I love donor events—like capital L.O.V.E.—I really, really love donor events. I love how a good event can create a strong emotional reaction from the audience. I love when they’re moved to laughter and/or tears. I love surprising attendees and creating that “ta dah” moment. I love when they pull out their phones and record the action. I love watching our donors lean into our message and mission. All of it, the crazy, creative, chaotic, cherished moments in the brainstorming, planning, and execution phase. I actually even love the clean up. And I never miss a chance to follow up and get feedback, so we can know what worked and what we need to improve. I love being able to track how each donor event or experience further engaged, inspired, or motivated donors into action.
I have been planning and coordinating donor events my entire career, and over the course of three decades I calculated that I have done over 3,000 events for organizations I have worked with, and helped some of our clients with theirs as well. So, asking me to select my very favorite donor experience was a tough assignment.
For me, the event that stands out above all was an event we did for our planned giving donors in the fall of 2021. Our campus, like most at the time, was shut down, and we were trying our best to keep our donors engaged and connected during this difficult time. One population that we worried about was our older donors. They were alone and eager for any type of outreach from us. We had traditionally hosted an event for the members of our planned giving society every fall as the school year began, and we knew we wanted to do something for this donor group. A few factors we had to consider—this was a group that liked interactive events—they wanted to see, do, or learn something. We always liked to showcase one college, program, or group on campus. We had a student farm that had excess produce because no one was on campus to consume it. We also had an amazing executive chef at our Health System who created a farm to fork program that transformed how people view hospital food. And, my planned giving gift officers were struggling to engage their donors.
So, with all those resources in mind, we put those factors together and created an experiential event for our donors. We worked with our chef and our student farm, and came up with a few recipes he could make with the produce we had on hand. We asked our participants to come by to pick up their basket of ingredients and recipes, and then tune in that Saturday for a zoom event with a cooking demonstration with our executive chef.
We were not sure how this would go over with our donors, but the RSVP’s rolled in in record numbers! The donors absolutely loved driving up and seeing our staff with baskets of goodies. We were gloved and masked, and safely put the basket in their cars. For the donors who could not drive, we asked our planned giving officers to deliver baskets directly to their homes. Honestly, I am not sure who was more happy to see someone—my team or our donors. The energy was high and people were positively giddy. It felt like a bit of normalcy if even just for a few moments. We even got our Chancellor and his wife to participate, and had a live stream of them interacting with Chef Santana the day of the event.
There were many factors that made this event so special and memorable:
We found a way to safely engage a vulnerable and important donor population during the pandemic.
Our donors participated in record numbers—including donors who usually never came to events on campus.
We partnered with our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and our Health System, so we were able to promote two programs with one event.
We pushed ourselves to do something we had never done before.
My team, and many gift officers, got the chance to engage with these donors during a time when engagement was very difficult.
When we sent our follow up email asking for feedback—our satisfaction rates were off the charts, and we received emails, texts, and notes from our donors thanking us for the experience.
And finally, this event provided our planned giving officers opportunities to engage before, during and after the event. It reopened the door to these donors.
I may have started this blog by saying I LOVE events, but let me correct myself: I LOVE events with a purpose. While my goal is always to create a memorable experience for our donors, it always has an end in mind. With this event, I wanted to find a way to engage a group of donors that are very important to our organization, and our planned giving officers had struggled to get any meetings, virtual or otherwise. It was as though this group had retreated. However, this event brought them out, and reminded them that they supported a special place. They got to do something new, we got to be creative, and it opened the doors for our planned giving officers to reconnect with these donors. Mission accomplished!
Written by Angie Joens
