The 18-page guide is designed to help event fundraisers move beyond only reporting the past and start using analytics to predict the future. A case study featuring the Komen Global Race for the Cure highlights how we used analytics to help transform their highly attended event into a strong fundraising event.

Get the guide for free here. Thanks for reading!

This guide covers the basics of behavioral economics and how you can use these principles to craft more effective messages that will win the hearts and minds of your audience.

Some of the ideas:

• Small, not big - The bigger the scale of what you’re communicating, the smaller the impact on your audience
• Hopeful, not hopeless - People tend to act on what they believe they can change—If your problem seems intractable, enormous and endless, people won’t be motivated to help
• Peer pressure still works (Nope, it doesn’t end after high school) - People are more likely to do something if they know other people like them are doing it. 

You can download the eBook here.

The fact is, with an hour of time, a flat file of your fundraising data, and Microsoft Excel, you can get a far deeper understanding of what is actually powering (or holding back) your program. 

The webcast was recorded and archived; you can view it for free here. 

Don’t be afraid of your data! 

However, such programs have large potential pitfalls — lack of control, data collection challenges, difficulty in oversight and evaluation, and possible negative brand exposure to name a few of the largest. 

My colleagues at Event 360 recently teamed up with Blackbaud to research and document some of the best practices in this emerging field. The resulting whitepaper makes for an interesting read, and a good primer to how to get some of the basics in place so that you enjoy the benefits rather than suffer the headaches. 

I invite you to download it here. 

However, although this is a primary mathematical relationship, it is also the number one challenge facing most nonprofit organizations. Simply put, many fundraising events underperform – not because of a lack of participants, but because the participants do not fundraise. In almost every engagement we manage, therefore, we find that at least part of our task is to take an event that has successfully created awareness and help our client transform it into a successful fundraising program.

Do your events raise awareness, but no money? Are you struggling to turn participants into fundraisers? The good news is that you can impact these results. From our work, we have identified four key steps to transform an event from a gathering of people into an effective fundraising program:

• A well-articulated ask;
• A segmented participant base;
• A customized communication plan targeted to the segments; and
• A management culture that supports fundraising.

I’ve recently written a free white-paper outlining these steps in a bit more detail. I invite you to download it here.

Remember that attendance doesn’t fuel the programs that change the world — revenue does. Best wishes and good luck!

I would like to start by thanking all of you who have come here today. Many of you traveled some distance and at considerable inconvenience to be here, and we are profoundly grateful.

I have struggled this week to make sense of what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. As much as I want to reflect on what kind of person my Dad was, I have found it hard to do so. It is difficult to fully describe the soul of a person when you are immersed only those possessions they left behind. 

I have spent the last four days absently trying to sort out those possessions –- shifting through piles of paper, sorting through to-do lists, culling through files on his computer; moving from room to room, picking up books in one, picking up pictures in the next. 

I found a rake with leaves still in it, well worn, set in its place in the garage. His legacy, the tools of a patient gardener.

I found a gold star that he made, by hand, for the front door — as well as a prototype, perfectly measured, folded carefully from graph paper. His legacy, the proof of a disciplined craftsman.

I found dozens of post-it notes, with lists of tasks and bullets of thoughts and reminders. “Plan for window & door improvements in 2010.” “Children’s Books – Research.” “Ask Cathy about cheese soup recipe.” His legacy, on orange and pink squares of paper, the evidence of an ordered mind.

I found pictures of grandchildren, framed and displayed, pictures given to him and a few he took himself. I have thought about what we will do with the pictures. We will gather them up I suppose, all but the picture they represent, the legacy of a proud grandfather.

I found a journal of days, an entry book logged with comings and goings. “June 4th: 2 mile walk in park.” “October 16th: Raked leaves and trimmed bushes.” And in between the daily order, I found thoughts heartbreaking to read. “July 7th, 2007: I am not a meaningful part of my family’s lives, nor they of mine. I am too isolated.” Another entry from several months ago, after I had called him to ask that he postpone an upcoming visit, said simply: “September 5th: I was invited to stay home.” A legacy of repetition and routine. A legacy of a father too distant. 

I found the confused eyes of children too young to understand, searching for an explanation that I already know age will not provide. I found comments like those from my son: “I think Daddy wants another Dad.” No, just the one I already had. A legacy of questions. 

In a search to understand I found tire tracks in the grass and an impact in the mud. I found glass shards and pieces of plastic. I found a car crumpled, nearly snapped in two, a physics problem made real, the solution to which was blood and broken bones. A legacy of senseless violence, a horrible legacy for a peaceful man. 

None of these –- the post-it notes, the logs, the tasks, the pictures, the debris — are any part of the legacy I wish to keep, nor any part of the legacy I wish you to have. We must do our best together to remember a better legacy, a legacy more representative of the life. 

To my sister Cathy: A legacy of love from a man who cared deeply about you. Although he never could quite find a way to express it as you might have wanted to hear it, he expressed it in the way he needed to say it. You were his biggest joy. 

To my brother Tim: A legacy of pride from a father who loved you as his own and admired you more than you know. Your intellect and dedication to craft reminded him of the best pieces of himself. 

To my wife Jeanie: A legacy of tenderness from a person who reveled in your unconditional acceptance, your lack of pretense, and your caring. 

To my uncle Dave: A legacy of admiration from a brother who considered you his biggest hero. 

To my aunts Cathy and Jane: A legacy of thanks for the joy that was your family, and Mom’s. 

To our children, Dad’s grandchildren –- Matthew, Sierra, Johnny, Ellie, Celia June, Aidan, and Danny: A legacy of strength, a legacy that my grandmother called “the red blood of the pioneers” –- a legacy born of centuries working the soil, the fortitude to keep walking forward in the face of the inertia of the world. 

To the Marsicks, the Schurdells, the Krafts, and all of his neighbors and friends: A legacy of gratitude, an unarticulated thank you for the shared experiences and laughter. You brought out Dad’s best, and you understood that though he expressed himself through the dimension of science, he was far from one-dimensional. 

And to me: 

I have not been sure what my legacy is. I cannot so easily move past the debris and the broken bones. I cannot so quickly forget the journal entries and the notes, the expressions of a solitude borne somewhat unwillingly. 

And yet my legacy sits in this room. In my family –- those connected to me by blood, but more than that, in the many of you who have become my family by choice, a choice more yours than mine. Dad’s legacy to me is a quiet admonition that the human experience is not a solitary one. My friends, you have been unwilling to let me be isolated and alone, and in doing so you have helped me extend my reach further than Dad was able. My dad’s legacy is your friendship, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

We must remember that God almost never gives us what we want, but almost always gives us what we need. These gifts –- these gifts of love, pride, tenderness, admiration, gratitude, fortitude, laughter, and friendship –- these gifts are Dad’s bequest. They are to be respected, to be cherished, and above all, to be shared. 

This is our obligation to the patient gardener: To extend his life into the next; to multiply his blessings; and above all, to go out into the world and to sow the seeds he has given us.

The title of the presentation was “Doing More With Less” — and not surprisingly, given the difficult economic climate, a number of nonprofit professionals came on the call hoping to find ways to stretch, pull, and tweeze their dollars.

I opened the presentation by sharing the brutal fact that if we define “doing more with less” as literally increasing activity with fewer resources, we’re in for disappointment. It can’t be done; the immutable laws of physics will get in the way. Unfortunately, we cannot create something out of nothing.

However, if we define “doing more with less” as creating better results with fewer resources, then at least have a fighting chance of accomplishing something. More than a fighting chance, actually, because in my experience a great deal of fundraising activity does little more than occupy our time, while the true results come from a few key areas — specific groups of people, specific messages, specific appeals, and so forth.

The real key to thriving in times like these is not to put on another pot of coffee and double the number of hours you and your team are logging. The key is focus. Focusing on the donors, participants, tools, and areas that bring in the results requires an ability to identify those key areas, a willingness to redirect efforts to them, and a discipline to let other activities go. 

Focus is the watchword for fundraising in a difficult climate, and the organizations that understand that are not only coping well with the recession, they are well preparing themselves for the good times ahead. 

For more information and to listen to the entire webinar, click here. (For access to the slides referenced in the presentation, click here.) 

——-

Dean Jain, Assistant Dean Cisek-Jones, distinguished faculty and staff, honored guests, graduates of EMP 74, and of course, classmates of EMP 73:

Thank you.

There are so many people in this room who have impressed and awed me over the past two years. I am honored and humbled to speak to you today on behalf of EMP 73.

I had a reputation – probably merited – as being one of the most talkative people in our class. Whatever the topic, I had a question about it, or a comment about it, or a question about my comment. So it is quite incredible to me that anyone in my class believes I have anything left to say. I’m sure that they figured that if they didn’t let me speak, I’d find some way to add a comment anyway.

In any case, I’ll do my best to exhibit a brevity that was absent during my two years as a student.

Please allow me to convey three messages.

First and most importantly, on behalf of my entire class, I want to thank everyone in the audience who is not wearing an academic robe. To all of the family and friends who are here today, thank you. As our wives, husbands, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, parents, and friends, you went through the experience with us. But your part was much more difficult than ours. In many ways, you bore all of the hardships – the long days and nights, the studying, the stress, the awkward weight gain! – and yet you received few if any of the benefits. You became accustomed to eating alone, or caring for children by yourselves – and a few of you even gave birth while you shared your marriage with the EMP program. You did not embark on the experience to learn new skills, or make new friends, or expand your business networks. You supported us only because you care about us. Thank you. We want to let you know that we are profoundly grateful for your love.

And specifically to the children in the audience: We hope that you do not mistake the times we were absent from dinners, and school concerts, and swim meets, and soccer matches, and games of catch, and stuffed animal tea parties, and Lego battles as anything other than our desire to make you proud through our effort. Do not think for one moment that you are not our most important priority, because you are. Among all the marks we received during our two years, by far the most important is the grade we receive from you. We hope we ended the program with a High Pass. Thank you for being here, because you are the reason we do what we do. (And to Matthew, Johnny, Ellie, and Danny – I love you, I’m proud of you, and yes, we can finally go to the aquarium now.)

Secondly, to everyone who teaches and works at Kellogg: Thank you. Your work is superb in intent and in implementation, and you shared it selflessly with us. Thank you for shouldering our inexperience, our overconfidence, and our impetuousness with professionalism and grace. Thank you for seeing something in us that we only hoped to see in ourselves; thank you for inviting us into your circle. We hope that we make you, and the school, proud.

And finally, to the graduates in the audience, and in particular to my fellow graduates from EMP 73: So here we are. It is amazing to think that something that took so long could go by so fast. Less than two years ago we gathered for the first time in a room just half a mile up the road as the frightening realization dawned on us: The program is not only going to involve numbers, but there’s actually going to be math. And, they’re really going to test us on it.

But we overcame our fear, and soon we got into a routine. It was a routine that was hard not to like. It involved new books every six weeks, books that were labeled with our names neatly on the top. It involved weekly group meetings, and lots of lecture notes – but it also involved omelets, and quite a few more meals than normal, healthy people should eat.

It’s true that there were exams and assignments and papers, but it also turned out that there was something else – there were good people, the kind of people you’d always wish and hope that you’d meet, people who were smart and funny and challenging and inspiring. And though we came into the program thinking that the people were a way to understand the coursework, it soon became clear that the reality was just the opposite – that the curriculum was just a door into the real value of Kellogg: All of you.

And after all your effort, after all our time learning about marketing mixes and weighted-average cost of capital and the theory of constraints and pricing strategies, our reward is to be turned loose into the worst economy the world has seen in seventy years.

It would be absurd not to mention current conditions, because the impact of those conditions has been keenly felt by our class. Our classmates have seen their salaries cut, opportunities eliminated, relationships strained, and for some, jobs lost. In a better time, discussions around the dinner table might involve decisions between new career opportunities – now, the discussions are just as likely to concern loans, and mortgage payments, and dwindling retirement accounts. The news from both Wall Street and Washington doesn’t inspire many warm feelings, and it is hard not to wish for a third year of school as a refuge. One has a sense that though the exams have ended, the biggest tests are still to come.

I think, however, that this is not the right way to view the situation. We are not the next round of cattle being led to the stockyards; perhaps we – though not completely aware that we are up to the task – perhaps we are the cavalry. Perhaps we ourselves are the solution that we are looking for.

In school we talk repeatedly about Ps – about price, promotion, place, product, and of course, the biggest of all, profit. As we leave Kellogg in these uncertain times, I have a sense that we will need to focus on two more important Ps: Passion and Perspective.

Right now, the world needs people who care – people who care enough to look beyond band-aids and sound-bites to create lasting, meaningful solutions.

And the world needs people who understand that success in business is simply a tool. It is not the end goal. The end goal is prosperity and peace for our great-grandchildren. The end goal is long-term relationships that are made of respect and integrity. The end goal is workable, sustainable methods for encouraging initiative while discouraging exploitation. The end goal is less hate and more light; decreased ignorance and increased understanding; less suffering and more healing. The end goal, quite simply, is a better world. We must have the passion and the perspective to focus our businesses, our careers, and our lives on those goals.

It is true that we are leaving Kellogg with newfound knowledge. But your biggest asset is not your head, it’s your heart. Over the last two years I have had the joy of experiencing that heart first-hand, and it fills me with optimism and hope.

There is a lot to do. The world needs you. And what’s fortunate for all of us is that you are ready.

Godspeed friends. Let’s get to work.

I have no doubt that you are every bit as passionate and intelligent as you appear. But I am not counting on you for single-handed transformation. This is not because I do not believe in you, but rather because I believe in us. As an American I understand that the power of this country is in the collective, not in the one — and so my hope for you is that you help catalyze the potential in all of us. 

You cannot change things yourself, but you can help get the rest of us moving again. My sincere wish is that we are all successful. 

With hope and resolve,

Jeff

Everything I learned about change and leadership I learned from my mother.

In the sense that the word is commonly misused, my mother was not a leader. She was not an elected official, fighting city hall, pushing with sheer tenacity a massive reform initiative through a recalcitrant legislature. She was not a military hero, storming hills, orchestrating attacks, and accepting with grace the accolades of a grateful nation. She was not the chief executive officer of a major corporation, radically restructuring a failing business around an innovative new product line. She was not a sports superstar, using her charisma and athleticism to mold a rag-tag group of misfits into a championship team.

My mother had no direct reports, no subordinates, no charges; she authored no bills, no laws, no texts, no new philosophies. And before she died of cancer two months ago, I never would have never called her a leader. But now that my family and I begin to understand the enormity of the void her absence leaves for us, we realize, at least dimly, that she truly had more claim to the title of elected official, military hero, CEO, and superstar than any of us.

Mom held us together. She made the weekly phone calls to ask us how we were. Sorting through my letters after her death, I found dozens that served no practical purpose whatsoever. She wrote to say “hello” a lot; the weather is still cold, your father is working on a new project, the cats are fine. She connected my sister and me, separated by a continent, with news and gossip, and provided us plenty of fuel for our inside jokes on just how “fine” the cats were. Mom facilitated communication.

Mom was the first to know when one of us had had a wonderful day—or a rotten one—and she made sure the rest of us knew as well. She had a way of making you feel better than you probably deserved to — but had a way of making you feel like you deserved to, as well. Mom celebrated our accomplishments.

When we were cold, or sick, or sad, she made hot cocoa—not instant hot cocoa with water, but real hot cocoa with milk. Mom took care of her people.

When my sister and I fought over Legos or about who should climb the tree first, she made us share. Mom mediated conflict. She created coalitions. She delegated. She empowered.

In short, Mom was a leader. She never asked for credit, for praise, or for reward — and because she never asked, she never received any, save the undying admiration, love, and loyalty of those she led. Like all true leaders, she operated behind the curtain, leaving for the rest of us the center stage.

Cancer, like most diseases, is cruel. But cancer has a certain evil mystique around it, an ugly reputation: If cancer were a football team, it would wear a black uniform. And when it attacks someone who has taken care of you your entire life, when it attacks your whole frame of reference, cancer seems particularly cruel.

When Mom started fighting her cancer, our lives changed — and hers, obviously, changed more than any of ours. Watching her, our peacemaker, our communicator, our fan, our leader, navigate her cancer taught me much about change and how real leaders channel it.

Change can be painful. Cancer is a change in the body’s structure. The addition of even a few of the most microscopic of cells caused my mother incredible pain in her back, her legs, her abdomen. To counter the change it causes, cancer is fought with a combination of lethal drugs and radiation, which also manifest change and pain in the body.

Mom taught me that correcting a problem can sometimes be as painful as leaving the problem alone. But usually, leaving the problem alone has much more dire consequences than dealing with the pain of change. Leaders realize this fact and are willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gain.

Change can be subtle. Recently I had some pictures developed from Christmas. I was shocked and deeply troubled to see how ill Mom appeared. She was gaunt and tired. I didn’t notice it at the time because I was in the situation, in the context, and had no ability to step back and see the bigger picture.

Mom, however, knew what was happening — she began saying the things she needed to say, having the difficult conversations that were worth having. We thought she was crazy. Looking back, I understand that she was looking ahead the way good leaders do. Oftentimes we don’t realize change is occurring until it is already upon us. Change doesn’t always demand that we notice it — leaders, therefore, demand that change notices them. They are intuitive and aware, and understand that small shifts in dynamics can be the signal for massive change ahead.

Change perpetuates change. By the end of her battle, Mom was taking medications to counter the effects of medications taken to counter the effects of the radiation and chemicals used to fight her cancer. Mom realized and dealt with this implication tree without missing a step, never losing sight of the core change driving the others, and never losing sight of her objective. Change creates seedlings, so leaders must see the forest and the trees.

Change is best faced with a willing and positive attitude. During one of my last conversations with Mom, she said, “I’m not ready to die. But if this is how it’s supposed to be, then this is how it will be.” Mom approached her many changes with an attitude that shamed the rest of us. She never complained, and never feared. Leaders understand and embrace change. They realize that their job is to steer the boat along the best current, not push it upstream.

Positive change requires a team. As I look back on our last few months, I’m amazed at how much effort Mom put into keeping the rest of us encouraged and motivated. The number of letters, phone calls, and visits increased substantially. At a time when she had every reason and right to ask someone else to take the lead, Mom actually increased her efforts to keep us together. Leaders understand that precisely because change is difficult, it demands extra effort be put to maintaining the welfare of the team.

But now, the leader is gone, and we try to cope with another change ourselves. We wish for things. With every new morning we revise our wishes; we recalculate our hopes and lower our expectations.

“Today I hope that I don’t cry until mid-afternoon.”

“Today I hope that no well-intentioned but misguided person will share with me their own horrifying cancer story.”

“Today I hope that I only think of the funeral three times.”

I’ve noticed a shift in those wishes, though. They have gradually become more positive. The good days are more frequent — maybe two or three a week now.

As for change, more and more now I understand its biggest attribute: Change isn’t easy — just inevitable. You can harness it or it will harness you. So lately I wake up and make a new wish: “Today I hope that I will embrace change.”

True leaders leave a positive legacy. Thanks Mom.