 All right. Well, thank you all for joining me today for this webinar. My name is Lori Maxwell. I am a community development manager here at mighty cause and I apologize ahead of time as much if my voice is a little scratchy I am getting over a cold so please bear with me. As we get through this presentation here. My email address is listed there on the slide it is Lori at mighty cause.com. If you have any questions during or after this webinar please feel welcome to reach out I'm happy to help in any way that I can. So we are going to talk about today. First why to plan a fundraising event in the first place. Then we'll move into peer to peer fundraising a brief explanation of what that is how it incorporates into the larger picture of fundraising events. How to get your supporters on board with the peer to peer fundraising. Then we're going to walk through a few of the resources we have available, both to you as the event organizers and to your fundraisers who are participating in the event. At the end there will be a Q&A. However, feel free, you know, during throughout if you want to pop your questions in the Q&A box or in the chat. I can circle back and get to those but I know sometimes you don't want to lose it so if you want to go ahead and pop it in there that's perfectly fine and we'll circle back at the end and try to get all of your questions answered. If I am unable to get to your question or you have to leave before I answer it. Again, I can email you feel welcome to reach out and if I notice that I will reach out to you as well. A little bit about Mighty Cause to begin with I'm sure all of you are at least a little bit aware since you're here today but we are of course a year round fundraising platform specifically designed for nonprofits. Today of course we are going to be focusing on the event product and in our event platform, but we do specialize in year round fundraising. And if that is anything you want to learn more about you can do so at mightycause.com. Here's a little bit about what we have to offer. We are always of course welcome or welcome the opportunity to walk you through our platform so if you are interested in getting a demo, you can of course do that at mightycause.com slash contact us. So, let's get into why we're here. So why, why do we want to plan a fundraising event. There are a number of benefits that come with planning a fundraising event. So you're going to have individuals and teams that are working together to help you reach a shared goal. This collective goal can be whatever you know is appropriate for your organization or for the event. But this works really well because the ask isn't coming directly from the organization, it's coming from your supporters. So for instance a donor, you know they could find their way to your event page through a friend or family member through a local business who's running a team, where they can find about it, found and find out about it directly from you through your social media channels or through a newsletter. But the point is that you're casting a much wider net, you're getting more people through the door, and you're getting more people to get eyes on your mission. If your event is going to be in person or if you would like it to be ticketed, we can also accommodate that it does add another layer of complexity of course. Fundraising does pay off higher amounts than, you know, individually standing fundraisers. And you can see here on the slide, usually events and teams are going to raise about 30% more in revenue than individually standing fundraisers alone. And that's on our platform, just based off of the last couple of years. Our event product is really perfect for charity walks, 5Ks, marathons, really any fundraising endeavor that's built around gathering people together for a cause, even if that is just online. Now of course in the last couple of years, most things have been online, most things have been virtual, and we've seen a really big shift to these kinds of large scale online fundraising events that are incorporating tiers and teams and peer to peer fundraising. They can sometimes require a little bit more effort to manage but if you have a good plan in place, you have a dedicated person on your staff or a high level volunteer who is running these efforts, it generally can go very smoothly. It's not too much to worry about there. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about peer to peer fundraising and kind of what that is. I won't go too deep into it. I assume most of you know the premise, but you know an important element of fundraising events, particularly online is peer to peer fundraising. It's a technique that you're going to use to leverage your existing supporters to bring in new donors, new donations, and get more eyes on your nonprofit. In a peer to peer fundraiser. Again we I mentioned this before you're not asking directly for the donations your supporters are going to do that on your behalf, they're going to have their own fundraising page. They'll reach out to their friends, their families and their social networks and ask for them to support their fundraiser, which ultimately is supporting your nonprofit. Some of the most identifiable benefits of peer to peer include donor acquisition. It expands your existing donor base it gives you access to people who are new to your nonprofit. You can even reach new geographical areas depending on who you have on your behalf. You're also going to get more boots on the ground so you're expanding your reach by getting more people to spread the word and make the ask on your behalf. It's also going to deepen your relationship with your existing donors and supporters. Not only can this be fun and exciting for some folks, but it gives them multiple ways to support your cause. So in terms of the graphics of your supporters, maybe there are some folks who are really deeply invested in your mission and the work that you're doing but they might not have the financial means to support you in the way that they would like to offering them the opportunity to fund raise on your behalf is a great way for them to make the impact that they would like to, without having to bring that out of their own pocket because maybe they're just not able to do that. In particular, peer to peer fundraisers are going to have their own fundraising page which is connected to your event page. They can customize that page and actually we highly encourage them to do that. The more personal the better they want to tell the story about why they are invested in your nonprofit, why they think the work that you are doing is important. They are then going to share out that fundraising page and the link to their friends families and social networks, and the donors will give directly to them directly to support their fundraising efforts. Now those donations still show up in your donation report so you're still getting all of that donor data, and it's ultimately going to be bundled into your regular disbursement that will come from mighty cause. So you're still getting access to all the same information that you would get if somebody donated directly to your organization. They're just able to also support their friends in the process. Now getting your supporters on board this is something that we get asked about quite often, and I'll tell you that the most important part, or the most, I guess beneficial thing you can do for your supporters and getting them on board is to communicate communicate communicate. You want to do this early and you want to do it often. I always recommend creating your communication plan well ahead of time so that not only is your messaging clear, but it's cohesive and it's ready to go so that when fundraising starts you can focus on the fundraising and you don't have to focus on writing an email or getting people on board, they're already there. I also want to make sure to make the ask clear. Many of your supporters will want to help you, but they're going to need detailed instructions on what to do. Most of the folks are going to be working with aren't fundraisers maybe they haven't done any kind of fundraising since elementary school when they were selling Christmas wrapping paper or something like that. It doesn't mean they won't be good at it or that they don't want to try. It just means that they don't have the tools to really be successful. They can provide them with those tools so that they can feel more confident going into the process. I always, I also like to recommend that you give them options. I think it's important to say when you're making the ask, you know, we would love to have to ask if you're unable to do that. Could you just share our event page instead. If they don't want to have their own fundraising page they can still do kind of a mini peer to peer effort by just sharing your event page so making sure to give them options so that they know how to best help you. They also want to make it as easy as possible. Now the actual act of joining the fundraising event on mighty cause is really simple. Once you have your event page up and ready to go. The URL of that event page can be shared with anyone, and they will be able to simply click a button that says join this event. Very simple. I want to make sure that you're providing them with all of the key pertinent information that they will need about your event and that's going to include the date of the not only the fundraising event if it's in person but the fundraising effort in general. Most of the time you'll have a window maybe one or two weeks sometimes a month where you'll actually be collecting donations you want to be very clear about what the start date and what the end date are. I also want to make it clear what your fundraising goals for this are what are you trying to kind of end up with at the end of the day is it $10,000 25. What are you looking to accomplish with this fundraising event. And then finally you want to make sure you're providing the messaging and language to use in their outreach so that they're not having to come up with that themselves. It helps in a couple of different ways. First of all it makes them feel much more confident that they have everything they need they know what they're saying and they can make the ass. But it also helps you to make sure that you are controlling the narrative and controlling the messaging about your work and the mission and what you're doing with these funds. I also highly recommend opening the event page to your fundraisers at least one to two weeks early before donations start so that they have time to set up their pages. A lot of these folks of course are going to be doing this just in their spare time. Do you want to make sure to give them enough time so that they feel comfortable with the platform, they know what they're doing and they have plenty of time to ask questions, if any come up during the process of setting things up. You want to make sure to give them attainable goals to meet and tailor the ask to the individual and or group. So for example your high level volunteers your board members, perhaps you want to set their fundraising goal at a higher dollar amount than you might want to set for the general public. That would be fine and I think it's appropriate to make sure that you are maximizing the impact that your fundraising event can have. So before you send out your invitations really think through segment out your supporters, figure out who you want to be in your different groups and go from there. You can also make it fun. I think creating challenges and offering incentives to your fundraisers is a great way to keep people interested throughout the process. Another thing that I've seen work really well is for example, you know the first fundraiser to reach $500 funds raised gets a gift card or a unique volunteer opportunity organization swag from your nonprofit. Having a long term maybe a two to four week fundraising event, have a new challenger incentive every week. It keeps people engaged it lets people know that you're engaged, and you'll be sure to see efforts made throughout the event rather than just at the beginning or just at the end. You can also shout out your fundraisers on social media when they meet certain milestones maybe you give them a shout out and tag them when their first donation is received, or when they meet their goal. You can determine what works best really depending on the number of fundraisers that you have and how manageable that is for you and your staff. But I think it's a good it's good practice to shout them out and just let them know in that very small way that you appreciate their efforts. You can also encourage folks to keep an eye on the event pay on the event page leaderboard, each of our event pages will have a leaderboard that will show who's kind of in first place. And that can be kind of segmented out in different ways depending on how you would like your, your fundraisers to be recognized. Some of our resources for you all as the event organizers include our new event organizer toolkit. Now as the event organizer of course you're in charge of a lot of this you're going to be making the page making it look great, signing people up sending out those invitations and supporting them throughout the campaign. So our successful event really I mentioned this before it starts early and so it's really important to stay organized and on top of the details, so that you know once that day comes you are ready to hit the ground running and you have everything in place. The link at the bottom there is where you are able to download our new event organizer toolkit, I will be sending out a follow up email to everyone on this webinars that will include that link as well. And I would encourage you to, you know, to download it take a look. It's going to include a lot of really great resources in it, including your organizer checklist and to do list that will have a roadmap of everything you need to do to plan a successful event. And event planning guide for beginners. My favorite part of this is the email templates for you to send to your participants throughout the event. This is going to include your invitation email timeline milestone emails, and even emails to engage in active fundraisers. And finally you're going to see in there a list of curated support articles that we have at mighty cause that will just help you throughout the planning and execution process of your events. We also of course have our support center that is always available to anyone using mighty cause and that can be found at mighty cause.com slash guy. It's going to include access to our blog, our downloadable ebooks including the toolkits webinar library case studies, a lot more with the event subscription, which comes with the event package your organization is also going to be assigned a dedicated account manager that would be someone like me or one of my colleagues who works with mighty cause was available to you for one on one support as you need it throughout your throughout your planning process and the planning process. Some of the other features that are included with the event advanced package that can really be helpful in your fundraising efforts for your events are our text to give. Now we know, especially over the last few years mobile giving is more important than ever. So what text to give on mighty cause does is it leverages our mobile responsiveness or checkout process to make it even easier. For everyone who wants to support your organization to do so, this can be set up in three really simple steps. You first just choose your event keyword. The donors are going to text that keyword to the 800 number listed, and they're taken directly to the mobile checkout to complete their donation. We've seen this be really successful over the last few years in particular even before that to a certain extent, and I would highly recommend setting one up for your event as you are getting started. We also include our fundraiser templates. Now, for each event page in your settings one of the things that you're going to be able to set up is a fundraiser template and this is one of the best first steps that you can take to manage your event and get your fundraisers ready to go without much effort on their behalf and I will tell you that will make so much easier for everyone involved. So what this allows you to do is when they go to create their page, you will have already pre populated a lot of the content that will exist on that page so that it is there it is ready for them. They can customize that as they'd like to but at the end of the day they are ready to go without having to start from scratch and come up with what to say all on their own. Again, this is included on every event page and every team page so you can have different templates for different teams if you would like. Now for your fundraisers we also are going to have a number of resources and the first of those. Actually, yes, let's talk through this first I apologize. One of the most common challenges that fundraising participants face is figuring out what to say, they don't work for your nonprofit they may, maybe, you know they know your mission but maybe they don't know your mission statement so providing them with the tools that they need and making sure that they have that language is key to the success of your campaign. That's where the participating fundraiser toolkit comes in that's where you can provide that guidance to your participants, you can tailor the messaging to meet the needs of your organization, and that way they will have everything they need and one little packet, and they'll be good to go used in conjunction with the template tool that we just talked about this is going to streamline the fundraising process going to create a much more welcoming experience for your participants throughout the process. The link there at the bottom is of course where you can download the participating fundraiser toolkit, and that will be included in the email that I send out afterwards as well. In the event participant toolkit what you're going to find is a fundraising checklist, much like the to do list for you all as organizers this is going to be a roadmap to success for your fundraisers. You can also have their own email templates that they can send out to friends families colleagues to help their to help rally support really get people to come visit their page and help them in their fundraising efforts. It will include social media templates that are essentially copy and paste social media posts that they can use to reach out to their friends and family via social media. There's text to give there are some specific text to give social media posts that are included as well. And then finally we do have our curated support articles, much like we have for you all as the organizers. The support center is also available for all participants, not just for nonprofits at mighty cause.com slash guide. Our support team is available for question they they there is a chat function that they where they can chat in a question that they have it. And we also have an automated search tool that will help them find what they are looking for. I want to keep your door open as well. You are the biggest resource that is available to your participants. Many of your fundraisers are going to want to help but they just might not know how to get started, or the best practices to be successful. You want to have a dedicated member of your team, be that staff or high level volunteer who's available to your fundraisers for consultation and assistance. I also recommend if you can swing it this is so helpful host a kickoff session at the beginning of your fundraiser to show your participants the rope get everybody together on a zoom session in person if possible, and have dedicated time and space, help them set up their fundraising pages while they're there with you. It's going to help ensure that they get completed first of all, but also that they know they have your support and they can ask any questions in real time as they come up. I'm going to open up for questions here. And I see that we do have a few here in the chat so I'm going to go through those first but please, if you have any please pop them in either the chat or the Q&A box and I will get to those in just a moment. Okay, so let's see how many events would you suggest a small nonprofit run in a single year. Great question and I don't know that there is an exact answer to that I will say that you know one thing to consider is the donor fatigue is real that it is certainly a real problem and I think to a certain extent fundraiser fatigue is probably at just as real so if you are looking at making the same supporters to be your fundraisers at every event. I'd say three or four maybe one a quarter is good, making sure that you space up enough time so that space them out with enough time so that they're not feeling overwhelmed, or awkward about making that ask to their networks again so I think really whatever works best for you all because at the end of the day you're the ones who are having to manage these events and planning an event does take time. So I'd say at minimum one right I think at least one at maximum I would not go more than four. I am assuming that that is in reference to the product that we're talking about, and the advanced product is available for a monthly or annual fee depending on how you would like to set a sign up for the package, and I am more than happy to talk more about that. Wilma if you're interested please let me know. Any other questions coming in. I don't see any other questions coming in. So if there aren't any, then we can go ahead and wrap up as I mentioned we are going to be sending out a follow up email that will include the links to the toolkits that we've talked about today. My email is lori that's lori at mighty cause calm. If you have any follow up questions or if you would like to discuss any of this further, please feel welcome to reach out and I am more than happy to help. And if that is all. Yeah, thank you everybody for coming I appreciate thank you so much. I appreciate all the kind words. Thank you so much everyone have a good afternoon.