Keeping Your Fundraising Guests In Focus

We recently looked at ways to keep your supporter relationship happy and healthy. Part of maintaining a positive connection will be remembering that the little things matter. Fundraising events are full of opportunities to make the small details shine. By focusing on your fundraising guests you’ll guarantee plenty of feel-good vibes that make your guests feel appreciated.

That's Entertainment

Whether you’re holding a star-studded gala dinner or a raffle at the local RSL, keeping your guests entertained is a basic requirement of any fundraiser. Speeches are absolutely necessary to underscore the importance or the occasion, however introduce some levity between speakers via entertainment. Live acts, competitions or fundraising initiatives will keep guests engaged. While good quality stage acts are always a winner, audience participation is also an effective and fun way to keep guests entertained. Think about mystery key raffle where one lucky key unlocks a prize box. Or how about a quick and simple round of scissors, paper, rock (small entry fee, exciting winner’s prize)?

Keeping Time

Without careful pre-planning, the live auction can take up a huge amount of time. Only a percentage of the room will be participating so keep it short for maximum excitement for everyone. Aim for around 20-30 minutes for your live auction. A professional auctioneer will be well practiced in getting the maximum bids in the shortest amount of time.

Calendar Days

There's nothing worse than nailing the winning bid on that sought-after luxury holiday and finding it’s not available for the dates you need. Including an availability calendar for date dependent prizes means bidders can decide ahead of time if the available dates will work for them.

Queue Avoidance

At the end of a fun and entertaining night, tired fundraising guests will be keen to get home. When organising your fundraising payment processes think about how to keep queues to an absolute minimum Long payment lines can lead to stressed event staff and unhappy guests (who may end up less than keen to participate in your next event). Digital platforms allow guests to pay directly for winning items and donations via their mobiles devices. This reduces waiting lines or even removes the need to queue completely. Guests can also pay from the comfort of their own home if they leave the venue a little early. Using a payment gateway (such as Stripe) you can also collect payments via laptops, iPads/tablets or any portable device. This means your staff aren’t limited to one or two EFTPOS machines and can process payments from as many portable devices as they would like to.

Swallow the Fees

In our experience, the fundraiser should absorb credit card fees. Supporters can feel aggrieved if they are expected to pay transaction fees as well as the generous donation they have made to your cause. The same applies to prize item delivery costs. Maybe absorb these into the starting bid of an item so it starts a little higher in your catalogue but includes any postage and handling as standard.