When Eventbrite asked me to speak at their recent event ‘How to organise stand-out fundraising events’ at the House of St Barnabas, I was delighted for two reasons.

Firstly, helping charities to organise brilliant and profitable events is a key part of my day job as the founder of Lime Green Consulting. It’s one of my three areas of expertise, alongside fundraising strategy and individual giving, so I certainly know what does and doesn’t work with events.

Secondly, it was a fundraising event that launched my whole charity career. 11 years ago, while just starting out at university in Nottingham, I was asked by a friend to hitch-hike with them to Morocco – an idea which certainly caught my attention!

What sounded like an unlikely idea turned out to be an iconic and successful student fundraising event. I not only did the event but went on to work for the charity which organised it for five years, before leaving to set up Lime Green Consulting.

I’ve decided to capture the best bits of my Eventbrite presentation in the form of a two-part blog based on my experience organising three memorable events in particular:

1.  Morocco Hitch – Of course I had to include this! Hitch started in 1992 when two students decided to take on their own ‘Cambridge to Casablanca Challenge’ to raise money for an emerging charity called Link Community Development.

It became not only a high-profile student challenge but the forerunner to many of today’s mass participation charity events. In 23 years, Hitch has raised over £5,000,000 for Link and at its peak attracted 1,500 participants each year.

2. Sumo Run– known as “the inflatable charity fun run” and pure light-hearted silliness! The event was originally organised by a charity called Gemin-i, but I was responsible for re-launching it as part of the events portfolio at Link.

Sumo Run has an incredibly strong visual brand and intrigue which has helped it to attract widespread media coverage – including in the Independent, on ITV and even in last year’s Coca Cola TV advert.

3. Moon Rise Run – I recently worked with the team at No. 24 Events on a new 5k run and festival experience called Moon Rise Run, which made its debut in Heaton Park, Manchester, on Saturday 18 April.

Lime Green was originally asked to create a charity partnership model for Moon Rise Run so that the event could raise money for local causes. I then stayed on to help the team secure corporate support and to provide input on promotion strategy and overall organisation.

So what are the biggest lessons I’ve learnt about organising fundraising events?

1. This isn’t just a charity space – and it’s ultra-competitive

Potential participants have a serious choice to make these days between so many events, from major challenges to light-hearted days out, running events to cycling events, events which require major training to those which require no preparation at all. Crucially, charities don’t just face competition from other charities but from profit-making companies who run many brilliant events. While many charities don’t think that non-charity events offer direct competition, the chances are that the majority of your supporters will think differently. When I was at Link organising Hitch, we regularly looked closely at other charities to see whether any similar events were emerging. In the end, though, the biggest competition came from local events run by university RAG societies and gap year-style trekking experiences from travel companies. Because they offered students a tempting alternative way to spend their money and time at Easter, they definitely provided serious competition.The solution? You must make your fundraising event stand out as much as possible and give people really compelling reasons to take part.

Simply having a fun concept isn’t enough when there are so many great concepts out there, and saying that it’s for a good cause might not be enough if that’s not people’s primary motivation for wanting to take part. Make sure you don’t underestimate the breadth of the competition like we did.

2. Find the right income model

While there are many companies out there making money from successful mass participation events which attract a lot of participants and charge a stand-alone entry fee, charities typically persist with the traditional ‘small entry fee + fundraising’ model.

Sometimes this is a mistake. If you have created an exciting event, you should look to find the best way of monetising that appeal. This may mean making your event accessible for as wide an audience as possible – even those who feel unable to fundraise, are already fundraising for another challenge or only hear about your event at the last minute.

For Sumo Run, we introduced a ‘general entry’ option for people who were unwilling or unable to fundraise but would pay a higher entry fee instead. This proved really popular in the build-up to the event and allowed Link to raise valuable extra income.

This approach also means you attract a larger number of participants on the day, which increases the potential value of several other income streams:

• Merchandising – many successful events have developed a range of official merchandise to sell on the day. The more people there, the more merchandise you can sell.
• Other income-generating activities on the day – invite along a bar company or food vendors and negotiate to keep a share of the proceeds. You could also consider funfair-style games or other paid entertainment.
• Corporate sponsorship – mass participation events will be infinitely more attractive to potential sponsors because a larger captive audience will be there to see and hear about the company’s products.

Just bear in mind that going for high volume can be risky as you have to make sure you attract more participants to take advantage of your lower entry fee. You also need to introduce any ‘general entry’ option carefully so that you don’t put off those want to fundraise.

3. Make it fun and visual and you’re onto a winner

My involvement with Sumo Run taught me the value of events that just don’t require that much selling.

Who needs clever marketing tactics and lots of words when you have hilarious photos of people waddling around in an inflatable sumo suit and videos of touch-your-toes warm-up routine?

The pure visual attraction of Sumo Run convinced a lot of people to sign up there and then. This meant that simple activities like street flyering were engaging and successful, and pay-per-click advertising on social media had an unusually good conversion rate. It’s a recipe for success that I’d recommend for lots of fundraising events!

4. Build momentum and don’t leave people hanging

Sumo Run also attracted a lot of media coverage due to its visual appeal. In its first year at Link, the coverage generated was valued at over £250,000 – that’s how much the equivalent amount of paid advertising space would have cost. While this was an amazing result for a small charity, the impact on ticket sales was limited because most of the coverage came just before the event or immediately afterwards. There’s not much you can do about when you secure coverage, but you should plan ahead and line up your next event so that you can cash in on the buzz and attention generated. We made the mistake of not doing this at Link, because we wanted to see how popular the event was and how much it raised before committing to it again.

It’s a common problem for small charities, but delaying does limit your ability to grow your event and capitalise on its rising reputation. I’ve learned to always try to find a way of giving people who loved an event – and those who heard about it too late – the opportunity to sign up for the next one straight away.

To get in touch with Mike Zywina, please visit http://www.limegreenconsulting.co.uk/blog.

Coming soon in part two of this blog: securing corporate support for your events, the value of good organisation and the importance of contingency plans.

Let us know any fundraising lessons you’ve learned below!