 Hey everyone. It looks like we've got a couple of people already logged on. We'll get started at three o'clock Eastern Time Sharp. But while I have you here as a captive audience, if you could just let me know whether or not you can hear me well and see my screen, I'm flipping through the first couple of slides now. If you could just go into the questions box and just type yes or no there, that would be a huge help to me while we're waiting on everyone. All right. Thank you guys so much. So I'm just going to put myself on mute for another minute or two. You can just relax and we will get started in just a few minutes. All right. Hello everyone and welcome to our webinar on Moving Your Spring Fundraiser Online. My name is Linda Gerhard and I am the Senior Community Engagement Manager here at Mighty Cause. I've been with Mighty Cause since 2016. And before joining this company, I actually worked in the non-profit sector. This was actually my first job in a long time that was outside of the non-profit sector. So I feel for what you guys are going through right now. And if you need to contact me about any specific fundraising situations that you are facing, my email address is on this slide. It's linda at mightycause.com. And I'm always down and available to chat about fundraising strategies and particularly marketing and communications. Here is a quick look at today's agenda. And I just wanted to briefly mention that I had this whole other webinar planned for this week where I was planning to talk about some really great spring fundraisers we've had on our platform and leave you inspired to start planning your spring charity walk or fun run. But obviously I needed to adjust course with all of the recent events and all of the events being canceled. I don't think there's a way for me to cover every single possible fundraising scenario that nonprofits are facing right now. But I'm hopeful that the content of this webinar addresses some of your biggest challenges and concerns and can leave you with some solid ideas and action items for adjusting course for this spring and staying funded through this really rocky period. As a bit of housekeeping, I will be taking questions at the end of the presentation. So if you think of something you'd like to ask or a topic you'd like to chat through a bit more while I'm talking, just type that into the questions box of your go to webinar panel and we'll make sure to get to it after I'm through with the presentation. All right. So we're going to start off by talking about fundraising during a pandemic. You're also going to notice a lot of baby animals in this slide deck. I initially put them in there as placeholders until I figured out what kind of imagery was appropriate. But I decided to just leave them in because I think we need more calm, serene, cute pictures of animals and fewer scary pictures of the coronavirus put through 20 different layers of grunge in Photoshop to make it look extra spooky and threatening or empty shelves at grocery stores. So these pictures make me happy. I'm not trying to downplay the situation, but as I was building this webinar, I was like, you know, we could use some cute kittens and puppies right now. So that's the reason for the baby animals. So I don't want to spend a ton of time dwelling on the negative here, but I do want to go over why this pandemic is such a big deal and what the challenges and fears are that nonprofits are facing. First, because of social distancing, that spring event that nonprofits like yours have been working on and planned and looking forward to and have already invested in in some cases can't actually happen because of limits on gatherings. They need to be canceled or postponed to indefinitely or completely reimagined. So that fundraising plan and calendar you put together just months ago with projections about how much money you'd be bringing in donations, that's been completely turned on its head. And we literally have no idea how long this will last, because the situation is basically completely unprecedented in our lives. Many nonprofits have had to press pause on their fundraising efforts and throw themselves and all of their resources into serving their communities to help them get through this, which can place an even bigger strain on their finances and they don't have the resources right now to focus on fundraising. And finally, the experts are saying that we're headed toward a recession, that anytime there's an economic downturn or crisis, the nonprofit sector really braces for impact because if people are broke and the economy is bad, then we worry about the effects on charitable giving. So this is just a summary of all of the fears and trials that we've been hearing about at Mighty Cause since this whole situation kind of put our country at a pause. But there is good news and I want to spend a little bit more time dwelling on that because in times like these, we tend to immerse ourselves in fear, but there's actually quite a bit of good to concentrate on right now. First of all, most modern nonprofits are already utilizing digital fundraising channels like Mighty Cause to raise money for their platforms because online fundraising and marketing is just part of the nonprofit landscape in 2020. So as a sector, we are well set up to adjust to this new fundraising landscape where we can't have big gatherings of people because for many nonprofits, the actual giving is actually happening online anyway and the in-person stuff is just a cool bonus. It's not necessary for the process of fundraising and charitable giving. And nonprofit donors are on the whole completely on board with digital giving with most of them accepting it as the standard. So it's really not much of an adjustment for most donors. They're already giving online and they will continue to give online. And one of the things that is always really cool to see when things are bad and it's scary and in general things seem like they're falling apart is that people really want to help. They're looking for ways to help and we're already seeing that happen organically on Mighty Cause. We've seen people putting together lists of nonprofits for their community that they can circulate and ask people to support them. People are starting relief funds for restaurant workers and artists and other people whose ability to make a living has been impacted by social distancing and isolation. And the helpers of the world are already springing into action to proactively help and they're spreading the word and supporting organizations that are doing good work. So we're already seeing this and it's really only been a little over a week or so. So the helpers are already springing into action and it's really amazing to see. And there's even more good news. So this situation is really not like the Great Recession of 2008. But there were studies done on the effect of recessions and economic downturns on charitable giving as a result of the Great Recession. And what they found was actually that economic ups and downs and changes are much more moderate for the nonprofit sector than they are the overall economy. So when the economy as a whole or the stock market takes a nosedive, charitable giving might take a small spill. And when the economy recovers, charitable giving gets a moderate boost. But it's really not as drastic or dramatic for charitable giving as it is for other areas of the economy. So that can be a small comfort if you're worried about a recession. I was certainly working for a nonprofit in 2008 and those were tough times. But generally what we see is that your sector nonprofits don't take as big of a hit as other industries. The other thing we know is that charitable giving has been trending toward digital philanthropy and fundraising for more than a decade. And each year it only increases. And that's a big difference I want to harp on because when the recession hit, as I mentioned, I was out there, I was working at a nonprofit. Most of our revenue came from cash and checks and a few big fundraising events each year where we literally had a room full of volunteers who were opening envelopes and counting cash from that event. But the space of online giving at that point in time wasn't quite there. The technology wasn't there yet. But right now nonprofits have a plethora of really great platforms to choose from and they're already set up on those platforms. So this is not as much of a shift to move away from those envelopes of cash and those events to just fundraising online digitally. And one thing we've actually seen is that in some that some types of nonprofits actually see a bump in charitable giving when there's a crisis. So medical organizations, food pantries and so on are actually likely to see a little bit of an increase in giving because their services and the need for them in their community is becoming more visible. So next on segueing off of that, I wanted to talk a little bit about marketing and public relations during this pandemic. So when you get down to it, even though this situation is very unfamiliar to most of us, this is just basic crisis management, right? So let's go through what that means and how this kind of thing is normally dealt with. First, leadership of your organization will need to get together and make some tough decisions, which you may have already done at this point, but you'll want to include your executive director, your director of development, your operations managers, and then just make a plan. What are you doing with your spring event? Are you canceling? Are you postponing it? Are you going to go back to the drawing board and totally reimagine it? If you have public hours, what are you doing? Are you staying open to the public on a limited basis? Are you an essential organization that is allowed to stay open? What are your staffing needs, and can people stay home and work remotely? Or do you need essential staff to come in? If there's an increase in demand for your services, how are you managing that? How are you keeping your staff safe? And all that good stuff. And then you'll just need to sketch out a plan for disseminating that information with both your constituents, your board of directors, your staff, and as well as your volunteers, especially if you have an active volunteer base who's likely looking to you to know how they can help. So just make sure that everybody knows what's happening and what their role in it is and how they can assist. One of the biggest public relations tips I can give you about managing a crisis at a nonprofit, whatever that crisis may be, is to be honest. When you're honest and transparent about your situation as an organization, it builds trust in your organization. It builds your reputation and your credibility. So you'll want to be frank in how you discuss how coronavirus is affecting your operations, what you're doing, you need to share the facts with them, and also discuss what you're doing to protect your staff, protect your volunteers, and what you're doing in your community to serve your community and your constituency. We highly recommend that you make this communication as personal as possible as in a personal message from your executive director to make it feel even more honest and transparent and one-to-one, which you can actually see modeled for you in the landslide of emails. Everyone is getting from the CEO of every single company who's ever had your email address telling you how they're responding to the virus. Another thing that can be really effective is doing a Facebook live or a video with your executive director or a figure head at your organization sort of talking about these issues so that you're communicating with the public. You'll also want to make sure that you're proactive here, give everyone involved, your stakeholders, your sponsors, attendees, ticket holders, donors, volunteers, and so on, as much notice as you possibly possibly can, and think through the logistics so you can get ahead of any questions that might come in. For instance, questions about refunds for ticket sales for your spring event, which we're going to talk about in more in depth a little bit later. And if you're still in discussion at your non-profit, it's also completely fine to just say, hey, we're still talking about this, and we're going to be in touch as soon as we have more information. But basically, you don't want the public to have to come to you and ask you what you're doing. That erodes trust. It makes it seem like you're hiding something or you're neglecting to do something. So being proactive here is definitely what is recommended. And again, public safety is the name of the game here. So talk about what steps you're taking to keep everyone safe, and also discuss how coronavirus is impacting things for you. Like, what's different at your organization? What's changed? Do you have different hours? Do you have an organization where staff still needs to report every single day? How are you keeping them safe, and so on? So knowing these things will help proactively build trust in the community. And right now, I do recommend trying to keep things hopeful as much as possible. People are feeling a lot of panic and anxiety right now. People are getting burned out by the news cycle and by the millions of emails they get every single day about the virus. So just be mindful of that and try to deliver a message of hope. That's something that non-profits do really well. Focus on the helpers, things your staff and volunteers are doing to serve the community. Inspiring moments you've seen play out because times like these are really when we often see those amazing little stories of humanity that drive home what our non-profits do. And I'm not saying you have to use baby animals like I did in this webinar, but just try to choose images that convey a sense of hope. Like people, you know, at a food pantry, unloading food, something like that, accepting deliveries, people helping at your premises, and not like pictures of crowded hospitals, overseas, people in masks, empty grocery store shelves, that kind of thing. That kind of thing because it really stresses people out and makes them turn away. People I think are really looking for a message of hope. And non-profits are in a great position to actually deliver that message to them. All right, so now we're going to talk through the logistics, which is why everybody's probably here, the logistics of moving your spring fundraiser online. Now I've tried to provide some examples of a lot of common spring fundraisers in this section. Again, I can't possibly cover every possible scenario, but hopefully you can take the information that's in this section of the presentation and apply it to your fundraiser, even if it's not the exact same fundraiser or situation. Okay, so regardless of what you're doing, the first step to moving your fundraiser online is obviously notifying everyone that's involved, from your sponsors, to your staff, to your volunteers, to your venue if you were having an in-person event. Even at this point, if you're just postponing things because you want to see how things will play out because who knows, if you have an early June event, we may be in a better place at that point. Just have a go or no-go date where you make a final decision about your spring event and you announce it. So all of these people are not left in limbo and you don't have to scramble last minute. So just say, hey, we don't have an answer right now. We're waiting to see how things plan out, but we will have a final announcement for you at this date. It's also helpful if you're waiting and seeing to plan out or to lay out plan A and plan B so that people know what to expect and what the different variables are, what the different options are, and explain what, if anything, you need from your team, from donors, from sponsors, from volunteers, etc. So then, especially if you've decided to move your event online only, you'll need to start adjusting course. So first, think about your event structure and strategy. Is there a value in keeping the structure of your event as it currently exists? Can you make your event remote or do you just need to completely retool it? There are plenty of really cute, clever ways you can spin what was supposed to be an in-person event into a digital event. For instance, a walk-a-thon could be completely digital with people completing their pledged distance on their own time at their own pace. Something that marathons kind of do anyway is they sometimes offer a pajama rate so that people can buy a discounted ticket and they can raise money for their cause remotely. That's something that you could consider if you're selling tickets to a 5k or an event like that. Finding ways to adjust that are simple and easy and really just about messaging as opposed to having to pull a new fundraiser out of thin air and get it off the ground are going to be a much better use of your resources if it's at all a possibility for the nature of your event. If you're using Mighty Cause for your event, and I really don't want to spend a ton of time trying to sell you on the product during this webinar. We really just want you to take tools away from the webinar that you can use to adjust course for your spring fundraiser. But if you're using Mighty Cause for your event, the good news is that it's already optimized for online fundraising. That is the default on Mighty Cause as well as other platforms. So people can donate and participate remotely and it's mobile responsive so that people can participate from their smartphones if they need to. You can manage ticket sales and registration through our event by right integration if you're using us. And if you already have an event or a team set up, just eliminate the in-person component and move it online. And you can email participants through the participants tool on events. So on our platform at least this should be a relatively easy and painless process. Since Mighty Cause is built for online fundraising, it really shouldn't be too much of a lift to just move it online. You're basically just dealing with the in-person component. The online portion of your event can basically just continue as is with some announcements to the participants and maybe just adding some more information to your about section. So that's the good news is that a lot of the tools we're using, even for in-person events, if you're using Mighty Cause or if you're using another platform, a lot of them are just already set up so that online fundraising is the default and the rest is extra. So you just want to focus on the online portion and get rid of the in-person portion if that's what you're planning on doing. So I wanted to actually walk through an example of how to make this happen. So I have this fictional doggy dash that I had planned for the spring. We were planning on a 5k with dogs where people were running with their dogs and we've already got sponsors involved. We've promised them booth space and goodie bag promotion, meaning that their flyers are in the goodie bag and a few are providing things like pens and styluses and magnets and stuff. We sold our tickets through Eventbrite and we even have a matching grant that's available to double what people raised for our charity. We've got runners signed up, tickets are sold, fundraising has been underway for a while. So what on earth are we going to do now with this fictional doggy dash? Well, first our event is in April and there's no way anyone can say that life will be back to normal and coronavirus will be slayed by then. So we decided to fully cancel the in-person event and move it to being an online-only event. We contacted some key people to let them know. First we talked to our sponsors. These are people who were counting on booth space and promotion, so we're going to let them know that we're still including them in promotions for the event. We'll promote them on social media and we'll also make sure to include them in our next in-person event to make sure that they get the maximum benefit from their involvement. For ticket holders, we're still holding the online event, but we're keeping ticket refunds as an absolute last resort. We're hoping that people will still participate digitally, but for those who were set on the 5k it was really important to them to show up in person and run with their dog. We're going to offer to roll their tickets, their ticket purchase into the next 5k or event or offer tax receipts for the price of the ticket so they can be considered donations. We'll give refunds if people really, really want them, but we're not advertising that. We need the cash flow right now and the event is still technically happening and we're going to do that on a case-by-case basis. If someone contacts us and they really, really want a refund, we'll consider it then, but this is how we're portraying it to people who are participating in the event is we're still having the online event. You can, there are some options to roll your ticket purchase into the next event or next year's 5k or turn it into a charitable donation with a tax receipt and we're only considering refunds on a case-by-case basis. And then we also need to contact the venue. We have permits, we have, we have a venue for this event and we want to let them know as soon as possible. We want to see if we can get a refund or potentially roll the deposit that we paid on this venue into next year's event. We're planning on using them, we're securing future business with them and we're going to see if we can roll the deposit into next year's deposit just to maintain good relations with that venue and also see what we can do to sort of save money in the long run. So here's how we're going to message those two participants. We're basically saying we're still in if you are. We're asking them to keep doing what they're doing, keep raising money and keep and give them the opportunity to compete in the 5k on their own time on their own schedule at their own pace. Whether that's in their neighborhood, taking a walk or on their treadmill or just in spirit, they don't necessarily have to go anywhere and walk. We're going to get a little bit cute and spend this as an opportunity and to get out and get some fresh air and exercise while everybody's working remotely and giving them a goal to motivate them to do so. So we want them to complete the 5k, they can do it in fits and spurs as it suits them. We're emphasizing that their support is vital to our nonprofit during this time just to drive home the fact that we're still counting on them showing up for us even if it's just digitally and that this was about more than just running. This was about supporting a nonprofit that's serving their community and to help build camaraderie and fun online. We're also going to ask that people share photos of themselves working on their 5k goal with their dogs using the hashtag that we created, hashtag virtual doggy dash. And we're going to like and share and comment and interact with these people on social media, which also has a benefit because they're helping us generate content for our social media accounts. So this is a great way that we can get people involved. We can get them building camaraderie and making friends with each other and having fun and still participating without actually having that in-person component. So to make sure that everybody knows about the shift to a virtual 5k, and again this is not unprecedented for an event like this to be virtual, so this is not a completely outside of the box thing. These do exist. Here's what we're going to do to communicate that to everybody who's involved. We're going to update the about section on our event page on Mighty Cause, so it's clear that the in-person 5k has been canceled and we're moving operations online. So the 5k itself still exists, the doggy dash still exists, but we're moving it online. And we're sending out emails through the participants dashboard and also sending out a blast to all the participants and people who have tickets using our email marketing program. We're posting an update on social media and reinforcing that by sharing updates of people walking with their dogs for the virtual doggy dash, they're participating in the event and helping us spread the word. And then finally, we've already got our goodie bags assembled, so we're just going to offer to send them by mail. We have people's addresses, so we're just going to get them the swag that they want and get our sponsors the exposure that they were looking for by mailing them the goodie bags. All right, so some tips for canceling or postponing your event. Number one, and this is really important, do not offer panic refunds for tickets. Many ticket holders have already spent this money and they're not going to harass a non-profit for a refund. You may want to offer to send tax receipts to them so that they can write their ticket purchase off as a donation. And if it's at all possible for you, you should try to roll your event into being online only, as with the example I just gave of the virtual doggy dash, so that you don't even have to really offer refunds. Get creative, see how people can participate remotely, so that you at your nonprofit don't have to take the financial hit of offering refunds and can still see the fundraising benefit. One thing I did want to chat about is that some nonprofits, especially food pantries, hunger organizations, senior organizations, health orgs, and so on, there are really just in the thick of it right now in communities and don't really have the space to think about a walk-a-thon or other event and that's also 100% okay. It's fine to cancel because you just don't have the resources to focus on this right now and move on to other strategies which we're going to talk about in the second half of this webinar. It's also really important to remember that you do not need to apologize. You did not create the coronavirus pandemic. This was fully out of your hands. Sometimes with donors we can sort of default to being apologetic and subservient and doing whatever it takes to make them happy and I'm certainly not recommending that you need to be combative here but you do not need to apologize. You're protecting public health by canceling the in-person component of your event and you just need to keep your donors and supporters informed and let them know the facts. I mention it because when we approach something with an I'm sorry mindset we're setting it up so that people react to us expecting some kind of amends because we're saying that we're at fault but you're really not at fault for having to cancel your event because there was a national emergency so it's really truly not necessary to come at this from a perspective of I'm sorry and to that end you really just want to emphasize that you're not just canceling or postponing events because you felt like it you're doing it for the good of the community and at the recommendations of experts in public health and in some cases under government mandate you don't have a choice. I know my state is now limiting I'm in Virginia our state is not allowing any gatherings of 50 or more people a lot of states are doing the same thing. There's nothing you can do to get around that you're doing it for public health and if your state has a shelter in place or stay at home order in effect this is all just done to protect the most vulnerable people in your community and you'll want to use this discussion to segue into how people can support your nonprofit during this time because you will be talking to your supporters and people want to know what they can do they want to know how they can help you. So I wanted to take a moment and talk specifically about giving events. I know we probably have some people on this webinar who are planning to participate in a spring giving event on Mighty Cause or on another platform and I know that there's a little bit of anxiety around this issue because I managed some spring events and I'm hearing rumblings about some anxiety about whether it's okay to participate or how to participate especially if there was an in-person component to your campaign. So I wanted to make sure that we address this issue if you're not participating in a giving event on Mighty Cause or another platform this may be a great time for a bathroom break but I just wanted to make sure that we address this specific concern. The great thing about giving events is that these are designed to be online events and they encourage online giving so really I just want to make sure that everybody who's participating in a giving event knows that you do not need an in-person event even if that's what you have always done for this particular giving event. So please feel free to apply the strategies we just went over if you're canceling an in-person event so that you can refocus on online giving. You can also rethink your campaign a bit and if your needs have changed especially in the wake of coronavirus and especially if your org is one that's really stepping up to help your community right now you can sort of retool your campaign so it focuses specifically on that that may be a stronger campaign message. And I know that there's always a contingent of donors who want to give cash and check donations and now is really the time to push them to give online instead remind them that they can also do it from their smartphones if they insist they are no good at computers they may have a smartphone that they can use to make a donation and if they absolutely insist on cash or check just have them mail it in so that you don't need to have a drop-off location during your event that's something that we hear a lot at Mighty Cause that people like to be able to be present to accept cash and checks if you can get those through other means we definitely recommend that or if you can use that as an opportunity to push people to give online that overall helps you during the event because you're sending traffic to your page and you're getting those online donations. One concern I'm hearing is that nonprofits are shifting gears to respond to the coronavirus and the needs of the community that they operate in and there's just not enough manpower or woman power to participate in an event. Well we're going to talk about this more soon but this is the perfect opportunity to onboard some volunteers who can help you out. There are a lot of skilled knowledge workers and marketers and fundraisers with extra time on their hands who would love to help you out so don't think that you have to handle it all on your own you can absolutely enlist volunteers to help you with running a giving event campaign. So just as a bit of housekeeping you'll want to add information about any changes to live events to your organization's profile and about section just to make sure that people know what's up and this is another strategy we'll get into but peer-to-peer fundraising can be your savior here if you really just don't have the resources to focus on a giving event campaign because you still raise money through peer-to-peer fundraisers and all you have to do is facilitate and ask people to do it for you. So if your event is on Mighty Cause this is part of the giving event game anyway a lot of giving events have specific leaderboards for peer-to-peer fundraising and specific prizes and at Mighty Cause this is something we talk about in our trainings for giving events is peer-to-peer fundraising so this is a great opportunity to really figure out how to make that work for you. Peer-to-peer is really easy for people to do remotely they don't have to go anywhere or meet with anybody and it's also a really great time to rope in your board. They have fundraising as one of their responsibilities as members of the board of directors so don't be afraid to ask your board you can also ask volunteers any businesses that you partner with individual supporters on social media and so on so don't be afraid to ask for help with peer-to-peer fundraising if the option is either don't participate in the giving event and miss out on prizes and additional exposure or just have people do peer-to-peer fundraisers for you. Peer-to-peer is obviously the better answer there and finally if you're really really stuck and you have concerns about your nonprofit's ability to participate please contact your giving event host and they can chat with you and see if there's a way that you guys can make it work or if you decide to remove you from the event but we definitely want to make it clear that you should only consider being removed from the event as a last resort there's lots of other options here and if you are removed from a giving event you're going to miss out on the exposure of the event and probably new donors because that's one of the big things that happens during giving events is you pick up some new donors who were drawn in by the event itself so if you don't have to drop out please don't and hopefully that these hopefully these suggestions can give you some ideas for how you can participate if you're just a little bit thin on human resources right now all right so lastly spring is often gala season so i wanted to take some time to talk about adjusting a spring gala in the current situation so if you were planning a silent auction which is a frequent feature of galas that can be moved online facebook live is a tool that you could use for that and there's a lot of auction tools on online auction tools that you can use that are available you can film any speeches that would have been given at the gala and send them to people who have tickets and speaking of tickets you could get creative here and enter them into a raffle for a special prize or benefit or offer to roll a percentage of the ticket price into next year's event to make it more attractive for people to not ask for refunds on their tickets and you can also just try the honest route and let them know that funding is necessary right now and the tickets that were sold will be used to help fund your cause and offer to give them tax receipts for the tickets so they can be considered deductible donations and they can write them off on their taxes so basically just like with five k's and charity walks and so on you don't want to rush to refund tickets you want to try and try to find something creative that you can offer instead and also just drive home that this is necessary funding for your nonprofit and you don't want to offer refunds if you don't have to a lot of people who tend to you know come to these galas are big supporters of your organization and they'll be willing to to work with you or just take it as a bonus that you know they got entered into a raffle and won a little prize so instead of just calling it a loss and fully canceling the gala you could experiment and see it as an opportunity to try something new like a peer-to-peer challenge for your board of directors or something along those lines something that you could also try is to move it to a virtual gala um zoom or another video conferencing tool could help you pull this off um you can make speeches remotely if you had any performances or special guests planned you can have them join remotely as well and something that could be really fun is if you were working with a caterer or a local restaurant that is normally involved in your gala have them share some of the recipes for the food that would have been served at the gala or for restaurants see if people can purchase meal kits and curbside pickups so they can still enjoy the nice sit-down dinner as part of the virtual gala but there are still ways you can get creative and have a virtual gala you don't necessarily have to across the board cancel it just because of coronavirus it's an opportunity to get creative and find new ways to engage with your donors all right so i wanted to shift gears and move into some broader fundraising strategies that can help you get through this situation um before we really dig into this there's some important important things to remember those of us who were doing nonprofit work for a while can have a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the notion of a recession and clearly remember the times of austerity and uncertainty in 2008 and beyond until the economy recovered but i want to make it clear that there's currently no evidence that this is impacting charitable giving this is new we haven't really seen the effects and this situation is very different than what happened in 2008 so it's hard for us to accurately apply things that happened during that recession to what could be happening shortly and the good news is that the government is currently talking about a stimulus package that will address individuals there they haven't passed anything yet but it will help individuals small businesses and nonprofits they're still talking over the finer points of what that will include but in the meantime some states have already rolled out programs to help small businesses and nonprofits so make sure you know what your state is offering for instance in virginia where i am right now low-interest disaster loans are being offered to small businesses and nonprofits so find that information it's usually on your local state government website and just make sure that you know what's available in case you do need to apply for a loan or a grant or something that your state is offering and one key way that this is different in 2008 is that a lot of people are simply switching to telework instead of losing their jobs obviously unfortunately there are some people who are losing their jobs a lot of people in the service industry are impacted but a lot of white collar jobs are still they still exist they're just moving to remote work so the job market is in a very very different place than it was more than a decade ago and yeah again there's some job losses but it looks like the job market is mostly just shifting especially among knowledge workers so we don't really know what the long term impacts are but places are still keeping employees they're still hiring employees lots of companies especially tech companies are remote only now so it doesn't look like 2008 at this point and finally it bears repeating that people are actively looking for ways to help so i'm personally quite hopeful that the nonprofit sector will just need to adjust for a bit but come out of this on the other side strong and still helping in communities so first off when it comes to fundraising please stay in touch with your supporters don't let communication lapse because you're busy doing field work or just don't really know what to say to them during this period send them emails post on social media and get creative for instance i saw today that a local animal shelter near me had administrative employees working from home but they're doing a live story time on social media which is really fun reading children's books with pets and foster animals in the background that just reinforces their mission and it's really cool to see how creative nonprofits can get during this time necessity is the mother of invention and we're really seeing some cool stuff happen on social media so think outside the box see what other nonprofits are doing and use those communications to reinforce how people can help you that means donations especially recurring ones of volunteering remotely peer to peer fundraising and so on and like the story time idea it's important to stay hopeful people are looking for positive hopeful content that's a little bit distracting from the news cycle so see how you can provide that in a way that stays true to what your nonprofit does and what your mission is lots of people are bored at home and refreshing social media frequently so you may as well be in people's feeds when they're checking out Facebook for the millionth time that day okay so i mentioned this before but now is really the time to loop in volunteers especially if you're low on human resources right now there are lots of people who are at home and looking to stay engaged and productive and they have lots of free time now so think through some jobs for volunteers that you think would be legitimately helpful to your organization things like email marketing posting on social media help with administrative tasks these are all things that you can potentially farm out to volunteers and again there are lots of very skilled people who are just kind of sitting at home looking for ways to help so a lot of times we can think of volunteers in terms of things like physical labor washing dishes sorting through in kind donations in your lobby greeting visitors answering phones but by doing that you're missing out on a lot of really skilled people who could be helping you out also look for fundraising help whether that's through peer-to-peer or helping with your campaign or general fundraising tasks these are things that can be done remotely and will be a huge help to you sometimes we're a little bit nervous about letting volunteers into that area of our nonprofit but it's they can be hugely helpful there are a lot of people with amazing skills who are happy to help with you help you during this period and then stuff like calling and thanking donors can be really helpful at keeping your people engaged and it's easy for people to just do remotely from home you send them a list they thank people and you provide a little script for them again think through what would be most helpful what your nonprofits needs are right now there are a ton of people who work in finance who work in marketing they work in social media or technology who could really be a huge boon to you right now and they're looking for ways to get involved I'm not just making this up people are looking for ways to help so put together some job descriptions and post them if you're on mighty cause and you have an advanced subscription you can use the volunteers tool for that but really something as simple as a google sheet is good enough you just want to ask for what you're looking for what the task involves what kind of experience you're looking for and the numbers of out the number of hours and time commitment that you're looking for for these positions and then just spread the word on social media through email on your website your blog and so on and have a dedicated email address for anyone applying to volunteer for you and make sure that somebody is is responding to these people because it's not a great experience when somebody reaches out to see how they can help and they don't get a response so just make sure you have somebody monitoring that so an example of where some nonprofits are really just knocking it out of the park in this crisis is animal shelters and rescues the screenshot here is from a story in the washington post about how people are turning to animal adoption and becoming foster volunteers in much larger numbers and this is really because many animal shelters have taken pains to invite people to become foster parents to animals at their shelter to help out an animal and adopt an animal at their shelter so that they have a furry companion while they're practicing social distancing working from home and maybe cut off from their normal support system it's I've also seen it spun as a great way to keep your kids occupied when they're home from school a lot of shelters have actually seen adoptions go up since they since people are finally at home and they finally have the time to spend with a new dog or a new cat that they've always wanted but thought they were really too busy for and didn't have time for at least to get them acclimated to their new home shelters have been adapting by asking for people to make appointments to meet animals so they can still send animals home without endangering the public and they're really just hitting this sweet spot of hopeful hopefulness that really hammers home what they do not just for animals but for people and for the public and that's really resonating with people right now so obviously this doesn't work for every nonprofit and shelters do have their challenges some people are surrendering their animals since there was the dog in Hong Kong that had a coronavirus so some some shelters are seeing different effects but this is a really great example of how you can use this situation to deliver a message of hope and also hammer home what you do in your community so back to fundraising strategies this is a great time to focus on getting recurring donations those monthly donations are predictable income that can help keep you afloat and you can spin it to people that way this is an unpredictable time and a small monthly donation will really help get your nonprofit through this period it help you continue helping your community and approaching this as giving in a smaller monthly amount can help people feel that it's a lot more approachable especially in an era of financial uncertainty people may not feel like they have the space to give a lot of money but most people have the space to give $20 every month or so so if you're using Mighty Cause like pretty much every other platform out there we're able to process recurring donations for you and we actually allow the donor to update and edit their donation at any time through their account so the donor has full control over their donation so this is a great way to get more recurring donations and push for ongoing support of your nonprofit and I also wanted to mention that donors can set up a recurring donation through our widget now so if you're using a PayPal button or something else on your website just try installing our widget it makes it even easier for people to set up a recurring donation for your organization and it's a really easy thing to embed it's not any more complicated than a PayPal button and that's a really great way to capture those donations that will help carry you through this period okay so finally peer-to-peer fundraising it's an easy way to help your nonprofit I've talked about it a lot and it really is a great way to engage donors and get income during this period of uncertainty it can be done remotely and it's the kind of thing that a lot of people are looking to do now anyway on Mighty Cause we actually just added a feature a few months ago called fundraiser templates that lets you create a peer-to-peer template that pre-fills certain parts of the page so that your your fundraisers can get published and start raising money even more easily it just helps facilitate it for them in an even smoother and more seamless process this is a really great option if you have limited resources right now and you're just really struggling to focus on fundraising again all you have to do here is facilitate you just have to ask and asking on social media is helpful sending out an email and one thing that I recommend is doing some targeted communications with people who may have fundraised for you in the past so people who've already created fundraisers for you they are probably more than willing to do it again if you just ask them and maybe send them a quick email depending on how big your list is all right so we're in the home stretch and I just wanted to shift gears again and talk for a minute about remote work since I know a lot of non-profit staff are working at home for the first time now and this may be totally new to your organization so working remotely is something that I personally have a lot of experience with because Mighty Cause lets me work from home regularly and we're set up for remote employees so I just wanted to take a minute and talk about remote work for a bit so remote work does have some key differences but managing remote employees is not that different from being a good manager in an office environment first you'll need to communicate probably much more frequently and intentionally as you shift to working remotely for the first time and you'll want to check in and see how people are doing if there are any barriers to working from home and just check in with them because while working from home can seem like a massive privilege and it is it can also be really isolating and harder to stay on task and your routine is kind of thrown into the air and you have to self manage a lot more than you're usually used to in an office environment so when you're managing a remote team it's really helpful to focus on goals rather than hours worked people work at different paces and making sure the work is done when it needs to be done by is the best metric by which to determine whether people are working well not how many hours they sat at their desk or were available in a chat program like Slack it can also be really hard especially if you're new to remote work to avoid the temptation to micromanage I'm a huge fan of ask a manager I highly recommend that you check that blog out and you'll see a lot of horror stories there about bosses who are micromanaging their remote employees by requesting that employees leave their webcam on all day so they can watch them work at their desks bosses who require a minute-by-minute report of what they did throughout the day trying to catch them slacking off and I even read yesterday that a company was literally driving by an employee's house to make sure that they were isolating and not outside doing yard work or whatever so basically just try really hard not to be that manager try to trust your team check in with them and monitor their progress on tasks without trying to manage them just sitting at their desks all day long just because and on that note this is a time to be flexible lots of people have kids that are home from school in my state they just closed schools down for the remainder of the school year so you do need to have some flexibility for that some people might have family members that they're helping to take care of or doing tasks for and some people may just be struggling with anxiety and isolation so now is the time to be a benevolent overseer rather than an unrelenting task manager um to that and you'll want to focus on setting expectations you should hopefully at this point have an org-wide policy about remote work who if anyone is expected to come in and so on you'll want to develop some guidelines for when remote employees are expected to be online how they'll signal to others that they're available using a chat program like Slack is really great for this if you're on Slack then you're available and where this is helpful is in people panicking because they don't know how to contact someone or they need to contact them right now and they need a question answered so they resort to calling and texting them which can make working remotely really difficult and managers need to work individually with employees to take into account their needs their availability and their personal situation and set expectations for their work while they are remote so if you are working remotely for the first time as an employee as a manager just as a person here are some recommendations for doing that successfully first you'll hear this everywhere in every listicle that talks about remote work but develop a daily routine all of those external cues like co-workers who are grabbing lunch or packing their things up at the end of the day those are gone so it's really just on you to make sure that you're staying on task and doing what you need to do and it's also easy to fall into feeling like you've lost grip on time and your schedule so having a daily routine is really helpful and not having that feeling having a work area that is as separate as possible from the rest of your home as possible even if that's a kitchen table working from the couch is bad for ergonomics having a specific spot that you can go to just makes you feel more on for your workday and makes it easier to shut off work when you're physically removing yourself from that dedicated workspace get dressed obviously you don't need to wear a slacks and a blazer but getting dressed is important for mental health and getting your mind into a work mode i'm really bad at this but take a lunch break actually walk away from your desk or your workspace and eat lunch get up and stretch walk around go outside with your dog if you have one even if you have to set reminders for yourself or build this into your calendar and finally set healthy boundaries unplug from your work apps at the end of the day resist the temptation to work late or check in early or check in during your off hours if it's not necessary for you to do so do so and remember that working from home does not mean that you are on call 24 hours a day and finally this is the last slide i wanted to chat about self-care because it's important anytime but it's especially important during a pandemic situation and obviously caring for yourself is important to being effective at your job so schedule some time to unplug totally from the news and from work you can freeze apps on your phone to stop them from delivering notifications or just put your phone in another room if you have a Mac you can mute your notifications so that you can just sort of hunker down and get work done but just make an effort to unplug once in a while stay in touch with your friends and family with digital tools like FaceTime Skype Google Hangouts and so on and i really can't emphasize this enough set some boundaries when it comes to work non-profit employees are really bad at this i've been there myself non-profit employees tend to be very reactionary but that's a bad way to work for your mental health so before you jump to respond to that off hours non-emergency email or text message ask yourself if you really need to or if it can wait until normal business hours you can screen your calls let them go to voicemail during off hours and only respond if it's an emergency and you can even set up a google voice number so that people don't actually call your real phone talk to your colleagues let them know what you need from them whether it's only to reach out after out never only reach out after hours with emergencies or not to contact your cell phone and most importantly when you're stressed remind yourself of how valuable your work is how important your mission is to your community especially as your community is struggling you're one of the helpers the work you do is important and that's just really important to remember especially when things are stressful and feel uncertain everything that you're doing now is going to help your community and it's vitally important all right so i just wanted to open the floor up to questions now so if you have a question for me just type that into the questions box of your go-to webinar panel and we'll try to get to everyone's questions all right give me just a second all right so this is always a question i'm sorry i always tend to answer this at the beginning but we were recording this so you will get a video of this webinar if you wanted to share it with your your staff if you wanted to share it with volunteers if you wanted to just have somebody else watch or you just wanted to keep it for yourself we will circulate a video of this webinar um so somebody thinks that i downplayed the um unemployment filings i mean this is true it's not quite what we saw in 2008 so i was trying to draw a comparison to the great recession obviously things are bad and uncertain now people are feeling the strain um but i wasn't trying to downplay it i was just trying to deliver a message of hope which is that we don't really know that this is going to have long-term ramifications for the nonprofit sector and a lot of people um are keeping their jobs they're still working they're still bringing in money and they're still making charitable donations and this is very different from what we saw in 2008 so it's very easy to apply the logic of this is what happened over a decade ago to what's happening now um but that's really sort of jumping the gun and making assumptions about the long-term impact of this situation so i i do apologize if you felt that way um i am very grateful and thankful to still have a job myself and i certainly did not want to imply that um only white collar workers are important but a lot of people are able to work remotely whereas uh you know over a decade ago if you couldn't come to the office the world was just really not set up for you to work remotely so a lot of people are just able to adjust how they work as opposed to losing their jobs but certainly lots of people are in bad situations and i'm really happy to see that people have risen to the occasion and started collection funds for those people um we have a few going on mighty cause right now so it's really helpful to see that people are already trying to assist people and that we've already got an economic stimulus package that's in the works um so yeah the slides will be available as well as the recording just to answer that question as well um let's see um does mighty cause have a way to hold a silent auction or is there a way to link to another platform um so actually that's a good question um auctions and raffles and things of those nature are one of the things that we cannot do at mighty cause and that's because uh donations are processed through the mighty cause charitable foundation and everybody gets a tax receipt saying that no goods or services were exchanged um for the donation so we don't allow auctions but there are um plenty of tools that do allow that bid pal is one of them i believe um but if you just do a google search for um silent auction tools or silent auction programs you'll you'll be sure to find some there's a lot of review programs out there as well um where you can look at other reviews of nonprofits who've used those platforms for silent auctions um but that is actually one of the things that not mighty cause specifically cannot do because of the involvement of our charitable foundation let's see um have you seen any ways nonprofits have brought galas or luncheons online um at this point i haven't seen it i think we're a little bit early in the season for galas and luncheons um but i think pretty much everything that you can do um is you can do virtually so um you have enough time to adjust course um i think having a virtual gala where you have everybody log into a zoom meeting um and you give speeches remotely i think that could be really fun um if you end up doing that if you end up piloting that please let me know and i'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for that sort of thing i think we're just a little bit early because we're not quite in april yet um but i'm hoping we'll see more of that um definitely nonprofits are getting really creative in how they adjust to the situation so no i haven't personally seen any on the mighty cause platform yet but i hope that some of you who have a gala or a luncheon plan um will try it out and see how it works and and and let me see the results because i think it could be a really great way to engage that audience without having to fully cancel the the um gala um so somebody wants to know if i have any other virtual fundraising ideas besides fund runs yeah so we actually have a lot of uh there's it's almost like so limitless that it was hard for me to put down like what we can do i think a lot of people in the spring at least from what i've seen working for mighty cause tend to do walk the funds um fund runs um but we also see a lot of things in the a fun genre of fundraising that are really great for remote work or to be done remotely um a lot of schools have readathons that could be something that's really fun people are indoors they're not going anywhere so a readathon is a really fun idea um and you could always just have a spring campaign you know you know push your message out there in the way that you normally would like at end of year um you know if you're fundraising for something in particular um fun you know it's what a campaign together around that um but readathons artathons things that people can do at home or at their on their own time are really easy to bring online rather than having an in-person event we do have a whole category of our blog dedicated to fundraising ideas so if you would like to see some more fundraising ideas most of those articles were written by me you can go to blog dot mighty cause dot com or just go to our website mighty cause dot com and just click on the link in the navigation bar for our blog but you can actually just find a whole category of fundraising ideas we have one on spring fundraising ideas we have general nonprofit fundraising ideas there's some for churches there's some for school so there's a lot of content there if you're just sort of looking for inspiration um that you can find in the fundraising category section of our blog um so somebody was curious as to whether everyone is rescheduling events for the fall versus late spring early summer i actually don't know the question the answer to that um you may want to just see if you have any colleagues out there and see what they're doing um you know certain events could certainly just be moved to the fall the problem is with that is that we don't really know what the situation will be like in the fall will it be better will life be back to normal will we have another round of this um so i think people are kind of just defaulting to um postponing or canceling their events or finding some way to move them online so that they don't have to go back to the drawing board again in the fall if something happens and we're not quite back to normal in our country um so i don't have any statistics or data there um but i think most people are just kind of looking and into the immediate future and seeing how they can get revenue coming in in the next few months get through this rough rocky period um and then go from there so i think um you know i'm not really sure what other nonprofits are doing it may vary based on states and how hard they're hit so um it's a really great opportunity if you're part of any like facebook groups um to reach out to your colleagues and see what they're doing because you certainly could just postpone something until the fall that the tricky thing is that that puts the revenue off into the fall um and you want to make sure that you're keeping funding coming in now and we also don't know what the situation will be like in the fall so um i think that's mostly what i'm hearing from nonprofits is that they're just trying to move everything online as best they can um see uh for moving a spring gala online how would you manage the pickup of silent auction items when we have been instructed to keep distance from people and our office is not open to the public that's a really good question um i guess it depends on the state um in a lot of places if you're able to meet with them and keep your distance you could organize a drop off depending on how many um how many items you have to pick up and how cumbersome those items are you could also arrange for a volunteer to deliver the items um if possible to people's homes that people are comfortable with that you could choose a temporary location and just have one employee working there or one volunteer working there and have people distanced or allow one person in at a time to keep distance and you could also just tell them that the pickup is going to be uh to be announced that they will get their item they will get the thing they were promised if it's a time sensitive thing like a gift certificate or something like that where they want to redeem it immediately you can maybe see if they can have it delivered to them but there's some solutions around that i think looking to the retail industry especially small businesses that are considered non-essential a lot of them are moving to allowing a small number of people into a facility at the same time and keeping the six foot distance i've seen stores using markers on the floor to keep people apart from each other um but that could be one way that you could manage that um and you could also just say hey we're still figuring this out you'll get your item um we just need to figure out when and how and you could also just contact the person who who won that item and see what they are comfortable with if they're fine with a volunteer uh driving to their house and dropping it off in their mailbox or their front porch or whatever that may be um but you can you can certainly manage that um and that would be a great situation where a volunteer who you know maybe can spend a day or two driving the items to people's homes um is is a helpful way to um make sure that everybody gets their items um do you have any suggestions for moving raffle drawings online we have around 50 products to raffle that's awesome um and sell raffle tickets at the event is there a way to sell raffle tickets remotely um i believe so again almighty cause we don't allow the sale of raffle tickets um but do some googling i'm sure there's something out there there's a platform for nearly everything um if i can if i can find one that is recommended um i will certainly pass that on in follow-up to this webinar just so you can uh take a look at them and see if they're right for you but i'm pretty sure that there's definitely some uh platforms that you can find um and i'll do some research myself and if i'm able to find some i'll follow up with that information um as well um how do we find the the chat program slack um so slack is what we use at mighty cause um you just go to slack.com they do actually have a discount available for uh nonprofits um so that's worth checking out you can get that get that program for a much cheaper rate as a nonprofit um but slack.com slack.com and i really love them for workflow purposes um you can have different channels where you discuss things so that you can also mute channels that are not important and you don't get and you don't get bombarded with notifications from those channels but it's just a really great way to organize your workflow and keep the communication flowing between your um your staff so slack.com is what i recommend um things like google chat if you're using the google worksuite can also be really helpful they just don't have the the organization tools that slack does um but check out slack they have a nonprofit discount i don't work for slack we use slack at mighty cause but i do highly recommend them as a program um let's see for galas and such how do you think we can handle rights for performances or streaming storytelling tools online or storytelling videos online i'm hearing buzz about authors not being happy about these storytelling videos and wonder about um streaming any other types of live performances and legal ramifications later that's a really good question um definitely make sure that if you are uh streaming something you have the rights to do so if you're using video conferencing and you're not you know putting it up on youtube um that you know maybe a way around that if your gala is for instance through a zoom conference no one would really know if somebody is performing a cover of a pop song in your zoom conference um because it's a limited audience of people and definitely you know you can always email the artist or the company and see if they have if you have rights to it you may also just need to retool and instead of doing something um like by ariana grande for your performance choose something that's in the public domain um if you have any music that you wanted to have performed then uh for story time um i haven't heard that yet um but you know definitely checking with the authors usually that's a good way to go or use things using something where you have a pre-existing relationship or you just say hey can we do this but in most cases you're not trying to profit off them so it could just be grumbling i think uh authors are one of the contingents of artists who are um struggling during this period they can't go on book tours they can't do book signings um but maybe crediting them is a great way saying hey this author's fantastic we love this book go show them some love on their social media page is a way to offer an olive branch um but i don't think that i'm not an expert um you can always check with your attorneys about this but i think as long as you're not using their their art to make a profit of some kind um i think you might be in the clear um but just to be on the safe side you can always reach out to the author beforehand or stick with things that you know aren't likely to cause an issue um you know so that's that's really the easiest answer to that but you can always check with your attorneys if you have any questions about that um copyright law is not really my area of expertise um but i think a lot of nonprofits are doing that kind of thing with um without getting themselves into trouble because usually the author is the one that comes off um badly during that if they they uh you know make a big stink about it um let's see oh this seems fun um we have a jello wrestling event that we had to cancel it brings a lot of money for us based on your experience do you have a recommendation to do that online while keeping it fun that's a tough one um because jello wrestling is something that's a little hard to do remotely um you definitely don't want to have people you know wrestling each other uh during this period in time so um you know that may be a tough one to move online one thing that you could do is if you have video of old jello wrestling matches you could share those with people um and sort of use those as incentive and like hey this is what it's all about um and still have the wrestlers i assume that wrestlers are fundraising as part of the uh the wrestling match event um still have them fundraising that may be leaning on old photos old um old videos and that sort of thing uh to sort of get the idea across but really if if you're using an event where the main idea is fundraising having the people who would participate the wrestlers who would participate still fundraise still get involved that way um and leaning on old content is a safe way to do that um you know i just that's a little trickier because that involves some physical contact and contact and right now obviously we're recommending social distancing um so yeah i mean that's that's a tricky one to move online but you could still do it just have peer to peer fundraising be the centerpiece there rather than the actual wrestling um let's see um is there any financial examples of charging from a physical event to a virtual event um we made 30k with a physical event we made 13k with only a virtual event um so financial like hard financial examples of fund raisers that have taken place on mighty cause i don't have on hand right now um generally you don't since your expenses are a little bit less with a a virtual event you would probably want to offer a discount on ticket prices um and the advice there is to really not lean as much on ticket sales to drive revenue um having a peer to peer fundraising aspect where people are also raising money um in addition to purchasing tickets is a great way to go about it thinking of ways that you can get revenue and donations coming in that are not just based around the ticket sale um so that is it's really i don't have any hard examples of that right now unfortunately um you guys are really asking really fantastic questions um but yeah you might make a little you're going to make less with ticket sales for a virtual event um but you want to just try to make up for that with other streams of donations like peer to peer fundraising having some fundraising challenges in there um just to keep money flowing in um that's not as dependent on ticket sales and purchasing a ticket to a specific event um so yeah i mean i can certainly look into that and see if there are any examples um but it's um it's a little trickier you basically um most events where they do have like a pajama rate or something like that they are offering a discount and it's just looking at um ticket sales as not being the main source of revenue from that particular event and adding um you know a raffle a silent auction peer to peer fundraising whatever it may be adding another component that kind of makes up the difference okay um this isn't really a fundraiser but some nonprofits utilize teams like mission teams how do you think that refunds should be handled with those um so that's really interesting we do have a lot of mission trip fundraisers on mighty cause um i would really check in with the people who have raised money for those trips um you know has the money been spent yet is it still available um will there be a mission trip in the future that you can just sort of roll this fundraising into um a lot of the people who donate to mission trip fundraisers are families of the people who are going on the mission trip so grandma grandpa aunt aunt sue and uncle jim those are people who are generally not going to be hard pressed for a refund um for a mission trip fundraiser um so it may just be a matter of looking at who the the donors actually are a lot of them are going to be family members and family friends who are not going to be super stressed about um a refund um but certainly you know looking at the future of that that trip is that trip still going to happen at an undetermined future date um and maybe just reframing the fundraiser for the mission trip itself is hey we don't actually know when this is going to happen but we have a specific plan to go to this particular place and do this thing um as part of our our faith mission um and just keep fundraising under that premise that this is for a future mission trip um and it's also going to help the church um during this time because a lot of churches are not able to uh have gatherings at their premises so you can spin it that way and sort of make it a general fundraiser for the church and a future mission trip so that is probably the easiest way to handle that but there we haven't really we get a lot of requests for refunds that might cause most mostly mission trips because it's family and family friends are really not as pressed about getting um getting a refund for their donation to you know stay a family member's mission trip fundraiser so hopefully that helps um but if you have a specific situation you can always contact me and we can sort of troubleshoot that okay so for online auctions and donate and you if you guys would like to go I know that we're up we're past our time but I want to try to answer all of these questions um as much as I can but this will be recorded if you have another meeting or something that you need to go to but I just want to go through all of the questions because you guys are asking some amazing questions um so for online auctions and donated items such as gift certificates health clubs etc from small businesses with expiration dates how would you suggest offering them with the uncertainty of the business um that's a great question I would maybe reach out to the the business um like if you had a spa like obviously spas are not open in a lot of places see what they're doing because likely yours is not the only gift certificate or gift card that they had um so they may be willing to extend the expiration date on those or accept them indefinitely um so I would reach out to the businesses and question and see what the situation is there um obviously if they're not in operation um you know those can't be redeemed but they might be flexible with gift cards um because of the fact that a lot of them have had to close down and people are buying gift cards and gift certificates sort of to promise them future business and help them get through this period so that would be my recommendation is to just reach out to the businesses um and see what they are willing to do because a lot of times they're going to be flexible because they don't have any other option but to be flexible with accepting gift cards and gift certificates um and just communicate that to the people during the auction okay so can mighty cause link to the silent auction platform as a follow-up question so that we can have an online component and connect the silent auction via bidpal for example because of the we have to follow IRS regulations we can't allow auctions period on mighty cause there can be no goods or services exchanged for a donation on our platform so we don't actually have a an integration with any sort of online auction platform um I can always bring that back to the team and see if that's something that we could consider in the future but at this point um we don't have any integration because of that tax deductibility conflict that comes into play um with uh auctions and raffles and things of that nature um what do you see as the pros and cons of postponing a spring gala slash event to the fall um yeah I mean there's there are some pros to it um you know that way you have a definite date in the future when you know you're having this event um the big con is really that you're kind of kicking the can down the road um and possibly upending any fall plans you had so if you had a fall fundraiser planned um usually in october is when things really start to kick into gear for the fall at nonprofits you may be sort of bumping another fundraiser for this fundraiser that may have that was supposed to happen in april or may so it kind of just further destabilizes your fundraising calendar um and your fundraising plan that may be something that your nonprofit is absolutely fine with maybe you don't have things planned out a year in advance and that's 100 fine and so that is something that you can consider the other con and thing to think about is are we going to be in a better situation in the fall and do we know that um at this point we really don't know what the fall is going to bring um I'm not a public health expert but I have seen that um you know the cdc and and experts from the world health organization are saying that there could be another round of this in the fall so that is something to think about do we want to kick the road kick the can down the road into you know september or october and then find ourselves in the same situation where we have to rethink an event so it's up to you and whatever works best for your nonprofit if you feel comfortable sort of rescheduling it for the fall then you know you can absolutely do that with the the knowledge that we don't really know for sure what the fall is going to look like in terms of the virus and the precautions that we'll have to take um so that is something to think about is that we just really don't know the future of what's going to happen with us and where we'll be at and whether the United States will be at full operation again I sure hope we will um but if there's so many question marks at this point that my recommendation would be sort of to get this done get your fundraising event done with to the extent that you can with the tools that you have now so that you have the revenue stream coming in you have the donations coming in and when we get to fall you can go forward with another plan another event or situate fundraising effort without having to you know do something that was meant for the the spring so staying on schedule and keeping that that fundraising revenue coming in I think is probably the most important thing because we just don't know what September or October is going to look like at this point um can we send personalized thank yous through the mighty cause platform with our organization's updates um yeah so you can do that you can email donors through I think the supporters tool that is an advanced subscription feature so on our starter plan which is our free plan um you cannot do that and we're looking at adding some more email marketing tools into our um fundraising suite in the future um but you can do some personal emailing through mighty cause um through the supporters tool which is our CRM tool um so if that's something you're interested in um you can start a free trial of mighty cause advanced and check out the tools one of them is the supporters tool where you can actually individually contact donors or you can just sort of click through a list and contact certain kinds of donors it's got a lot of really cool features such as um you can filter um create filters so that you can easily segment certain types of supporters donors volunteers fundraisers etc and actually use an email function through the platform so um if you are interested in that check out mighty cause advanced and start your free trial and that is an option that's available to you and can make this a little bit easier if you don't have um have an email marketing program let's see um oh this is an interesting one do you think direct mail will be affected um i'm actually not sure so the big mail centers are probably would guess are considered essential operations in the united states so i'm not quite sure um what the effect will be certainly a lot of marketing agencies like the direct mail companies are able to work remotely and i think that the mailing houses that they use are considered essential they're usually not just handling your mailers they're usually handling other mail as well so as far as i know the postal service is not going to be affected usually the marketing companies are able to work remotely with the exception of the the printers and the mail houses and i think at least the mail houses are probably going to be considered essential but it's if you have a company that you're using check in with them see what they're doing hopefully they would have reached out to you at this point to explain how their operations might be affected but that's a good question i think as long as the mail is going and the company itself is able to handle things remotely you'll probably be not see direct mail affected unless this continues for a lot longer i think at the very most you might see a delay in certain mailers going out but certainly reach out to the company that you're using if you haven't gotten in touch with them yet or heard anything from them oh somebody has a recommendation for raffles they recommend silent auction pro so that's one to check out and has a personal recommendation from lisa on the webinar if you're looking for an auction webinar an auction tool to use let's see i'm just scrolling through the questions what if your non-profits mission cannot be carried out during this time i.e. is it a school-based program any thoughts on how to seem relevant when so many other missions are critical at this time that's also a really fantastic question i mean obviously there's going to be a spotlight on certain kinds of organizations during this time food pantries health organizations public health organizations even animal shelters things like that are they're going to draw more attention but your mission is still important and you know it's it can be mean shifting your focus a little bit you know you don't want to have the impression that you don't feel that your mission is important because it is even if you're doing a school-based program or you're in education those are extremely critical right now you could consider if your operations have kind of shuttered working with another aligned organization in the area to see how you can help for instance when it comes to education and school-based stuff you know why not partner with a non-profit that handles school lunch debt a lot of those non-profits are really springing into action to help you know students stay fed food pantries sometimes have you know a program that's helping school students stay fed during schools being closed because unfortunately for a lot of kids the school lunch that they get is the only guaranteed meal of the day that they're you know provided so figuring out within your community if you can form alliances build a coalition work with other non-profits just to you know get involved in your area of work area of concern you know your your mission is still relevant because this is temporary and you know we don't know how long it's going to last but every non-profit's mission is important now and for a school-based program even if it's you know an arts program that's still incredibly relevant what do you what are you doing for students you may not be able to sort of use coronavirus as your hook look at all of the great things we're doing especially if your operations are shuttered but definitely having an appeal that says hey we're still we're still an organization we're planning on helping students in the following ways and really hammering home that you're still here you're still you're still doing what you can to help students if you're in an education program or whatever your area of concern may be staying in contact you don't have to email them every day or as frequently or as aggressively as other organizations that are more directly affected might but still keep fundraising and talk to them honestly about you know our services are shuttered at the moment but we're still doing x y and z or just offering your support to another organization in the area or partnering with another organization in the area to sort of become more relevant to what's happening those are all things that you can consider oh okay i sorry if i didn't answer this during the course of the webinar but probably should know this by now which is not true because i didn't tell you but what do you mean by peer-to-peer and this is our last question by the way so peer-to-peer fundraising is a fundraising technique where you ask your supporters to fundraise on your behalf on mighty cause they get their own page with its own url where they can sort of talk about what they're doing and why and they can ask their social network to fundraise to i mean to donate to the cause so this is a really effective way to get your board involved having a board peer-to-peer challenge basically the name comes from is it's a somebody's asking their peers to donate to your cause so you're kind of deputizing people in your community to fundraise on your behalf a great example of this is facebook fundraisers when people start birthday fundraisers that's all peer-to-peer fundraising so when i say peer-to-peer i really mean just asking somebody outside of your nonprofit at least outside of your you know they're representing themselves rather than representing your nonprofit to fundraise and ask their social network to support a cause that they care a lot about and this is a really great way for board members volunteers and even staff members to get involved just to sort of create a fundraiser page where they say hey this cause is really important to me i work with them in the following way this is why i care about them this is my story about how i came to be involved with them and i'd like everybody to donate to them during this period to help them you know keep doing what they're doing that can be really powerful so we do have a tool set up for that on mighty cause it's very simple for them to create their fundraiser the button to do that is right next to the donate button so they just need to go to your mighty cause profile click fundraise and they will be dropped into a fundraiser creation wizard but that's what that means is you're not doing the fundraising you're kind of farming it out to your supporters but that's a really great way to get around things like staff shortages and questions about how how you're going to find the time to fundraise if you're out in your community every day helping during this situation so it's basically if i work for a nonprofit me as a as a staff member me linda the individual saying hey i work for this nonprofit we're doing this it's really great it's my birthday instead of presents i would like for you to donate to this cause because i care so much about it and then getting all of my family and friends to donate which is a really great donor acquisition tool because what we see with peer-to-peer is that for the most part the donors to a peer-to-peer campaign are new to the organization so that's another really great thing that comes out of peer-to-peer fundraising aside from you sort of offloading the the work of fundraising onto someone else and a lot of these things do just pop up organically as in with birthday fundraisers but now is a time when it's really okay and encouraged to invite people to fundraise for you to help you out all right so thank you guys so much i don't even know what time it is it is almost 4 30 so we're about half an hour over if you guys have any other questions please feel free to reach out to me at linda at mightycause.com i'm happy to chat through this with you and offer my support and stay safe out there happy fundraising and try your best to get through this the nonprofit sector persevere that's what you have always done and you will continue to do thanks and have a great day