Making the Most of Your Online Event Fundraising Efforts

3. Encourage online registration.
Participants using online tools tend to raise six times more than those who don’t and tend to be more engaged with the event. Encourage online registration by making the event’s Web address prominent in all event materials and communications. Most events average only 21 percent active online usage by participants. By successfully marketing online registration and providing extensive team captain training and incentives, some organizations have succeeded in getting up to 60 percent of participants actively using online tools for events.

4. Make it easy for participants to send more e-mails.
Do some of the leg work for participants. Providing e-mail templates makes solicitation easier for participants and helps save time — two common concerns of new or volunteer fundraisers. The average event should have at least four e-mail templates: one for the team leader, one for general participants, one for team members and a donor thank-you message. Also, use e-mail communications to continually motivate participants. Include the participant’s user name and other personalized data, such as name and fundraising goal, to motivate him to log into the event Web site. On average, about 15 percent of event participants use e-mail. Events with higher online adoption outperform those with less adoption by 58 percent.

5. Focus on customer service.
Giving participants a phone number to call if they need help setting up their personal pages can have a significant impact on event success and overall participant satisfaction. Participants are less likely to give up when they can call and get answers to their questions. This also helps create a positive experience with the organization that can contribute to an increase in return participants and build organizational affinity. Some organizations actually offer 24-hour customer service in the last 20 days before an event to make sure they can maximize online fundraising.