Fundraising & Promotion
Summer is a great time for charity fundraising. People are more willing to participate and attend a fundraising event in good weather. Fundraising is a fantastic opportunity to promote your charity or organisation. You can reveal your creativity through your fundraising event while boosting brand awareness.
Think about what type of fundraising event that will work best for your goal.
Fundraising Event Types
Endurance Event: These are your fun runs, cycles, marathons, skydives and so on.
Gala or Informal Fundraiser: Galas are formal dinner dances or parties with live music or other entertainment. Informal fundraisers examples are family fun days or community barbeques.
Live Auction: People bid items denoted to raise money.
Fundraising Promotion Tips
I cannot give a promotion tip without emphasising – planning is a must when it comes to ALL marketing strategies even for fundraising promotion.
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. Benjamin Franklin
Traditional Methods
Traditional methods of promotion include posters, flyers, newspaper adverts, radio ads and word of mouth. These are all still very successful promotion tools. Employ traditional methods with digital and online marketing methods to boost their visibility and effectiveness.
Digital & Online Methods
Digital marketing includes short video ads, blog posts and other digitally designed ads. These methods use social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to boost the traditional methods of promotion.
A planned combination of traditional and online methods creates a very successful and attractive fundraising event.
Key Promotion Steps
Step One
Imagine the end result. Understand what it is you are trying to achieve and what it will take to achieve it. What type of fundraising event is it?
Step Two
Select those who are require in the event in order for it to be successful – (this includes people who will offer donations). Who is your target audience? How best to reach them?
Step Three
Make decisions regarding the type of promotional material needed; It needs to suit your budget. Remember: it is a good idea to use a graphic designer for posters and flyers to communicate your message clearly. They look better and your event will give a sense of professionalism and good organisation.
Step Four
Promotion material designed with your goal clearly and concisely visually expressed. (Visual expression is 10 times more effective than text)
Step Five
Planning your online promotion to reach your audience with the best impact. Before you distribute any traditional promotion event material, prepare your online promotion. Write a blog post about the event, ready a Facebook post and create a Twitter hashtag dedicated to your event. Allow your audience to sign up, share, and interact with your event.
Step Six
At the event keep the interaction up with continued response to Twitter and Facebook comments.
Step Seven
After the event, thank everyone for supporting and donating. Let people know what they made possible. Post photos and videos, tastefully.
Happy Fundraising!
These are some of the steps you might find useful in organising and promoting your summer fundraising event. Remember, creativity, planning and correct timing are key when publishing your posts.
Marketing isn’t a science it is an experience.
