Hosting an online event fundraiser has two purposes: raising awareness for your organization and raising money to fulfill your mission. There’s a plethora of resources available with tips on how to increase the money you raise, but raising awareness can often be overlooked despite being a major benefit of hosting events! Two of the biggest benefits of focusing on raising awareness are:
Attracting more supporters for your event (and future events)
Attracting more sponsors for your event (and future events)
Both of these will help you raise more money in the long term, as well as bring more attention to the organization and its cause overall. Remember, raising awareness is a long-term game: investing in it up front can lead to big impacts down the line. Figuring out the best ways to raise awareness might seem intimidating, but that’s why companies like SureImpact and Auctria are here to help!
Putting hard numbers behind you is one of the best ways to build awareness and trust. Auctria enables you to run all types of online and auction fundraisers. SureImpact enables you to track and measure your social impact and then weave your social impact story throughout your event fundraiser website to increase awareness of your cause and your event! Let’s walk through a few easy ways you can work to raise awareness with your next event (and why it really all comes down to the data).
Build a Strong Website
One of the best ways to raise awareness is to have a strong event website. For many potential donors, your event website is the first place they’ll learn about your organization and your event - whether they were directed there through social media, through word of mouth, or through an advertisement for the event. Your auction website should clearly communicate the event as well as the cause or organization you’re supporting and partnered with. It’s also your first chance to get potential attendees excited about your event, eventually increasing ticket sales, bids, and overall donations. Don’t be afraid to pull at their heartstrings: make sure you communicate why it’s important for them to support your cause by attending your event. You can do this by showing pictures and videos, including informational articles about your cause, or sharing relevant data.
By emphasizing why it’s important for them to immediately donate and support your cause or attend your event, you’ll be raising awareness for your organization and its mission at the same time as you raise awareness for your event, increasing support and interest in both.
Be Transparent With Funds and Goals
Once you have your website built, it’s time to fill it with all the information your potential attendees, sponsors, and more need to know. One of the key ways to raise awareness using your website is to be transparent about the goals of your organization and where the funds that are raised go. Are the funds raised at your event earmarked for a specific end goal (i.e. a particular initiative, fund, or project)? Put that on your website! While some events may be raising funds for the organization at large, having a specific goal can often motivate donors by giving them a specific outcome to visualize.
This also serves to build trust; showing where funds have gone and what your organization has achieved with those funds builds trust and shows your donors that the money they give you is truly going towards what they care about. Pointing to the tangible outcomes of your fundraising also shows sponsors that the event is worth partnering with, as well as giving both sponsors and donors a specific outcome to tell non-attendees about in between events (never underestimate the power of word of mouth!).
Share Relevant Data
Data, data, data - the “location, location, location” of the fundraising world. Nothing speaks more effectively to the impact of your event and your organization than data! Which means it’s key to communicate that data in a clear and effective way. The data you share on your event website should highlight how your work is changing lives, communities, etc. in a quantifiable manner, and how your donors make these changes possible.
Once you’ve got that data, you need a place to show it off - and Auctria can help you build an effective website to do that. If you’re curious what Auctria can do for you to help you build an effective event website, check out our full article here. No matter how you choose to manage and show off your data, keep in mind that this should be accessible on your website.
It’s important that potential attendees and sponsors can easily find the data. It should also be displayed in a clear and appealing way; graphs and other infographics or images can be an effective way to quickly communicate simplified data learnings to supporters who don’t know the nitty-gritty details of your mission behind-the-scenes.
Choosing the most relevant data goes hand in hand with our previous points about building a strong website and being transparent: relevant data will strengthen your website and build trust and transparency with your supporters. In order to achieve our prior two points, you have to make smart decisions about gathering, organizing, and communicating the most important data!
Once you build a platform to host your data and begin directing supporters to it, you’ll be constantly raising awareness through your website’s communication. Long term, consider expanding to regular newsletters, social media updates, or other relevant platforms to remind your supporters of your organization’s impact in between events to keep the energy going.
Remember, it’s okay to start small - whether that’s with your fundraising or your awareness! Awareness of your organization and event will grow naturally each year; all you have to do is get the ball rolling. Investing in your awareness will pay dividends down the line in additional donations, sponsors, and support. With each event, you’ll continue to streamline your process, raise more awareness, build better community partnerships with sponsors, and raise more money so you can make a bigger difference for the causes you’re passionate about. We hope these tips and resources help you kickstart your journey and bring more people to your cause!
Special thanks to Laurie Hochman from Auctria for the expert advice.
Auctria is a powerful engine to organize and run your event and auction fundraiser. From in person events to online and from the first donation to the final collection, Auctria helps you stay on top of the details so you can focus on maximizing your fundraising. Over 45,000 event fundraisers have used Auctria to raise over $500M.
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