Successful Fundraising Event? "Share Why You Care"

Charity Navigator evaluates over 5,300 of "America's largest charities." [that does not include the thousands more local and grassroot organizations let alone bake sales, car washes & candy sales] and you wonder why it's hard to fundraise, hard to set your cause apart!? The point: Almost all of these are worthy causes with good caring people committed to making them successful. The Problem: So many good causes and smart people make it very hard for charities to differentiate and for donors to decide who to support -- in fact some people opt out all together understandably overwhelmed.

So what to do? How do you make YOUR fundraising event successful, first you don't...they do! You as a fundraising professional or semi pro have to make the cause/event about them -- your participants, your volunteers and your donors. Successful fundraising events boil down to a simple equation VFD+E! 

[V] volunteers/staff [F] fundrasiers [D] donors + [E!] enthusiasm. Simple theory more complicated in practice -- yet maybe more complicated than it needs to be.

So here's your tip... "make their story part of your cause." Keep doing all those things people expect like free t-shirts, inflatable slides, face painting, free schwag all of it and then do one more thing. Encourage, facilitate and cajole your people to share their story. Whether it's a cancer walk, a school fundraiser or heaven forbid a political rally -- everyone is there for a reason and in that reason is a story. [don't overlook the volunteers and donors they have stories too it's why they do what they do or give what they give] 

Helping people, encouraging people to "share why they care" will ignite your event -- think about it, the best events are the ones built on a story -- if you don't have a story find one -- don't be phony [nothing worse than that] --but if you look you will always find a compelling story to rally around year after year. Think: Same cause, Different story

So what do I know? well I started a cycling team 3 years ago called Mojoridng (yeah for the young it's Austin Powers for the rest of us the DOORS) -- last year 60 of us raised over $110,000 for two causes which still stuns me -- but at first my team was like any other group of middle aged people --overwhelmed, over-requested and even a bit jaded -- so while the 24 Hours of Booty | LIVESTRONG cancer fundraiser was a worthy and fun event -- how does a captain energize a team to do the remarkable?

Of course we all know Lance's story but it wasn't enough so I encouraged my teammates to share their stories -- and share they did it was if they had been waiting for someone to ask, someone to care -- they told stories; Dale's and Janie's and Carl's and Bev's and Omar's and more...and then the secret sauce -- we made it tangible -- we made photo buttons to wear in honor our loved ones, to share our stories the buttons were a tangible expression of the emotions we felt pride & love -- we even set up a gallery here which encouraged (peer pressured a bit) more people to make buttons -- my team got engaged, motivated and inspired ending up the top team with $55,000!  Encourage and help your participants|donors to personalize the event and they'll not only match that success...they'll probably exceed it!!

I am unabashed in promoting photo buttons for your event -- Buttons of Hope is my company but I have seen the profound difference it is making for people [see the Atlanta UMDF All Aboard Walk gallery here] and I think the promise is no less than the transformation of fundraising by simply putting a face on it.

Fundraising success = sharing your story with a great cause!