Tom has stood on podiums (literally) for 30 years and shouted NO MORE SPECIAL EVENTS!
This works as a napkin message – It’s powerful and simple.
I don’t do the ‘standing-on-a-podium’ thing, but I’m not above shouting IN ALL CAPS to make a point:
NO MORE SPECIAL EVENTS!
I get the occasional challenge, “But Nick, events are how we build relationships!” Or, “Our event gets the word out!”
In years and years of doing this, no one has ever said, “Our event is our CASH COW!”
WHY are you doing the event? Is it to raise money? Or, is it for MARKETING? (Start with WHY.)
It’s really helpful to make a distinction between MARKETING and SALES. Here is a great nugget to bridge the relationship between MARKETING and SALES:
It is the job of marketing to provide qualified leads for sales.
I hear many people who want to defend events with a marketing rationale. If you want to run events as a part of your MARKETING STRATEGY – great! Just don’t PRETEND your events are great fundraisers. And if MARKETING is the end goal, then how much are you telling your story at that golf outing?
Also, if you’re going to do an event to ‘BUILD relationships’ then it begs the question – what is your strategy to MAXIMIZE relationships?
NB: We’ve been on this rant for a few decades now. There are events that raise money – a lot of (net, net, net) money. Here are some examples:
- The EVENT is the IMPACT. There are some organizations whose impact is using a community’s ability to raise money. For example, Pelotonia here in Central Ohio, which has raised over $100M for cancer research. They are in the event business: the money they raise from one event a year is given directly to cancer research (read: curing cancer!). Pelotonia is in the EVENT BUSINESS – most organizations (i.e., you) are not.
- But what about WALL STREET?!?! Those ‘guys’ (I think, often citing Robin Hood as a model) all get in a room and give MILLIONS! This is an anomaly, not a model. When you can get a bunch of hedge fund titans in a room to throw their egos behind your philanthropy, have at it!
- RECOGNITION EVENTS. These are events where the money was not raised, but simply RECOGNIZED, at the event. In all of these cases, I submit that more money could be raised if we were clearer on the WHY. While the organization might be ASKING because of an event, people aren’t GIVING because of the event; they are giving because of the IMPACT!