Hi all - I've participated in several great conversations (with many of you!) about how organizations pivoted their spring fundraising events this year to a virtual platform with varying degrees of success. From the panels I've attended, it seems the most successful events (from a fundraising standpoint) have been those which pivoted to virtual after the majority of their sponsorship and ticket revenue was already secured. My organization is starting to look ahead to next year and contemplating how to manage our annual fundraiser, which brings in about 20% of our overall contributed revenue budget. There is some conversation about planning a virtual event from the very beginning and forgoing any attempt at a "traditional" in person event. Is anyone else starting to think in these terms? I'd love to connect and springboard ideas of how to start, how to structure pricing, program content, etc.
I am going to follow this convo as well. We are in the process of transitioning our auction from our cancelled spring event to a full online auction with potentially an in person/virtual element (tbd). We also are talking and discussing options for the Spring 2021 event as most of our patrons (opera) tend to be older we are not sure if they will be ready to go to a large event even come Spring 2021. So I completely understand! One thing we are considering is how to have both as an option. One of the local production companies we work with to put on the event is able to do live stream options so I want to discuss with my team a ticket option for that so we can still get some revenue but offer a watch from home option.