 

• Create an audience with your current donor and supporter data. 
• Create an audience out of website visitors 
• Create audiences based on demographic and geographical information.
• Leverage Facebook's BIG DATA engine to build an audience of Facebook users that "Look Like" any of the audiences you created. (e.g. Create a new audience that "looks like" your current donors)
• Use Look Alike and demographic audiences to "fish" for new supporters, and user retargeting to "reel them in" as new supporters of your cause.



Business Manager is very sophisticated and can take years to master, but you don't have to be an expert to use it effectively,  Here are a couple of links to help get you started:



• A quick tutorial: How to use Facebook Business Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide



• Facebook Business Manager Guide



I  hope the Panel Discussion and this information helps your organization host a more successful virtual fundraising event this season.  At Achieve we recognize that these are difficult times for nonprofits and we are working hard to address this and other important topics.



Our researchers will continue to explore this and other relevant topics in our blog.  You can subscribe here to recieve an email with the latest posts, tips and free tools. 



If there are topics that would like our research team to explore further please let us know.