 So welcome everybody. I am Sandra Amar and I am your host today for our TechSoup Connect event. I have been with TechSoup for just over a year or two years now. I've actually lost time because of this whole pandemic. I've lost total track, but I've been hosting the event since the pandemic started. I was supposed to start in person events, but that didn't happen. So we've been doing these great events online and it's been a lot of fun. I've been getting to meet a lot of great people and learning a lot as well. And if you haven't been a part of TechSoup before, it's a global network of tech for good meetups and we basically help to bring other non-profits tech solutions and help them get, implement and use technology effectively. A little bit more about me. I've run a little business called All About Systems where I help entrepreneurs and non-profits work more efficiently with their digital workspace. So I do one-on-one training as well as consulting and project management and a whole bunch of fun stuff. I'm heavily in IT and project management, but one of the things that brought me to TechSoup was that I am actually the national president for the One Parent Families Association. So as we're working through our nonprofit and trying to build our systems and technology, I came across TechSoup and found that their Ontario chapter was looking for a host. That's where I am. And sometimes I host my own events and sometimes I get great speakers like Rebecca here to join us and provide us with some great information. A little bit more about TechSoup. We're very welcoming. We like to build our community. It's been a little bit difficult with this pandemic because we haven't really been able to meet in person. We're doing these quick little lunch and learns. All we can really find out about you is what you put in the chat. So it's been a little bit harder to connect and build that community. But hopefully as things start to open up, we'll be able to do a bit more of that in person. Our goal is really to build stronger nonprofits and using technology. We invite participation. So, you know, use the chat. Feel free to ask questions at the end. I'll leave it up to Rebecca and Emily to kind of tell you how they want to run this session. But obviously participate in this. If you ever have any feedback or ideas or suggestions on presentations or events that we can have or if you, you know, want to host something, please let me know. And obviously we want to treat each other with kindness and respect within our community here as well. I already kind of mentioned that, you know, we're always looking for help. So if you're interested, please reach out to me. A bit more about TechSoup. It connects you with different donations and discounted products that are related to technology, software hardware, etc. And these are some of the technology that you can acquire through TechSoup at discounted prices. The one thing that's missing on here that I like to bring up because I'm a fan of it is Google workspace. So when you are as a not-for-profit, you are getting your Google for nonprofit account. So it's really important to authenticate through TechSoup in order to validate your nonprofit status so that you can get that benefit. And obviously you can imagine the savings that will result in being able to get those discounts after a period of time. It really adds up quickly. So it's definitely something to look into if you haven't yet. TechSoup also has a forum, which is a great place for you to look for information and resources and communicate with each other on different technology related topics where you can get support from each other as well. You've likely landed on this page already as you're registered and here with me today. This is where we have all of our events listed. So be sure to join while you've already joined our event. But you can connect and see what other events we have. And the beauty of kind of being online and virtual right now is that you can access events from other chapters all around the world. This is the wrong slide for today. So I think I'm going to stop that there. I didn't put that slide in. But yes, you can connect, you can access our events and access them from anywhere. Today's event is not capturing information in the cloud. We're looking at the future of fundraising and I will stop sharing my screen so that I can pass it off to Rebecca and Emily for you guys to share with us your wisdom. Awesome. Well, thanks so much. Really excited to be here today, Sandra, and to kind of share a little bit around who we are and what we're doing. Just give me one second because my screen sharing is also not working like it's supposed to right now. Well, first of all, I just wanted to start by saying congrats. We have all had a crazy year in fundraising. And yes, probably every other talk you're hearing right now is saying how bad it was. So I didn't actually want to start there. But what I wanted to say is well done. We've done it. We just crushed through an incredible year of fundraising, even though it looked completely different than how we thought it would. And what makes me really excited is that you all showed up and you all signed up for this session today because you're not done learning. You're curious what comes next or how you can approach your fundraising moving forward and how you can learn from what others are doing. Last year, 60% of organizations didn't hit their fundraising goals, but 40% did. That 40% got really creative regarding how to approach their events they looked at new ways and new approaches to engage their donors. And as a result, we're seeing organizations across the board, all agree that fundraising with virtual components in some capacity is the way forward. In fact, we actually surveyed hundreds of industry experts fundraisers and donors, and 92% of them agree. So here's what I want to do today. I want to quickly recap the advantages of in person and virtual events, and really quickly talk about what organizations that are continuing to surpass their fundraising goals are doing. And what you can do to engage your donors raise more and create fundraisers that will help build awareness and excitement about your organization. And just as a heads up we have four different future of fundraising event types that I'm going to share with you all for you to consider and they're all really a combination of virtual and in person under that hybrid model. My goal is that at the end of the session you're going to walk away with clear next steps for your events and if they're in two weeks or if they're in two months, you're going to have new ideas to implement based on the examples I'm going to share. And then on top of all of that we've got an amazing roadmap event guide for you that walks you through everything I'm going to share. Plus it has more examples and step by step guides to create events that will raise you more. So there's a QR code in the bottom of my screen, or there's a link right next to it. We'll also throw that link in the chat and I highly recommend you download it to make the most out of our session. So, why are we talking about this while trellis is focused just on fundraising events in the past two years, our platform has supported hundreds of charities and organizations, as they've navigated changing events moving online and finding new ways to engage donors and a changing landscape. Trellis is an all in one fundraising events platform, we help charities and nonprofits fund raise virtually in person and everything in between. We're supporting organizations across North America with everything from ticketing and donations silent and live auctions raffles and even live streaming their events. We're helping charities with their online fundraising, making it easier for them to engage their donors, leading up to and during their fundraisers. And we're guiding organizations we work with with our best practices to raise more in a changing season. So I want to share all of that with you today. Personally, I'm Rebecca, I acknowledge I live on the unceded territory of the CX people. And over the past few years, I've had the privilege of working with over 250 charities. So I'm going to be sharing some of my favorite ideas and tips to make your fundraising events a success. I'm not the only one here. Emily is also here she's in the chat. She's from the trellis team and so if you have questions as I'm talking. Please please throw them in there. She'll be answering them or holding them so we can use them for our Q&A at the very end. So before we get too far in I want to quickly know. And if you want to just throw it in the chat, that'd be great. When is your next fundraising event happening. Is it in the next like the zero to three months three to six months, six plus or you don't have anything planned yet. And I'm just going to give you a few minutes to throw that in the chat. Nothing planned yet, no worries, zero to six months, November of 20. So like two weeks, three weeks, awesome. Okay, so kind of a mix of these here today that's awesome, zero to six nothing planned. Awesome. Okay, it's always nice to know kind of use here just so I can make sure that I'm sharing ideas that are relevant if your event is on November 20, or if you've got something in April 2022. So we know that virtual events were the key to success in the past two years. And I mean, here is a list of some of the advantages of virtual events that we've seen. But I'd also love to know and maybe you want to hold this or maybe you want to throw this in the chat to what advantages or lessons have you learned through virtual events. In our survey, this is what we found. The top charities and industry experts believe that virtual events will be here to stay. And there's a couple reasons why. Cost and time saved ease of execution, increased geographical reach. We are no longer bound to just geographical barriers. The impact of this is significant, not just for ticket sales and donations. Organizations facilitate like a nationwide silent auction or connect with donors beyond their local communities, which has allowed them to raise more than they have in years prior. It's cheaper for donors. There's less human resources required and virtual fundraising elements on average organizations included in our study that had three or more fundraising elements, raise a double that of organizations with two or less. And they create an opportunity for those that do not attend the event to still contribute fundraising elements would be like tickets donations silent and live options funded needs or raffles. And we know that there were advantages for you and your organization. But the main reason that we're here and the main reason we're having this conversation today is actually all because of your donors. And so we also looked at that. What are some of the main advantages and benefits of virtual events for our donors. Well, most donors do enjoy participating in person donors loved being able to attend a more affordable event from the comfort of their home. They loved being able to easily check in on a virtual silent option or make a donation with a credit card. They loved being able to see speakers that would not have otherwise been able to participate in the event. And we found that donors contributed it just as much if not more virtually. So we can see that organizations that took the plunge hit their goals in 2020. We know virtual events will be here to stay and we're seeing excitement around that from charities industry experts and donors, but what about in person events. As we think about in person events and what are the advantages there and why should we be excited and looking forward to going back. First peer pressure donors are keen to get back in the room and I think we should be to not only is their peer pressure from our donors but their social pressure that our donors feel when they're asked to give in front of others that helps increase the amount you're able to raise. Second engagement engagement with donors and attendees looks different one more virtual let me all know and feel that connection, the ability to make meaningful connections is just more challenging and networking donors and organizations alike are both looking forward to being able to network from a back in person. One of our industry partners like the auctioneista said this as we were talking about the future of in person events. They said there will be charities whose donor base will crave in person, but in person will not look the same, it will need to be reinvented. As you're thinking about your events right now, really consider how you are going to reinvent your fundraising moving forward. What are you going to be doing differently. And while you're thinking about that, here's my recommendation on how we move forward. Let's take the benefits and advantages that we've seen a virtual events. Let's go back to the benefits we're seeing of in person fundraising and create the best of both worlds with the four modern event types. What I love about these new events is that we can capitalize on the best of virtual and best of in person simultaneously. First, affordability online fund raise the fundraising elements speakers and entertainers of a different calibre or location and increase donor geographical reach and meet donor requests, engage, connect and network with our attendees. We were about to talk about each of these four event types individually, but before we get there I want to know which one are you most excited to learn about. And again, if you want to just throw it in the chat that'd be great. Our first one is in person with virtual fundraising elements or we've got in person with a live stream audience. We've got the VIP in person event with a remote virtual experience, or the purely virtual event and if you want to give it a like a one, two, three and four that would be great. But I'd love to know which ones you guys want to dive into. We're seeing a three, two, one awesome kind of a whole mix, two and three amazing. Okay. So, awesome and keep throwing those numbers in there that's great to see. And as we're looking at the four events, and they're all going to incorporate some elements of virtual and in person elements, but really on a scale from like a more in person with our in person with the virtual fundraising to a purely virtual which will be our fourth event type that we're going to chat about. And as I'm talking about these, I would love for you to think about, which is the most similar to your upcoming events and which of these ideas that I'm about to share. Can you implement in your fundraisers to. And even if you've got your fundraiser on November 20, there's probably still pieces that you may be able to pull out here. So our first one in person with virtual fundraising. Even though it is in person, it's now new and new and improved it's not the same event that we saw in 2020 2019. Here are some of the benefits of this event. We're seeing all of our donors and attendees in person again, something that they are craving and probably you're craving to. And with virtual fundraising elements, you can streamline giving for your event and increased future fundraising potential as you engage your donors that may not attend your event on the day of. So what does that actually mean. Well, donors are going to go online to buy their tickets and make a donation. You open up your salon auction early to allow more guests to bid in the weeks before the event. On the day of the event guests come in person check in and enjoy that in person connection when guests are in a check in line maybe you've got a QR code for them to scan that encourages people to buy raffle tickets. Maybe while you've got your son on auction items on a table. There's just a simple QR code people can scan to bid. And for your guests that may not be as comfortable with technology, you've got volunteers around the room able to help them to. Another great idea to help raise more for this event, leading up to and on the night of your event. Ask your donors to vote for a chance to hear their song requests. It's a great way to drive engagement and excitement before the event and raise more money for your cause. And for your donors that can't attend in person, they can still engage and give to your cause because it's all online. It's online ticketing donations and a silent auction leading up to the event. So why don't we take a look. I'm seeing a lot of ones and three so we can kind of dive into those specific fundraisers. So this fundraising page here is from an organization called ecology Ottawa. They've got an event coming up later this week, and they're going to do theirs in person and this is what their page would have looked like. They've got some details around what does their event look like and how does it work. They've got fundraising content and videos where they talk a little bit more about their organization, what they're doing and what they're all about some details so we can see what to expect for the night of the event. Again, communicating with that with our donors before the event is a really great way to get them excited but also feeling confident about how the events going to work. They highlight their silent auction and also feature some silent auction items that they've got coming up. What they love about what they did on this page is they've added some donation options. So if I'm here and I'm looking at this page, I can buy my tickets bid on my silent auction items and make a donation before the event even begins. Or maybe I can't actually attend the event on the day of it's in person now and I just can't make it on the day. I can still bid in my silent auction or still make a donation to the cause because I care about what they're doing and why it matters. It's an amazing job of highlighting their sponsors early on sponsor recognition is a big part of your fundraising so how can you encourage people to see who our sponsors are leading up to the event instead of just saving that for the day of not incorporating those virtual funding fundraising elements is going to be a complete missed opportunity as we end off this year and look at 2022 for your one big donor that can attend in person. This is their way to still participate in your events. And as you're doing that I'd really encourage you to think about how you can diversify those ways to give that organization had tickets donations a silent auction. It was three really easy ways to give just leading up to the event. What does that look like for you and how are you really encouraging your donors to give leading up as well. Our next one is what we call the in person with a live stream audience, like the last event this event is in person, except what we're going to do is add a camera at the back of the room. So virtual attendees can join in two. Here's why we love it. You've got donors attending in the room, but you can make the most of having a virtual audience to add an audience live streaming in. This is great for our donors and attendees that are maybe out of town or can't make it on the night or tried to buy a ticket after you sold out, or maybe they can't afford your ticket price. So again, here's what it looks like, like the last event leading up to the fundraiser donors are online getting tickets, but this time they see a couple different ticket types, some in person and then some which are virtual only. Once they bought their tickets, they can keep participating in the other elements of your fundraiser. You'd host your in person event like before, but this time set up a camera facing the stage to stream in attendees that can or don't want to attend in person. Virtual attendees can watch a pre show, and maybe you've got a red carpet of all of your in person attendees, and you're hosting just some casual q amp a as people walk past in person. So once that starts and you're ready for your live auction, you're going to encourage your online attendees to participate and bid on their computers, and you're in person attendees that have a QR code to bid on their phones or their mobile devices. Your guests are all giving online and they're engaging in the same way so we can see those bidding wars happen real time, regardless of if people are watching from the comfort of their homes or live in the room with the event actually happening. We'd also encourage you to think about different ways that you can engage both audiences simultaneously. Maybe you've got a photo contest that both can participate in regardless of how they're watching. Or maybe you've got two or three big donors that can attend. This is your way to still make it fun welcoming and engaging so they can continue to give to your cause. Let's take a look at an example of what somebody else has done, and how that can work for you. I wanted to just quickly show you this page because, first of all, I love the way they set it up on their fundraising page. Again, they've got some engaging content kind of right at the beginning. I can see different ways that people can give and support their cause. Again, they're really thinking about all the different ways attendees could give and participate on the event. Think about the experience if you're at home or if you're in person, sharing some event details and even including, let's go down here, some safety precautions. Again, a really great way to encourage your attendees to show up is if you outline these things right from the get go. They also talk about different ways that you can support and how you can give to their cause leading up to, including on the night of the event. The next one is what we call the VIP in person event with remote virtual experiences. This event is perfect for organizations with a significant donor base outside of the local community. Organizations with regional, provincial or national reach. It's similar to that in person event that we just talked about with the live stream audience, but now it's actually two curated experiences for your different donor bases. Here are some of the main benefits of this event type. One, it appeals to a wider donor base as everybody now has a catered experience based on how they are watching the event. Two, you're creating two amazing donor experiences. Your in person attendees are enjoying an intimate experience while your virtual attendees are also experiencing something catered just for them. And in real life, this is what it would actually look like donors go online to buy tickets for the different ways they can enjoy the event VIP in person experience or a ticket to watch virtually or maybe a watch party ticket. Next donors continue to engage leading up to the event through donations buying raffle tickets, or maybe buying items like a community cookbook and bidding on auction items on the day. On the day of the event guests receive a different experience based on the ticket they purchased in person attendees are enjoying an intimate experience with engaging speakers and entertainers right in front of them. And our virtual attendees are enjoying an equally curated experience for them with a mix of high quality pre recorded and live elements throughout the night, we're going to invite our guests to come together but then also go back to their exclusive experiences. In person attendees are watching or encouraged to visit a bartender and virtual attendees are watching the bartender teach them how to mix their drinks from home. While an engaging speaker is presenting to gala attendees, virtual attendees are watching the same talk, just pre recorded in a high quality studio beforehand. And when the giving moments come all attendees joined together to give simultaneously, both bidding on live auction items together or participating in the funding at the same time, watching their names pop up on the honor roll real time right next to one another. One of my favorite ideas that we've seen is seeing organizations start their live auctions with a mystery item. And what it is is essentially just a little trick to get as many people as engaged in your sound earn your live auction story as possible. So it could be like a really nice box of chocolates or maybe it's a bottle of wine, but it's something all of your guests will enjoy. You don't tell anybody what it is, and you encourage them to start bidding you just announce it as a mystery item. If you're bidding at like $1 or $2 you can just see how high it gets the whole goal of this is not to raise money for your organization, but it's to get all of your donors using used online bidding and engaging in the moment. Next you'd go on to your regular live auction items and you've already got an engaged and excited audience, which is going to allow you to hit your fundraising goals faster engage more people and get more people participating in your live auctions. All of the most memorable events are talking about is also creating a magic moment. We really dive into this in the roadmap so I think Emily is going to throw a link to that guide or roadmap into the chat right now to. But what it is is really thinking about the different elements you want your donors to keep talking about long after the event is over. An idea we love is having your sponsors do a surprise visit to a virtual attendees home with a gift. It'll be a total surprise and your virtual attendees will love watching your sponsor get into the car, start driving, then stop, start walking up some front doorsteps and anxiously awaiting to see whose door they knock at. Maybe people at home are thinking, I hope it's me or they're thinking I hope it's not me, just so that they can have that moment on screen. And you would also be broadcasting this live in the room for your VIP attendees to watch too. Even though the moment is all about your virtual attendees, it helps your live audience remember that there's more people involved, and it's something that everybody can get behind. The whole goal of magic moments is to have a moment that your donors are excited to go back on Monday morning and tell all of their friends about. So that's kind of how you can think about structuring your event, but one element you maybe want to include to cap off the night is hosting an in person only after party. Again, you're driving back to that intimate and exclusive kind of feeling the organizations that we're talking to you that are planning events like this have an amazing ideas in the works. We're really excited about one in particular it's a national organization, and they're planning a 250 person in person experience with even more attendees from chapters across the country joining virtually. They're curating events are running simultaneously. So donors can engage virtually or in person and still get that really amazing experience either way. As you're setting up your events, regardless of if it's this kind of style or any of the other ones I've mentioned, you'll really have to think about how can you make it engaging, welcoming and most importantly, really easy for your donors to give. Our last event type is what we call the purely virtual event. It's maybe your organization sounds that you actually really love the benefits of virtual events, especially how they relate to your organization and you don't actually have any desire to go back. Instead, you want to create some high quality donor experiences for all of your attendees that are participating remotely. Taking all of the learning so far that we've had from virtual, we can continue to reiterate and improve the experience to further engage and delight our donors online. Yeah, but let's be clear this is not going to be a boring zoom call. We love this event type because you can easily encourage donors to keep giving throughout the night and provide easy ways for them to engage and give online. Also, by mixing pre recorded and live elements, you can make the most of the event, making it seamless and taking donors through a wave of exciting and engaging moments to heartfelt moments and back up and down on that wave. So although you may have done a virtual event in 2020 it doesn't look the same anymore. Now your guests are going to go online, they're going to engage in the fundraising elements before the big day, and you've even got some take home gift boxes that your donors can buy to further engage in the event. They come back to your fundraising page on the day of but this time instead of seeing tickets, they're able to watch the live stream right there. There's also a chat feature letting your donors connected one another a thermometer and donor ticker, which again are showing your donors how close you are to hitting your fundraising goals. And throughout the night, there are new ways to engage. Maybe you've got a challenge from your sponsors through trivia, or maybe it's a photo contest and beyond those fun and entertaining elements. You've also got easy ways for them to give through a live auction a raffle a silent option to. And when it comes to your friend to need, you're going to make it easy for your donors to participate. Maybe you start with a heartfelt pre recorded video. Then you have your host announced your fundraising goals and encourage your donors to keep giving at certain levels or whatever they would like to give the events that are most successful with their giving moments also think about preceded contributions. They work with key donors weeks before the event and ask them to commit to giving. So during the event, they announced those contributions to get things started and encourage other donors to give as well. We recommend aiming to precede about 40% of your funding need to see the most success. Super quick, why don't we take a look at another organization that has done this. For all of our attendees that are participating from Ontario, you might know, George and Bay Hospital Foundation. We worked with them on their completely virtual gala back in August. Again, they have that thermometer here so donors could see how close they were to hitting their fundraising will leading up to the event. They could also see when it was happening and kind of some key details. If you scroll down, I can see that on a roll where we're highlighting our donors that have recently given, including how much and their names. They included different ways to engage their attendees a virtual photo booth, a virtual bartender teaching them how to make strengths from home. And they also highlighted their George and Bay bag. They sold out because people were really excited about what was included it was tons of the local items that all help to enhance the virtual experience on the day of the event. For them, a lot of those items are actually donated and so they didn't have to pay much for this bag, but it will allow them to raise even more for their cause, get their donors more excited about the day of the event. So we encourage people to check out some local businesses that were also struggling as a result of COVID. I love the way they set up this event and the way they talked about all of the different elements, getting donors excited leading up to the actual day of the fundraiser. So we just talked through the four modern event types, the events that are combining the best of virtual and hybrid, and going to set you up for success regardless of what fundraising looks like in the future. Organizations that have used these event types have also been adaptable. Some of these organizations have actually had to make the switch last minute. They thought they could do in person elements but restrictions changed or things changed and caused them to switch to a fully virtual event at the last second. But their donors almost didn't notice because it felt so planned and they were set up for success to support that even before that happened. Now, as you think about your organization, what events make the most sense for you. And so here are just a couple questions you can ask yourself to kind of get started in the right direction. One, how do I expect most of my attendees to participate? How do I expect my key donors to participate? How much time and resources does my team have to put towards this event? Where do we think our donors will find the most value? And don't worry if you didn't write those down. They are also all in the guide that we've been mentioning. So I've just thrown a ton of your way. And so the one big question left that I wanted to answer for you is what does it take to succeed? And now these three tips will apply regardless of what modern fundraising event type you decide to move forward with. Before I walk through these, I'd love to know from you. Maybe you want to throw it in the chat too, but what are some other ideas that you have to succeed with modern or hybrid events? So my top three tips, one, create a seamless donor experience. Using the approaches we've talked about, make your donor experience stand out. Before the event, make it easy and fun. Have your tickets raffle tickets inside an auction all online. Before the event, make it easy for your donors to chat, donate and bid while watching the live event if they're virtual. Or easy for them to engage if they're watching in the room. And create that engaging live stream with creative and entertaining elements with also that makes a powerful moments too as the evening progresses. So as we talked about, give your donors options to participate in person or virtually depending on their preference. And finally, increase the amount of virtual fundraising elements you include to appeal to your entire audience and even your donor base that may not be participating or attending at all. However, this is a fundraising event so it is okay to ask your donors to give. But when you do so, make it easy and simple and have it all in one place to increase their chances of wanting to participate and support your cause. The stats I shared at the beginning mentioned that organizations that included three or more fundraising elements in their events were these double that of organizations with two or less. Not having multiple fundraising elements in 2020 will be a missed opportunity for your organization. And again, those could be tickets, donations, silent options, live auctions, raffles, 5050s, a fund in need, and having that all housed in one place. So where do we go from here. I just shared a ton of ideas and insights right now but where to begin. First, you're going to want to scan that QR code to download the report that includes the insights I've shared around the four event types and guides and steps to help you apply them to your next fundraiser. You're going to also ask yourself some questions. What do we want to do and what do we want to keep about fundraising events we've done in the past. What do we want to improve. What do we want to bring back. And don't be afraid to talk to your donors to see what they're most excited about for your events and where you can go from there. And remember to include created an inclusive experience with plenty of ways to get find yourself tools that accommodate a range of fundraising elements virtually. And remember to think about your events. Now that you've had this insight, what are you going to do differently to make your events stand out, and how can you implement these ideas and new approaches that I just shared. And then lastly, as you think about your events connect with our team. Emily is going to throw a link in the chat here for you to book a demo with trial list so if you're interested in our fundraising platform, I would love to chat with you then. Here you'll see my emails on the screen right now so send me a message and I'd love to chat I'd love to hear a little bit more about your events what you're doing and how we can support with your fundraising. And if there is opportunities for us to work together I'd love to do that too. So that was a ton of information I'm seeing some questions pop into the chat so please keep those coming, but I'm going to invite Emily to come off mute and we can open up the floor to some questions. Rebecca. Yeah, we have a couple questions that I've kind of pulled aside and I'm saving but I just wanted to take a second to invite you to ask a question if you want to Rebecca has worked with so many different charities and so it's a really great opportunity it does not have to be kind of specific to what was presented here. If you're one of those people that has like an event coming up soon or you're still kind of planning for the future and feel free to ask questions about kind of what other people are doing for sponsors for marketing for happy to help on kind of all those different fronts. But while you guys are kind of popping some more questions in there if you have any Rebecca do you mind actually pulling up just a pricing visual for trellis because we did get a question about that. And then while you're doing that I'll just kind of preface it we kind of don't announce it too much because we really want our sessions to be kind of educational focus and and not just all about trellis but we were asked how do you think these events that kind of have all these cool revenue driving features on one place and some of those events did such a good job making it look so good. So that actually is what our platform is on trellis so if you are interested, or kind of in need of a platform that can do that we are able to support you so I'll just kind of let Rebecca talk about what that might look like if you have different budgets for that sort of thing. Okay, so all of the fundraising pages that I shared like Emily said work fundraisers held on our platform. We are an all on on platform so tickets donations silent auctions live auctions raffles 5050 items, and also helping with the live streaming of your event to. We can do that all on our platform. So we have three different pricing packages. Our first one is what we call always free, because it's always free, you get full access to all of the different ways you can raise more for your cause. And we just do a transaction based to be it's 3.5% to start, and kind of reduces as the more you raise, but you get full access to setting up pages on our platform, and you also get some support options to make sure you're taking care of. Our next plan is what we call the starter plan. It is $99 a month works out to be 1188 for the year. It's an annual commitment. You've got a lower trellis fee of 2.5%. You've got more support more for coaching style approach so you get more hands on time with our team to make sure your fundraising pages are set up for success. And then lastly is our pro plan it's 299 a month again it's an annual commitment so you're looking at 3588 for the year. You've got a reduced fee of 1.5% pro transaction, and you've got tons of support from our team to you've got a dedicated account manager onboarding calls checking calls free event run throughs, all of that to set you up for success, as well as a handful of other features that we just offer on that plan to. We also use stripes strips our payment processors they handle all the money side of things, and their fee is 2.45% plus 30 cents per transaction. Hopefully that helps. Awesome thanks Rebecca. Yeah we we try to make it kind of open to all with the different options that we have and so it's the type of thing of, if you don't have anything planned and you just kind of want to test out something small, maybe you only want to run a silent auction you can totally do so, or if you are ready to go full on out with gala, for example, you can do that as well. The next question that we have is actually specific to a new nonprofit that is working on crisis response. So if you're able to answer directly to crisis response please do but kind of the main question here is do you have any tips on how to attract people online. Yeah, that's the question. Definitely good question. We are actually really excited we just decided to do a talk with TechSoup Vancouver BC I guess. Eli who's also here today all around marketing your fundraising events. And I think that really ties into this conversation here first off so yeah attracting donors online to a new nonprofit. It's you got to start from ground zero. And so there's lots of different ways you can do that. Some of the best ways we've seen organizations expand or start to grow their following on attract new donors is actually through partners. So maybe you've got some individuals in your community that are part of your organization or connected to your organization in some capacity that have a following. And maybe it's people that are local in your community, or maybe it's beyond that too. But if you can ask them to support the promotion of your organization. It's going to allow you to really increase the amount of people engaging with you right at the beginning. So what that can look like is maybe you've got an event and you've got a local musician that's going to be singing at your event. Maybe it's virtual event. Encouraging them to post that event on their social media following encouraging them to share it with their friends and have it on their website to attract people to come to hear them, but also learn about your organization will allow you to expand who you're able to reach out to. And it doesn't just have to be your speakers or entertainers or people like that. Also think about your sponsors to sponsoring your event and can we get them to promote your cause and what you're doing. When we start to have our sponsors are event planners are production companies are speakers are musicians, and some of our key donors that we've already made connections with start talking about it, you're going to notice that growth really quickly. Another piece that I'd recommend to is really look at and think about how are people engaging with you. So, you've just held this event and again if your organization has been around for 20 years or for two years, this still relates. As you're getting people to sign up and buy tickets to your event, as they're starting to engage with you in different ways. Ask them where they're coming from. Have a question a custom question that says how did you hear about us for something along those lines and start to take note of where most people are coming from. Everybody says to me well I came here because I saw a social media ad that you did a paid advertisement. Awesome. I know I'm going to now invest all of my time and energy in getting more social media ads. But if everybody says actually no I came because you had that one speaker and we really like who they are and what they do. Awesome. Let's work with them or let's think about who else is in their network that we can now engage with to again continue to attract people in our community to to start supporting you. It does take a long time and so unfortunately it is not an overnight solution or fix but I think as you start to think about how you're promoting your organization and your nonprofit, how you're starting to host these events or fundraisers that you're doing. Those are kind of two ways to get the word out and also make sure that what you're doing is actually effective. Just to shed even more light on it because I think this this type of of information is helpful for more than just nonprofits that are kind of newer and growing, but like how can you kind of put this into action. A cool place to start might actually be to run like a very specific donation campaign, because I'm assuming if you're kind of new where you're at the point where you don't really have the same brand recognition as maybe like a large Children's hospital kind of in a local area right like that type of organization it's going to be easier for donors to find out about them, kind of know some general information and want to support it but you have like a really specific cause that might be newer. So what you could do is is kind of build a like a donation campaign and make it really specific to what you're raising funds for maybe it's like a $10,000 maybe that's too high too low I don't know you would kind of pick the number for your organization, but let's just go with like a $10,000 donation campaign, maybe there are like a specific number of team members that that can pay for or maybe that's like a specific vehicle that you need to make these responses, making it really specific and then kind of using like the rest of the page to to tell people about what your organization is doing okay we're raising money for this, this is what we do, and then this is where so many different local and non local partners can come in. Do you know any other crisis response organizations in other areas, other provinces or states that maybe they can help you do a little bit of promotion. Maybe you can kind of do some sort of donation campaign where the money goes to multiple organizations so it's you and also another organization, or you can kind of do something like Rebecca was saying with these different partners and even think about like local newspapers like sorry not newspaper but like we have like a cast in that in Kelowna or like Kelowna now, or like kind of these more local newspapers, if you can get them to maybe share a story of some cool impact that your organization had, maybe it's small because you know then those types, then those types of articles can kind of push to this new landing page where you can share that information. And that's the type of thing kind of anybody here is able to do if they're just looking to kind of grow their local base or non local base of donors. So we got to spend some time on that. We don't have too many other questions kind of specific from this crew but please feel free to kind of throw it in. But I did want to ask a question that we've been asked quite a few times before and that is what you're able to do to highlight your sponsors in a virtual or hybrid environment because that can look a little bit different than those in person events. Definitely. So there's really two different elements we're going to think about as you're doing this. First it's what are those elements you can include it leading up to the event. And then on the day of the event and moving forward what are some other ways that you're going to engage people and engage your donors and give them that recognition. One of the things that we looked at with this fundraising page. If I can just change my screen here. Is they highlighted their sponsors right on their fundraising page. So again, leading up to the event donors could come here to see who their key sponsors were and how they were engaging. They also on their silent auction highlighted specific silent auction sponsors that they also had engaging in their calls. So leading up I would look at things like that you can do I would encourage your sponsors maybe to send out a video or an announcement leading up to the event to where they talk about what they do and why it matters. They can talk about their involvement with the organization or why they're choosing to support this year and it's just a fun kind of like promo hype video leading up to the actual event. On the day of the event we're seeing organizations do all sorts of things to engage their donor their sponsors sorry. So one of the ideas I mentioned was doing that. Having your donor, your sponsors sorry to do a surprise delivery at a donor's door, you know doing moments like that where your donors or your sponsors are actually engaged in the event. They're actually participating and giving more than just a logo and some recognition at the front is not only going to encourage your sponsors to feel even more engaged and participate and participate further with your cause. Before your attendees and your donors watching, they're actually going to remember who the sponsor was, which is what the sponsors care about all along. You can also do different things like in your live stream video or on your stage, having their logos behind you having those elements, or encouraging for especially in person or those hybrid events where we've got an in person audience, encouraging your sponsors to sponsor drinks for everybody or do things like that. Again, it's asking them to go a little bit more above and beyond, but the payoff for them as a sponsor is going to be greater. The payoff for your event and the overall experience you're able to provide will also be better for your donors. Awesome. Thanks, Rebecca. We'll leave it at that. The last question I just wanted to add on to it too with something that I've heard from some of our partners. So I actually heard of an organization that was working with an event planner, and the event planner had a really strong marketing background. And what they decided to do was actually ask their sponsors for for something small like maybe 10 wine bottles for example. It's pretty easy for quite a few different sponsors to give. And what you can ask the sponsors for is, hey, are you able to kind of give this additional small piece. And what we're going to do is we're going to feature you in an email, but leading up to the event, and it could maybe combine with an early bird ticket sale. So you have a sponsor to give you 10 bottles of wine, and then you create an email saying, hey, we are going to put a free bottle of wine on the first 10 tables that are purchased for our event. So then you're not only able to kind of recognize your sponsor in a unique way and you can like, you know, have a cute little card attached to the wine bottle that mentioned the sponsor's name again. You have multiple touch points for the sponsor which is going to make it easier for for you to secure that gift. But then on the flip side it's also going to make it easier for you to encourage donors to start buying tables earlier and you could kind of do that for a series of weeks leading up to it. So that's just one example how in a virtual environment. And that kind of is in person to write like that would be in person tables you can do kind of a virtual gift basket if you want to but there's lots of little ways that you can ask for smaller things from sponsors and have it make a really big impact on kind of the number of donors that you're able to secure as well. So we'll leave it at that for the questions, but like Rebecca said, her email it's just Rebecca at trellis.org. You can chat kind of once more. Oh, thanks Rebecca. But I'm going to pass it over to Sandra just to kind of finish this off. Thank you all so much for being so active with us today. Excellent. Thank you guys so much Rebecca and Emily that was an amazing presentation. I think you can tell from all the comments we got. Well received a lot of great information. And I guess that you guys have. Yep, you put your email in there so if you guys need to reach Rebecca, go ahead if you have any questions about tech soup or future events please let me know. I know I don't think I have anything on the calendar right now but there is stuff coming I promise. So stay tuned to your email there's more to come. Awesome. Thanks so much for being here everybody really excited and hopefully you offer some some cool insights, but we will talk to you soon. Have a great day. Excellent. Have a great day everyone. Bye. Thanks again.