 Hi everyone. We've just got another minute or so where we'll let everybody get logged on. If you are logged on, if you could just let me know if you can hear me well and see me flip through the first couple of slides, that would be really helpful. You could just put yes or no into the questions box of your GoToWebinar panel and that would just let me know that you are able to see and hear me, so I'm not talking to the ether. Awesome, it looks like everything's fine. So what I'm going to do is just put myself on mute for another minute and then we'll just get started right at the top of the hour. All right, well hello everyone and welcome to our webinar on Moving Your Spring Fundraiser Online. My name is Lynda Gerhardt and I'm the Senior Community Engagement Manager here at Mighty Cause. I've been with the Mighty Cause team since 2016 and before that I worked pretty much exclusively for the nonprofit sector in marketing and communications. So I have experience being in the trenches where you are and I hope that I'm able to bring that perspective to this webinar and give you some helpful information. My email address, if you ever want to chat with me about fundraising strategy and my area of specialty is marketing and communications, you can always feel free to shoot me a line at lyndaatmightycause.com. 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 going to talk about really great spring fundraisers we've had on the platform and hoping to leave you inspired to start your spring charity walk or your fun run but obviously I needed to adjust course here. It's a little bit of an anxious time among nonprofits. I don't know if there's a way for me to cover every single fundraising scenario that nonprofits are facing right now but again I'm hopeful that this content will address some of your biggest challenges and concerns for fundraising during a pandemic and you'll leave with some solid ideas for adjusting course for the spring and staying funded through this rocky period and just as a bit of housekeeping I'll be taking questions at the end of the presentation so if you think of something you'd like to ask while I'm typing or you have a question in mind already you can just type that into the questions box of your go-to webinar panel and we will make time for it at the end. We did have a webinar this same slide deck I made a few changes on Tuesday and we had a very active Q&A session so I hope you're able to stick around for that. There were a lot of really great questions if you that summed me but I'll do my best to respond to every question you have. All right so we're going to start off by fun 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 a placeholder because I was trying to figure out what kind of imagery was appropriate but I decided to just leave them in because as I was building this they made me happy so I think we need a little bit more calm serene pictures of cute animals and fewer scary pictures of the virus that were put through 20 different layers of grunge and Photoshop to make it look extra spooky empty shelves at grocery stores and crowded hospitals and that kind of content. So these pictures make me happy I hope they make you happy too definitely not trying to make light of the situation but they ended up as placeholders and they stayed there permanently so I hope you enjoy kittens and puppies as much as I do. So I don't want to spend a ton of time dwelling on the negative here but why is this pandemic such a big deal for nonprofits and what are the challenges and fears that nonprofits are facing right now? Well obviously because of social distancing all of those amazing spring events that nonprofits have been planning for months and in many cases had already put down deposits on at venues and been working on actively and have invested in really just can't happen now they're not possible because of limits on gatherings they needed to be canceled, post-poned indefinitely or just completely reimagined. So that fundraising plan and that calendar you put together just months ago with projections about how much money that's going to bring in for your nonprofit that is completely upside down at this point and we literally have no idea how long this will last because the situation is kind of unprecedented in our lives the virus is in control here. Many nonprofits have had to press pause on their fundraising efforts and throw all of their resources into serving their communities to help them get through this which can place an even bigger strain on the human resources and finances that are available and finally the experts are saying that we are headed toward a recession and there's any time there's an economic downturn or crisis the nonprofit sector really just braces for impact because if people are broke and the economy is bad then we worry about what effects that will have on charitable giving. But the good news and I do want to focus on some good news in times like these we tend to immerse ourselves in fear and there's actually quite a bit of good to concentrate on. First of all most modern nonprofits are already utilizing digital fundraising channels like Mighty Cause like other platforms to raise money for their causes because online fundraising and marketing is just part of the nonprofit landscape in 2020. So as a sector we're really very well set up to adjust to this new situation where we can't have big gatherings of people because for many nonprofits the actual giving happens online anyway and the in-person stuff is just a chance for building community and camaraderie and having a good time but it's not actually necessary to bring in funding and nonprofits and nonprofit donors are on the whole 100% on board with digital giving. Most of people accept it as the standard so it's really not much of an adjustment for donors either because they're already giving online and they're going to continue giving online and one of the cool things that is always really great to see when things are bad and scary and people they just want to help. They're already looking for ways to help and we've already seen that happening organically. People are putting together lists of nonprofits in their community that they're circulating on Facebook and other places. They're starting relief funds for restaurant workers and artists and other people who may be impacted you know and not be able to make a living during this time of social distancing and the helpers of the world are already springing into action. It's really only been a few weeks since everything has been turned upside down and people are already going in at making the world a better place and trying to help everybody in their community get through this. So that's really inspiring to see and there's even more good news. So this situation is not like the great recession of 2008 but there were some studies done on the effects of recessions on charitable giving that came out of that whole crisis and what they found was actually that economic ups and downs and changes are much more moderate for nonprofits than they are for the overall economy. So when the economy takes a nosedive charitable giving takes a small spill and when the economy recovers charitable giving gets a moderate boost but it's not dramatic or drastic and charitable giving remains relatively steady with small bumps up and down when there's a situation in the economy happening. The other thing we know is that charitable giving has been trending toward digital philanthropy and fundraising for more than a decade at this point and each year it only increases and that's the big difference I really want to harp on between 2008 and now because I was there when that recession hit I was working for a non-profit and most of our revenue came from cash and checks and a few big in-person fundraising events each year where we literally had a room full of volunteers who were opening envelopes and counting cash but the space of online giving really wasn't quite there the technology wasn't there yet but now we are there we have a plethora of really great platforms to choose from and nonprofits are already set up on those platforms so this is not as much of a shift to move away from those envelopes of cash we've already done that we're there and one thing that we've seen is that some types some kinds of nonprofits actually see a bump in charitable giving during a crisis so in this particular situation organizations like medical organizations food pantries organizations that assist seniors they're likely to see a little bit of an increase because their services are becoming more visible in their community so it may be actually in a way good news for funding for certain organizations that are on the front lines and serving their communities in a really visible way so before we get to the fundraising I really want to talk about public relations and marketing during a situation like this because I think that's really important and it's at the center of what we're going to be talking about on today's webinar when you get down to it even though this particular situation is a little bit unfamiliar this is basic crisis management right so let's go through what that means and what the steps are for managing a crisis at your nonprofit first leadership at your organization will need to get together and make some tough decisions which you may have already done but you'll want to include your executive director your development director operations managers and possibly your board chair and then make a plan what are you doing with your spring event are you canceling are you going to postpone it are you going to go back to the drawing board and reimagine it if you have public hours what are you doing are you staying open to the public and on a limited basis are you considered essential what are your staffing needs can people work from home or do you need people to come in how are you managing to keep your staff safe and volunteers safe and then you'll need to sketch out a plan for disseminating that information with your constituency and relay it to your board of directors as well as your staff your volunteers there those are all people who are going to want to know what you're doing and need to have an active interest in knowing what's happening and then you'll want to relay that to the public as well so that's what we're going to move into talking about one of the biggest public relations tips in general and especially when you're talking about managing a crisis is that whatever the crisis may be or the situation is be honest with the public when you're honest and transparent about your situation as an organization it makes people trust your organization it helps you build your credibility and your reputation so you'll want to frankly discuss how the coronavirus is affecting your operations what are you doing share the facts with people and discuss what you're doing to protect your staff the people you serve your volunteers and so on excuse me you'll also want to talk about what you're doing to serve your community and your constituency we highly recommend that you make this a personal communication as a personal message from your executive director to make it feel even more honest and one-to-one which you can see modeled for you in the landslide of emails everybody has been getting from the CEO of every company that's ever had your email address telling you what their company is doing for coronavirus you may not want to send an email out just like them but that's what you're seeing and that's because that's good public relations it makes it feel more honest and personal and transparent you also want to be proactive you want to try to get ahead of it so give everybody involved your stakeholders your sponsors your attendees any ticket holders donors volunteers and so on as much notice as you possibly can and then try to think through any logistics so you can get ahead of any questions that might come in for instance refunds and ticket sales which we're going to talk about a little bit later and if you're still in discussions at your nonprofit that's 100 fine it's still fairly early but it's okay to say hey we're still talking about this and we'll be in touch as soon as we have more information for you but basically you don't want the public to have to come to ask you what you're doing because that erodes trust and you want to tell them everything they need to know before they even think to ask again public safety is the name of the game here so talk about what steps you're taking to keep everybody safe and also discuss how coronavirus is impacting things for your nonprofit what's different what's changed do you have different hours and if you have an organization where staff still needs to report every day like an animal shelter or a place that helps people with disabilities or the senior community you might still have to have people there how are you keeping people safe so discuss all of those things and be proactive and try to think ahead of what people might typically ask you and I do also really highly recommend trying to keep things hopeful people are feeling a lot of panic and anxiety right now people are getting burned out by the news cycle and the millions of emails they're getting every single day about the virus so be mindful of that and try to deliver a message of hope that's one thing that nonprofits can really do well is deliver that message of hope focus on the helpers the things that your staff and volunteers are doing to serve the community inspiring moments you've seen play out because times like these are often when we see these little amazing displays of humanity from people so share those stories and use positive language and imagery I'm not saying you have to use a bunch of baby animals like I did here but just try to choose images that convey a sense of hope and not like again pictures of crowded hospitals people and masks empty grocery store shelves and that sort of thing because it stresses people out and makes them want to turn away so for instance if you were a food pantry and you were talking about your services instead of showing the empty grocery shelves you would show the abundance that is being delivered to your pantry so that you can serve your community and that's just a way to keep things hopeful hopeful and positive and keep people engaged in what you're telling them and what your work is all right so now we're going to talk through the logistics of moving your spring fundraiser online if you already have a fundraiser that you've been working on now I've tried to provide some examples of a lot of common spring fundraisers in this section it does not cover every single possible scenario because there are so many fundraisers out there but hopefully you can take the information in this section of the presentation and apply it to your fundraiser even if it's not a one-to-one match even if it's not the exact same fundraiser okay so the first step to moving your fundraiser online is obviously notifying everybody involved and that means your sponsors your staff your volunteers and your venue if you have one even if at this point you're just postponing because you want to see how things will play out because who knows by June we might be in a much better place I really recommend having a go no go zone a date where you'll make a final decision and you'll announce it so all of these people are just not left in limbo you don't have to scramble last minute you have a date where you're going to make a final decision and also having a plan a and a plan b so if everything's great in June and you've postponed your event or whatever date you've chosen this is plan a and if not this is plan b here's what we're going to do and communicating that to the people who need to know and letting them know what to expect so that they're not just waiting with bated breath they have a couple of courses that could happen and they know which what's what to expect based on what's happening in the community and in the world so then especially if you've decided to move your event to being online only you'll need to start adjusting course so think about your event structure and strategy is there any value in keeping the event structure can you make the event fully remote or do you just completely need to retool it to make it work online do you need to have one that's more focused on coronavirus and your efforts to help in your community in terms of adjusting course and just sort of moving it online there are plenty of cute ways you can spin what was supposed to be an in-person event into a digital event for instance a walkathon could be completely digital with people completing their pledge distance on their own time at their own pace at home from a safe distance from other people something that marathon sometimes do is offer people a pajama rate so that people can buy a discounted ticket and raise money for their favorite cause remotely whether or not they work or they walk or compete in the marathon so can you switch to that strategy if you're still selling tickets and that's an important part of your strategy for your fundraiser so finding ways to adjust that are simple and easy as opposed to having to pull a new fundraiser out of thin air are going to be a much better use of your time and resources to help you do this quickly and seamlessly if it's at all a possibility for you obviously there's some fundraisers where you may not be able to just move it online and you may have to rethink things but if you can make small adjustments to the messaging to the mechanics of how the fundraiser works these are going to help you more easily move it online without having to go back to the drawing board completely and if you're using Mighty Cause for your event the good news is that it's already optimized for online fundraising people can donate and participate remotely it's mobile responsive so people can use their smartphones you can manage ticket sales registration through our event bright registration and if you already have an event or a team set up on Mighty Cause all you need to do is just eliminate the in-person component and move it online and you already have the infrastructure set up through Mighty Cause to do that or if you're using another platform for a team you know that fundraising so our platform at least this should be relatively easy since Mighty Cause is built for online fundraising it really shouldn't be too much of a lift for you to move it online because you've got that scaffolding there to support you 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 adding some new information to your about section excuse me all right so just to sort of put these these ideas into practice I wanted to actually talk through an example of how to make this happen with an actual fundraiser so I put together a completely fictional doggie dash that we had planned for this spring at my fake nonprofit that I've only got for the purposes of this presentation so we were planning on having a 5k with dogs in April and we've already got sponsors involved we've promised them booth space and goodie bag promotion meaning their fliers are in the goodie bag and if you have even provided things like pens and styluses and magnets for the goodie bag we sold our tickets through Eventbrite and we have our event on Mighty Cause and we also have a matching grant available as well to double what people raised for our charity we've already got runners signed up we've got tickets that have been sold and fundraising has been underway for a while so oh man what do we do now that coronavirus is hit and we can't have our event any more in April well first our event is in April and there's honestly no way we can say definitively that life will be back to normal and coronavirus will be not a threat by then so we've decided to fully cancel the in-person event and move it to being an online only event to let people know we contacted some key people first first sponsors are the these are the people who are counting on booth space and promotion and we want to keep these people on board with us we don't want to lose that their support so we're going to let them know that we're still going to include them in our promotions for the event and mention that they're sponsors we're also going to include their logo on our event page and we're going to include them in our next in-person event just to make sure that they get the maximum benefit from their involvement and since they've already provided items for the goodie bag we're also going to figure that out so that they can get the the benefit from their sponsorship of our event for ticket holders we're still holding the online event but we're keeping ticket refunds as a very last resort we're hoping people will still participate digitally but for those who were set on the 5k will offer to roll their ticket price into our next 5k or event or offer tax receipts for the price of the ticket so that they can be considered charitable donations i'm not saying we won't give refunds if people really want them and they are very emphatic about that but we're not going to advertise that and we're only doing that on a case by case basis so like for instance if somebody says hey i had a bit i paid to participate in this 5k but i just lost my job and i really would need that i would like that money back we're not going to say no but we are going to not encourage refunds from the general public unless there's some sort of extenuating circumstance we're going to try to work with them so they can get the value out of it but we're not going to rush to offer them refunds and then also we need to let the venue know asap we've already got our permits we've got our place chosen and we've got our date down and we've paid a deposit so we want to see if maybe we can get a refund on our deposit or roll our deposit into our next event that we were using that venue for because obviously that's money that's tied up in the event we want to either turn that into an asset that we can use right now or use it for a future event okay so this is how we are messaging this to our 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 we're giving them the opportunity to compete the 5k on their own time on their own schedule at their own pace whether that's in their neighborhood or in a tread on a treadmill or just in spirit if they don't want to walk or run they don't have to and we're going to get a little bit cute too and spend this as an opportunity to get out get some fresh air and exercise while everybody's working remotely and give them a goal to help motivate them to do so do so we're emphasizing that their support is vital to our non-profit during this time to drive fact drive home the fact that we're still counting on them to show up this was about more than just running with your dog this was about supporting a non-profit that's serving their communities so we want to make that crystal clear to them this was not just a run this is about our non-profit and our mission and your community and to help build a camaraderie and build a fun connection and social interaction online we're going to ask that people share photos of themselves working on their 5k goal with their dogs using the hashtag we created virtual doggy dash and we're going to like and share and comment interact with the people who post these things and that has the added goal of these people are helping to promote our fundraiser so they're generating content for us so that is a win all around people get to interact share cute pictures of them walking with their dogs and then we get content that helps us promote our 5k so to make sure that everybody knows about the shift to a virtual 5k here's what we're going to do we're updating the about section on our event page on mighty cause so that it's clear that the in-person 5k has been canceled and we're moving operations online we're sending out emails through the participants dashboard and we're also going to send a blast to participants using our email marketing program program we're posting an update on social media and we're reinforcing that by sharing updates and pictures of people walking their dogs for the virtual doggy dash so stay tuned for cute pictures of dogs on our facebook feed and finally since we've already got our goodie bags assembled we're just going to send them by the mail at this point we haven't heard that the mail service is going to be impacted so we're going to try to send people their swag in the mail and do so while wearing gloves and being conscious about not spreading germs and sending them to people's homes but that way the sponsors can get the the exposure that they were hoping for and we can still get people excited about getting a package with a little bit of swag in it all right so moving on to some general tips for canceling our postponing your event number one and we just kind of demonstrated this with that example is do not offer panic refunds for tickets many ticket holders have already spent this money and they are not going to harass a nonprofit for a refund that is the vast majority of people they bought the ticket to help the nonprofit they might be bummed out but they're not going to knock down your door and say I need my refund so you may want to offer some tax receipts so they can write their ticket purchases off as a donation and if it's at all possible for you you should try to roll your event into being online only just as with the example I just gave so that you don't have to offer refunds there's still an event happening and that people can participate in so get creative see how many people can participate remotely so that you 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 like food pantries hunger organizations senior organizations health organizations and so on are really in the thick of it right now and don't really have the space to think about a walkathon or other event and that is also okay it's fine to cancel because you just do not have the resources to focus on this right now and move on to other funding strategies was which we're going to go over in a moment it's also important to remember that you do not need to apologize you did not create the current coronavirus pandemic and this was fully out of your nonprofits 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 being rude or combative here but you don't need to apologize for something that is not your fault you just need to keep your donors and supporters informed and let them know the facts and I mentioned it because sometimes when we approach something especially with donors with an I'm sorry mindset like we're at fault we're setting it up so that people say yeah you are at fault and they expect some sort of amends but that really truly is not necessary here and to that end you really just want to emphasize that you're not just canceling or postponing the events because you felt like it you're doing it for the good of the community at the recommendations of experts in public health and in some cases under government mandate if your state has a shelter in place or stay at home order in effect and this is all done to protect the most vulnerable populations 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 taking talking to your supporters and they will want to know what they can do to help people are really you know grasping for some kind of control and one of the ways that they can feel like they have some control and they're doing good is by helping nonprofits and that's something that we see a lot with disasters and in situations where people feel helpless is they reach out to help nonprofits because at least that's something that they can do so let them know how they can help you what is best for you all right so I wanted to take a moment and talk 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 elsewhere and I know that there's some anxiety around this issue so if this doesn't make any sense to you this may be a good moment for a bathroom break but because we do have some spring giving events on mighty cause I wanted to take some time to address this specific issue the great thing about giving events is that they are designed to be online events and encourage online giving so really truly you don't need an in-person event even if that's what you've always done for your for this event so please feel free to apply the other strategies we just went over to cancel your in-person component to your your campaign for the giving event and encourage people to give online you can also rethink your campaign a little bit so that it's more relevant so if your needs have changed you can switch up your campaign so instead of just running a general campaign for your organization you're running one that is specific to how people can support you in the wake of coronavirus especially if your organization is really working hard to meet the needs of your community you want to make sure make that part of your campaign make it timely make it relevant and use the campaign to talk about what you're doing in the community I know there's always a contingent of donors and this varies from giving event to giving event but something that I hear a lot is that there's some donors who just insist on giving a cash or a check for a donation now is a great opportunity to push them to give online instead as a reminder they can do it from their smartphones if they would like to if they insist they're no good with computers if they have a smartphone they can make a donation and if they insist on a cash or a check just have them send it in the mail so that you don't need to have a drop-off location during your event which they know that some organizations tend to do what other concern I'm hearing is that nonprofits are shifting gears to respond to coronavirus and the needs of their communities and there's just not enough manpower to participate in an event right now and we're going to talk about this a little bit more soon but this is the perfect opportunity to onboard some volunteers or use the ones who are already connected to your organization who can help you out with your campaign there are a lot of skilled workers out there people who do marketing and fundraising and consulting and all sorts of things with extra time on their hands who are just kind of sitting at home who would love to help you out and lend their expertise in all that they know about this area with you so don't think that you have to handle it all yourselves if you're busy out there in the field every day put up some Facebook posts or send out an email asking for some volunteer help and you'll probably be surprised by how many people step up to the plate and say yes I would love to help you with this giving event campaign tell me what I can do and think outside the box a little bit with volunteers again we're going to talk about this in a minute but a lot of nonprofits underutilized volunteers so now is a great time if you're you're low on man power or woman power to to really make use of volunteers and change how your organization utilizes them so just as housekeeping you'll just want to add some information about any changes to live events to your organization's profile in about section and make sure that other people know what's up and this is another I missed a slide here let me just take a look well a slide moved I'm sorry about that add any information about changes to live events to your organization's profile peer-to-peer fundraising can help you raise money for your event as well so that's something we're going to talk more about it's easy for something for people to do remotely mighty cause is definitely set up for peer-to-peer fundraising and this is a great time to ask your board to step up to the plate a lot of nonprofits can be shy about asking for their board members help but it's important to remember that fundraising is part of your board of directors responsibility to your nonprofit so it's a great time to ask them to help by peer-to-peer fundraising especially since they're not typically the ones who are out there in the field helping their community so you want to ask your board first they can help you with peer-to-peer fundraising and individuals can also help you with peer-to-peer fundraising so what I mean by peer-to-peer is people starting fundraisers on their own so starting a page for the giving event for your organization where they ask their social network to give we're well set up for that there's sometimes even specific prizes for giving events for peer-to-peer fundraisers so incorporate that into your strategy even if it wasn't something you were planning on focusing on and that can really help get you through this giving event and allow you to make use of it and fundraise for this event and lastly if you're really struggling if you have some sort of circumstance that you really need to talk through you can always contact your giving event host ask them for resources as a last resort they can also remove you from the event if you would like but a giving event is a great opportunity to get some donors to raise awareness for your cause and also get some funding in a lot of people will just find you through the giving event website so it's really a shame to miss out on it but if you have to contact your giving event host and if you just need some more help feel free to contact them they're there to help you out they want to see the event be a success for all the nonprofits involved so they are available to you should know who those people are because they've been involved in trainings and building the website so don't be shy about reaching out to them if you're really stuck and you need some advice also lastly spring is often gala season so I wanted to take some time to talk about adjusting a spring gala to the current situation so if you were planning a silent auction that can be moved online facebook live is a tool you could use for that and there are plenty of auction tools online that you could use as well I will mention that mighty cause it does not allow auctions but they are out there if you just google you know auction nonprofit auction software or charity auction software you can find or platforms that are affordable that do allow auctions and the reason mighty cause is not able to allow them is because we distribute tax receipts for you and it does say that no goods or services were exchanged so we're not able to make that work on our platform but there are plenty of affordable platforms that are perfectly good at hosting charity auctions and it is also something that you could just do on facebook live you can film any speeches that would have been given and send those to people with tickets and speaking of tickets you could get creative and enter them into a raffle for a special prize or offer to roll a percentage of the ticket price into next year's event to make it more attractive to people to not ask for refunds on their tickets and you could also just try the honest route and let them know that funding is needed right now and the tickets that were sold to them will be used to fund your cause and then offer tax receipts to them for the ticket so that they can be considered donations and qualify for a tax deduction so obviously a spring gala is a situation where a ticket is a little bit more transactional than a lot of other events so that is something to keep in mind these tend to be more expensive tickets so you may want to be a little bit flexible with maybe giving them a discount on the ticket to next year's gala or finding ways to work with them like offering them a tax receipt but again just with like 5ks and charity walks and other spring events most people are you know that's money they spent and they got involved not for the amazing catered food but to help your nonprofit so explaining that and reframing that as you know we really need this funding right now here's a tax receipt if you'd like to make it a charitable donation is a great way to have that conversation about tickets without just offering a bunch of refunds so instead of just calling it a loss and fully canceling the gala you could also experiment with it and see it as an opportunity to try something new like a board of directors peer to peer fundraising challenge that's associated with the gala something you could also try especially if you've already sold your tickets is try moving it to a virtual gala zoom or another video conferencing tool could help you pull this off you can have people make speeches remotely if you had any performances or special guests planned have them join remotely as well through the video conferencing tool and something that could be really fun is if you have a caterer or a local restaurant that you are normally involved with for your spring gala have them share some recipes for food that would have been served at the sit down dinner so that people can make it at home or even offer curbside pick up if that's a possibility like at a restaurant so that they can actually pick up their meal have it at home during the video conference and actually enjoy the sit down meal that they were promised as part of a virtual gala now one thing I did want to mention about tickets because we did get some questions about this on the last webinar that we did on this topic on Tuesday is that generally speaking tickets are something that are very transactional you pay for a ticket and you expect entry into an event you buy a ticket at a movie theater you expect to see the movie you buy a ticket for a ride at the theme park you expect to be able to take that ride so if you are not already selling tickets I would not make tickets part of your strategy for your spring event if that's not something that's already been involved so and you are not going to make as much from tickets for a virtual event as you would an in-person event that's just kind of a a general fact is that people are not going to be willing to pay as much money for a virtual event as they will you know like an actual in-person event it's the same thing with conferences really a lot of virtual conferences industry conferences if it's a virtual conference you're not going to be paying as much to attend that conference as you would if it was a proper conference in a hotel so just consider that if you are moving things online you want to have some other type of funding which is why I mentioned the board of directors peer-to-peer challenge or the board of directors fundraising challenge having some other component where people are actively fundraising will help make up some of the revenue that may have been lost to ticket sales all right so I wanted to shift gears a little bit and move into some broader fundraising strategies that can help you get through this situation that was the slide I lost so I'm going to just go back to that one sorry about that my slides got rearranged so before we launch in there are some important things to remember those of us who were doing nonprofit work for a while we can have a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the notion of a recession and that's a lot because a lot of us do remember very keenly the times of austerity and uncertainty in 2008 until the economy recovered but I want to make it clear that there's currently no evidence that this is impacting charitable giving and that this situation is very different than what happened in 2008 so it's really hard for us to apply you know our memories of what happened during the great recession to the here and now and one of the reasons for that is because this particular situation is not caused by an issue with the structure of our economy one could very rightly argue that you know it's exposed some weaknesses in our economic structure but unlike 2008 where it kind of crumbled under its own weight this is because of a virus this is because of a public health crisis this is not because banks were giving people predatory loans and the housing bubble burst this is completely different it's kind of on the virus's schedule and it's not anything like the 2008 financial crisis so it's really hard to know how much of what we learned during that period actually applies but we do know that it is very different the economic impacts that we're seeing are because a lot of businesses are just not able to operate right now so when we are able to say that we've we've dealt with coronavirus or at least we're in much better shape a lot of those businesses will reopen and people will hopefully be able to find find work places are still hiring places are still you know operating with telework so it's very different in terms of how it's affecting the economy than it was in 2008 and that's just important to remember because I was around in 2008 and working for a nonprofit as I mentioned and those were really really bad times but try not to get too caught up in those bad memories another important fact to remember and this was just announced today is that the federal government just passed a stimulus stimulus package and part of that package is aid to individuals and small businesses so hopefully we'll see a bit of an upward trajectory after the stimulus package goes into effect and as I mentioned people are actively looking out looking for ways to help and support nonprofits people want to help we've seen lots of really great funds for direct relief pop up we've seen nonprofits do great work fundraising so giving is happening charitable giving is happening and people are really looking for that kind of thing during this period so it's important to remember that as we talk about fundraising during this period just go back to the slide that was on before so when we're talking about fundraising you do want to stay in touch with your supporters don't let communication lapse because you're busy doing field work or just don't know what to say to them which I think some nonprofits especially if they've had to sort of limit their operations and they don't they're not quite directly involved in this a lot of nonprofits can feel like well I don't know what to say because we're not really directly involved with that with this whole situation but you want to stay in touch with them send them emails post on social media and try to get creative there's a lot of really good fundraising and marketing happening right now for instance a local animal shelter has administrative in place working from home but they're doing live story times on social media I've seen a lot of like story times reading books with pets and they have foster animals in the background and they're trying to choose books that reinforce their mission of kindness and caring for animals and it's just really cool to see that kind of creative energy making the best of this situation so think outside the box see what other nonprofits are doing don't be afraid to take an idea and put your own spin on it and use those communications to reinforce how people can help you reinforce your mission that means donations especially recurring ones volunteering remotely peer to peer fundraising and so on those are always people can help you so you can use those you know creative communications to reinforce how people can stay in touch and support your nonprofit and like the story time idea it's important to stay hopeful people are looking for positive hopeful content that is distracting them from the 24-hour news cycle so see how you can provide that in a way that stays true to your nonprofit's mission you may not be able to be you know Johnny Sunshine right now but you know how can you deliver a message of hope to your community and lots of people are bored at home and refreshing their social media feeds very frequently so you might as well be in the mix when they refresh their feed there's no reason that your nonprofit and your mission can't be the thing they see in their feed okay so as I mentioned with I was talking about giving days now is the time to loop and volunteers especially if you are low on human resources right now there are lots of people who are just at home and they're looking for ways to stay engaged and productive and help and they have lots of free time now thankfully you know I don't have kids so I'm also one of those people who's like how can I help so think through some jobs for volunteers that would be legitimately helpful to your nonprofit things like email marketing posting on social media help with admin tasks these are all things that you can farm out to volunteers and again there are lots of very skilled knowledge workers just sitting at home looking for ways to help so if you're thinking of volunteers only in terms of physical labor like washing your dishes or sorting donations or greeting visitors in your lobby you're missing out on a lot of skilled people who could really help you out during this time and throughout the year and look for fundraising help whether that's through peer to peer or helping with your campaign somebody who like works as a consultant or a professional fundraiser would be a huge boon to you at this time and they may be willing and able to volunteer their services and then things like calling calling donors thanking donors writing thank you cards those are things that people can do very easily remotely and can be really helpful to keeping your donor base engaged in your mission and again you want to think through what's most helpful what your nonprofits needs truly are there are lots of people who work in finance and marketing social media or technology who could be a really huge boon to you and they're looking for ways to get involved so put together some job descriptions if you're an advanced customer on mighty cause meaning you have a subscription to our software you can use the volunteers tool for that but really anything as simple as like a google sheet is good enough you just want to ask for what you're looking for what kind of experience you're looking for what kind of skills you're looking for what tasks that are involved in this particular job and the number of hours and time commitment that you expect from these positions and then just spread the word on social media through email through your website through your blog and so on and have an email address dedicated to volunteer inquiries something that is kind of nice to see is that a lot of nonprofits and volunteer coordinators are getting inundated with requests to help out at their nonprofit so make sure you have a dedicated email address set up for that so that they're not coming to your personal inbox unless you are the volunteer coordinator in which case godspeed so one example of nonprofits really knocking it out of the park during this crisis is animal shelters and rescues this screenshot here is from a story in the washington post about how people are turning to animal adoption and becoming foster volunteers in large unprecedented numbers and this is really because shelters and rescues have taken pains to invite people to become foster volunteers and to adopt animals and remind them that hey if you're stuck at home wouldn't you love to have a furry companion while you're social distancing and maybe cut off from support and avenues for entertainment and people are really saying oh gosh I actually have the time to train a new puppy or train a new dog and spend time bonding with a cat so a lot of people who wanted to adopt are seeing this as an opportunity that they're stuck at home why not adopt an animal so a lot of shelters have actually seen adoptions go up since again people are at home and they finally have time to spend with a dog or a cat that they adopt but always thought that they were too busy to to find that time for shelters have been adapting by asking people to make appointments to meet animals so they're still sending animals home without endangering the public and they're really just hitting this sweet spot of hopefulness that really hammers home what they do not just for animals but for people and for their community helping them find pets that enrich their lives so obviously this kind of thing doesn't work for every single nonprofit but it is a great example of how some nonprofits are able to find the silver lining in this situation and use it to show the world and their communities why their mission is important and what it is they do while actually making a tangible impact on their their communities and people's lives so this is just a really cool thing I saw and I've seen there's been a couple of articles about how in some areas including where I am in northern Virginia there aren't really that many animals because people are adopting them all and fostering them all which is really inspiring to see so back to fundraising strategies this is a really great time to focus on getting donations those monthly donations are predictable income that can help keep you afloat and approaching this as giving in a smaller monthly amount as opposed to one big donation can make it feel a lot more approachable to people especially if they're feeling some financial uncertainty a lot of people have money coming in just fine but they are a little bit more careful with it because they don't know what's going to happen so I have this this message of giving in small amounts per month basically the Netflix model of charitable giving can really help it feel a little bit less intimidating and more approachable to a lot of people if you're using mighty cause just like pretty much every 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 recurring donation so this is a great way to get more recurring donations and push for your for ongoing support for your nonprofit with the messaging that you know their support is really important right now especially and if they could give a small amount on a monthly basis that would really help you out and can allow you to continue your operations so running a recurring giving campaign right now would be a really great tactic and something that you could easily do online without any sort of in-person component and I also wanted to mention that donors on mighty cause can now set up a recurring donation through our widget so if you're using a PayPal button or something similar on your website try our widget instead it makes it even easier for people to set up a recurring donation it doesn't make them go anywhere else so if you're not aware of our widget and you're using our services that is available to you and it's much sleeker than a PayPal button and you have an opportunity to sort of control the amounts that you're suggesting in the descriptions of what those amounts provide so that's one easy when you can do is update your PayPal button on your website to a widget from mighty cause okay so finally peer-to-peer fundraising is an easy way to help your nonprofit it can be done remotely and it's the kind of thing that a lot of people are looking to do right now on their own which we've actually seen a lot of people have started peer-to-peer fundraisers for a local charity or a charity that they care about on mighty cause we 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 for your fundraisers so that they can get published more easily this is especially useful for board members board of directors members people who sit on your board are often not keen to take a whole bunch of time to customize a page so this is an easy way to say hey we've already got this set up for you you can just use the template and then just hit publish and start fundraising so that is a way to make it more appealing to people who are busy and maybe don't want to spend a bunch of time you know creating their own page this is a great option if you have limited resources right now and are really struggling to focus on fundraising again all you have to do here is ask and facilitate asking on social media is one way to get the word out sending out an email how can you support us if you're answering that question in an email or on social media this is a way that you can list as start a peer-to-peer fundraiser and you also may want to do some targeted communications to people who have created fundraisers for your nonprofit in the past okay so we are in the home stretch and I just wanted to talk for a minute about remote work since I know a lot of admin staff are working at home right now and for many nonprofits remote work is totally new it's not something that's normally done and for a lot of people who are working for nonprofits it's also new but it's something that I personally have a lot of experience with because Mighty Cause is gracious enough to let me work from home on a regular basis and we do have some fully remote employees so I wanted to take a minute and talk about remote work so remote work does have some key differences but managing remote employees is not a lot different than being a good manager in an office environment first you will need to communicate probably remotely you'll want to communicate more frequently and with more intention as you shift into working remotely for the first time you'll want to check in and see how people are doing if there are any barriers to working from home and just to check in with them because while working from home can seem like a dream and it is in fact a massive privilege it can also be really isolating and harder to stay on task and for people who are already maybe feeling anxious right now it can be really difficult to actually make this work so having a manager who checks in with you and asks you how you're doing and see you know is able to work with you on any barriers that you're experiencing is really helpful when you're managing a remote team it's helpful to stay focused on goals rather than hours worked people work at different paces and making sure the work gets done by when it needs to be done is the best metric you can use to determine whether or not people are working successfully at home not how many hours their butt was in a chair or when they were available in a chat program it can be really hard if especially if you're new to remote work to avoid the temptation to micromanage employees if you read ask a manager which is one of one of my favorite blogs there are a whole bunch of horror stories there about bosses requiring that remote employees leave their webcam on all day bosses requiring a minute by minute report of what they did throughout that day trying to quote-unquote catch them slacking off and I even read this week that a company somebody wrote in saying that their company was literally driving by their house to make sure that they were isolating and not slacking off or like doing yard work or sitting on their porch so basically just don't be that manager trust your team check in with them and monitor their progress on tasks without trying to manage them sitting at their desks all day long just because that makes you feel like you're being an active manager and on that note this is a time to be flexible lots of people have kids who are home from school my state actually just canceled school through the end of the year so a lot of kids are at home that are not normally at home some people have family members that they're helping take care of and making sure that they're okay and a lot of people are just struggling with anxiety and isolation right now so now is the time to be a benevolent boss rather than an unrelenting task manager and to that end you'll want to focus on setting expectations you should hopefully at this point have an org wide policy about remote work who is expected to come in and so on and you'll want to develop some basic guidelines for when remote employees are expected to be online normal business hours is usually the baseline for that and how they'll signal to others that they're available using a chat program like Slack is great for this generally if you are on Slack you are available and where this is helpful is in people panicking because they don't know how to contact somebody and then resort to calling or texting them which can make it really hard to work remotely and managers should work individually with employees to take into account their needs their availability and their personal situations and set expectations for their work so here are some recommendations for working remotely for the first time and doing that successfully first you'll hear this everywhere that talks about remote work but develop a daily routine all of those external clues like co-workers grabbing lunch or packing their things up at the end of the day are gone so it's easy to feel like you've lost grip on your schedule having a work area that's a separate as possible from the rest of your your living space even if that's just a specific chair on the kitchen table working from the couch is bad ergonomics and having a specific spot that you can go to makes it more easily to turn the work slip switch on in your brain and turn it off at the end of the day and it makes it just easier to have a dedicated space even if that's a small space when you're working remotely get dressed obviously you don't need to wear slacks and a blazer or look particularly great but it is important for getting into that work mindset and for mental health and I'm really bad at this particular one but taking a lunch break actually taking a moment to walk away from your desk or your work spot and eat lunch go outside get up and stretch walk your dog whatever you want to do even if you have to set reminders take some time away from your desk because sometimes when you're working remotely especially if you just started doing it it's easy to feel chained to your laptop and finally set healthy boundaries unplug from work apps at the end of the day resist the temptation to work late or check in if it's not strictly necessary or expected of you and remember that working from home does not mean that you are working 24 hours a day and finally I wanted to chat about self-care because it's obviously important during a pandemic situation as well as it is the rest of the year and it's also really important to being effective at doing your job so schedule some time to unplug totally from the news and from work you can freeze apps on your phone from delivering notifications put your phone on do not disturb or just put your phone in another room but unplug once in a while get away from the news get away from work notifications stay in touch with family and friends with digital tools like FaceTime Skype Google Hangouts and so on I know some people are having a quarantini hours when they're meeting their friends for drinks over Google Hangouts so that's something that fun that you can do obviously not at work but staying in touch with the people you care about is really important and I cannot emphasize this enough set some boundaries when it comes to work non-profit employees are really bad at this we can be really reactionary and that's bad for mental health so before you jump to respond to an off-hours emergency non-emergency email or text ask yourself do I really need to answer this right now or can I wait until I'm working during normal business hours you can also screen your calls let them go to voicemail during off-hours and only respond if it's an emergency or even set up a google voice number for emergency so people don't actually have your real phone number talk to your colleagues let them know what you need whether it's them for only to only reach out during after hours unless it's an emergency or not to contact you on your cell phone and most importantly when you are stressed remember how valuable your work is how important your message mission is to your community especially as your community struggles you are one of the helpers you're important and that's really important to remember right now especially when things are stressful and uncertain one of the things that people have asked me a few times is well what does what do I do if my non-profit's not actually directly helping during this crisis but your work is still important you can ask people for donations you can ask people for help your mission is not less important just because you're not offering direct aid with this particular crisis so just remember that your work is important that's why you do it that's why you get up every day and you put in long hard hours for your cause so it's important to stay grounded in that fact as we deal with this situation and watch it unfold all right so I wanted to open the floor up to some questions so if you have a question for me just type that up into the questions box of your go-to webinar panel let's see um there's a question about DAF holders I'll be honest with you that is a little bit outside of my area of expertise so I'm not really able to answer about you know tapping into DAF holders I would assume it would be similar to major gift the whole major gift process where you are you know prospecting you're cultivating that relationship and asking them for their assistance but unfortunately that's not I'm sort of more digital fundraising so I'm not totally keyed into that so I'm not the best person to answer that um this is a good question how far out are people cancelling events ours is scheduled for July July and I'm reluctant to cancel this far out but our attendance could be affected if people lose jobs that's a really great question a lot of this webinar was obviously geared towards spring events and that's more of a summer event and obviously we can't really predict the direction that this virus is going to go in hopefully in July we'll be in a much better situation but we only know we don't really know for sure what it's going to look like in July what I would recommend is in July continue as as normal keep it open you don't have to cancel right now um but just have maybe a go no go no go zone um you know what is the date where you want to make a final decision um you may want to contact your venue and see if there's a point at which you can't bail out of it or can't get your money back so that might be you know a determining factor in that if you've invested money in a venue excuse me so looking at those factors but just maybe check in at the end of May and see where things are the world could be back to a more normal state at that point so with a July event I would say I haven't seen any cancellations that far out yet a lot of people are pushing their spring event into the summer and some of the health experts are saying we should be in a better situation in the summer but yeah I would just say have a date where you want to reassess and make a decision about whether or not you're going to postpone it or whether you're going to continue as per normal and right now I wouldn't I wouldn't jump to cancel it that seems a little reactionary but just maybe with your your leaders at your nonprofit find a date that seems reasonable where you can sort of gauge what might happen around the time of your event and if there's a deadline that you need to meet in terms of notifying people or getting your money back from a venue but yeah I haven't really seen any July events get canceled at this point yet most people are pushing their spring event into the summer a little bit further so I think everybody's hopeful that will be a little bit more normal there um let's see and vice on engaging older donors he might not be able to engage with during online campaigns because they are not comfortable with technology or giving online so there's two answers to this question yet um one is is try not to make assumptions about older donors um you know unless we're talking about you know senior home donors like you know people who are not you know people who are senior citizens are active out in their community a lot of the people who are most active on social media are senior citizens um so that is something that we see consistently they're not necessarily like using tiktok but they're very active on facebook so trying to engage them there they might be part of your audience um one of the things that always surprises me is that when I look at mighty causes facebook audience um our biggest audience is with women over 55 um they love the mighty cause brand so you can always check in with your social media in sites and see really who your audience is um facebook pages are a great resource for that and you might be surprised to learn that it's it's people who you might consider your quote unquote older donors um the second part of that answer is um there are other ways you can get in touch with them um if you use a direct mail company they will probably still get your mailer um you may want to reach out to your company at this point if you are working with one and see what their operations are but using a mailer you could send them letters you could write a card to them um looping and volunteers or if you have staff working from home calling them and just reminding them um that you you're you're you know affected by the virus and helping you know to facilitate other means of communicating with them if you have their phone number or you have their address um you can use those paths to get to them um but you know I mean my my parents and my in-laws are senior citizens and they're active senior citizens they check their email they're on facebook um so sometimes this is a challenge that doesn't quite exist um in reality but if if you find that it does um find being creative and finding other ways to get in touch with them back in the old days people used to get on the phone and call donors and if you have a large contingent of donors who are not online and they aren't giving online that is probably the best way to reach them um but most people do have access to you online and are on social media and some of the most prolific social media users are senior citizens surprisingly um so just try not to be to stereotype them but you can always be creative in how you reach out to them if they really really don't um if they really aren't comfortable giving online um all right so a couple questions about recordings yes absolutely we will send out a recording of this um it'll probably go out tomorrow because it's about four o'clock here so I will get it together for you tomorrow you'll get the recording and you will get the slides um let's see oh this is an interesting question um I will be the director of four charities soon I am the director of three now two of them are based in the United States one in Canada and one is in Australia and New Zealand do you have foreign charities that use mighty cause um so yes and no uh we are a US based platform and all of our donations are in US dollars um so that is an important thing to consider um we do I believe have some support for Canadian organizations now so I would contact support at mightycause.com and they can sort of work with you about um how to get set up if you are a a charity outside of the US um the other thing that we do offer is um fiscal sponsorships so um we do as the default on our platform work with United States based charities but if you work overseas and you have nonprofit status there but not in the United States um if you can find a uh sponsor for your organization that does have nonprofit status in the United States we can actually work with you and get you set up as a a nonprofit on our platform um so you do have some options I would definitely recommend um contacting our support team and they can sort of give you the details and actually get that moving for you um all right so last call for questions um and one thing I did want to mention um we do have if you need a specific if you want to see lists of ideas for fundraisers on our blog which is something that I maintain blog.mightycause.com you can also access it from the navigation bar on mightycause.com under resources um we actually have a whole category of fundraising ideas um so you can take a look there there's lists of of fundraising ideas like if you wanted to say what kind of digital event can I have we have a whole bunch of ideas there so if that's the kind of inspiration you're looking for go to blog.mightycause.com or just go to mightycause.com and find blog under resources and take a look at the fundraising ideas category we have um general nonprofit fundraisers we also have some for specific times of the year like the spring summer fundraisers fall fundraisers we have some for certain categories like education church fundraisers etc um let's see uh oh there's one more question um I don't think I got the first question from you Philip I'm sorry about that um in terms of like personal training personal help um if you need help like using the mightycause platform or fundraising help contact support at mightycause.com um they are your first line of defense if you need some assistance um you can always contact me if you have a question about fundraising strategy or um marketing communications but if you'd like personal one-on-one help using the platform um I would try contacting support at mightycause.com to have one of our customer service agents sort of route your question and put you in touch with the appropriate person um let's see um can I repeat the site again yes for fundraise mightycause.com is the name of our website and under resources it's on our navigation bar you can just go to resources and blog but if you'd like to go directly there it's blog blog.mightycause.com and there you'll be able to find some fundraising ideas under the category area okay yep so that seems to be all of the questions again I will get you guys a recording of this webinar and you'll get a copy of all of the slides thank you so much for all of your time today good luck fundraising during this unprecedented situation mightycause is here to support you so if you do need any assistance please feel free to reach out to me or you can reach out to support at mightycause.com happy fundraising I hope you guys have a great rest of your day