Tip of the Week: Making connections at special events
You invite your supporters to a special event. It’s a part of your stewardship plan — to spend some time with your donors and get to know them on a personal level. As you look around the room, you have no idea who is there. People come and go. You don’t know if your top donor even showed — you’ve never met them. Ack! This wasted opportunity could have been avoided by adding a few elements to the event:
An RSVP process. Ask people to let you know if they plan to come to the event. You can better plan the event and if you notice that some people are not coming, you can phone to invite them personally or say you hope to see them next time.
A registration table. Even for informal events, having people register lets you know who came. It also allows you to personally welcome everyone.
Name tags with stickers. Name tags help everyone network and they help you identify your supporters if you have never met them. (Be mindful of what style will work best for the type of dress at the event. No pins or stickers on fancy dresses — use lanyards instead.) If you want to make further use of the tags, use stickers to identify types of people. For example, a red dot indicates a donor, green dot for a sponsor, blue dot for someone who is not a member or donor.
Assignments. Ensure that staff and board members know that their job is to network and be ambassadors for the organization You could even assign them to specific people or types of people. For example — you welcome all the red dots and encourage them to join our group, I’ll talk to all the green dots and ask them if they have been happy with their sponsorships.
Follow up calls. If you didn’t get a chance to speak with everyone who came to your event, use the registration list to make a few calls the next day. Ask people what they thought of the event and thank them for coming.
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