Episode 105: Redefining Special Events - Making them MORE Valuable and Present in Philanthropy

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall," your weekly podcast for making your non-profit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

It's always a pleasure to have you here with me, Randall, on "Around with Randall." In today's podcast we want to talk a little bit about outreach and the ability to really start or enhance relationships at a much more serious level. I always find it interesting when two separate parts of my professional life come together. In this case it was a client experience and an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Let's start with the client. I'm working on a project to help them better understand where special events fit into their particular world, finishing up that particular project, and we're coming to some conclusions that their events are probably driving too much of their activity and hurting their return on investment. In the same vein the events are being used as a catalyst for conversations, for introductions, and for community outreach in terms of what I would call general marketing of the brand of the healthcare provider system. At the same time there was an article that came out in early October in the Chronicle of Philanthropy talking about or discussing the concept of porch parties, and what this has brought me to realize is that we probably need to have a conversation about where special events fit in, and maybe even, if possible, redefining them so that they're much more effective in terms of what we need versus what the organization or at least maybe leaders in the organization who aren't in philanthropy think they should be.

So at a very high level, what we generally know about special events is they, unless you have a very unique one you are spending 50 cents on the dollar to make them come to fruition. We're talking generically about galas, and auctions, and dinners, and golf tournaments, and bowling outings, and poker runs, and anything else you could that you can think of, and there's a billion options. The ROI is kind of the downside. The upside is that these events can be used in an effective way if done correctly and planned well to enhance introductions and cultivation opportunities, maybe even some stewardship. That's not really been my experience that they're used in that way consistently, but the organizations that do can use them effectively. What I realized was, is as a part of this client engagement and working to kind of look at their special events and how they fit into the larger picture of philanthropy, is they're kept being mentioned, discussion, particularly with the non-fundraising leadership about, well this is how we do outreach to the community. I've always wondered, well if it's really outreach, the community, why isn't the marketing department doing it? Because we're actually in the philanthropic business, the philanthropy business, and if we're truly trying to execute philanthropy the numbers generically not for every special event indicate that, that's usually not what we find, is often it becomes very transactional.

The article talking about porch parties then kind of pushes this conversation into well, how do we get small groups of people together on their porches, talk about the nonprofit? And you might have experienced something like this during the pandemic. A lot of organizations went to what I would call Zoom Outreach meetings or Zoom introduction meetings where they would have the CEO or a to do with the pandemic, someone, an infectious disease or someone with a specialty in issues of pulmonology come in and talk about the issues of Covid. And it would be done on zoom and you might your porch in that case was Zoom or you might have had a get to know the CEO luncheon. I remember at the medical center I introduced this for my CEO Glenn Fosdick and he was a little apprehensive at first, but as he went to his first one and came out of it he says that was the easiest 70 to 80 minutes I'll ever spend. I talked about the medical center. They asked me a bunch of healthcare-related questions. I got to have lunch with people in the community. I said Glenn you're just a natural at this. he was doing it in previous jobs with just business leaders, but I said let's kind of push this into philanthropy, and began to open those doors. So porch parties to me is a kind of an a global concept of small gatherings on very specific topics or specific intent.

The issue becomes when we overlay this idea of porch parties and special events is, and this is going to be part of what I have to sell, quote unquote to the client in particular, the non-philanthropic leaders. There's a better way of looking at how you integrate your philanthropy teams into the community to do what it is they're really supposed to be doing, which is about building relationships and making lots of phone calls and meetings and talking with people and asking lots of questions. Telling the story of the mission and what we're trying to accomplish and then asking kind of a leading question, is this something we could talk more about qualification process into cultivation. It's going to be hard because I think there's going to be some leaders in the organization who are not in philanthropy who are not going to like this.

My recommendations are, you need to pull back on these things, give them to third-party opportunities, but the real issue is they're viewing their limited knowledge of quote-unquote special events in these Galas, golf tournaments, and other things. And my concept, or conversation, is really going to be around you can still have special events. I actually would applaud them. But let's change what we're trying to accomplish in them, who's invited to them, what the program means, how long they last, and what their real goal is. And if we do this correctly I think I can sell it to those executive leaders that we can look at special events differently.

The value of these smaller special events is really twofold, and I want to break these out and then we'll get into the tactical about maybe some of the key quintessential things that come from these special events, these porch parties, these small gatherings. Number one is that they're intimate, and number two that they're easy to introduce.

Let me take the first one first, which makes logical sense. Intimate, depending on when you listen to this around November 15th of 2020, the release of Nathan Chappelle's book on the generosity crisis and what he's classifying in Brian Kerman's and he both of them both outstanding leaders in our industry, are talking about is this concept of radical connection. And I am talking about this more and more as well. I hadn't put it in that kind of terminology and that's why I think their book's going to be a revolutionary thought to the way in which we look at philanthropy overall. They're classifying radical connection is non-transactional. Simplify it, that we need more transformational opportunities. We can't get to transformational if everything we do is transactional, and if you have an event of five or seven hundred people or a golf term of 200 and they're out playing in their foursome and you have, don't have a lot of time with them are you really doing transformational conversations? Are you moving them towards transformational questioning of what the organization is trying to accomplish? Or is this just a meet and greet and then we move on to whatever comes next? The golf tourney with the tennis, the three on three basketball tournament, the gala, whatever... I've come to appreciate that they're really too transactional. We don't allow relationships, conversations, discussions, inquiry to occur at a level that moves people in their relationship. Opportunities. Moves management. Cultivation into soft asks towards the station at a transformational level. Go get Nathan Chappelle and Brian Kerman's book, The Generosity Crisis. If you're listening to this prior to November 15th you're gonna have to wait to pre-order on Amazon or wherever else you want to go. If it's after just go get it.

The way in which we've got to become more aware since there's less than 50 percent of the households now giving to philanthropy on an annual basis, intimate. It's all about building transformational opportunities. Is it meaningful? is it memorable? Is it high touch? When you think about the, as the article in the Chronicle Philanthropy talks about you call it something else where you have a small gathering of people with one or two leaders in your particular nonprofit to talk about what's going on in the community that they're the expert specialists on. If it's home, you're a homeless shelter they're talking about homelessness in your community. Food shelter, food insecurity. If it's a hospital it's about health care today and maybe the effects of coming out of Covid. If it's education, how is education changing? If you're a private high school, Jesuit, independent, whatever, what are we seeing in kids that are different today? If it's higher ed, how have things like moocs the idea of online classrooms changed the way in which you operate and teach those? Are those high touch specific conversations?

The article talks about porch parties as gathering people in small groups and having someone come in and just talk about what's this, what they're doing, what they're realizing. What they're finding that's, what we're talking about in terms of intimate. If you have 300 people in the room how can anyone really ask any questions? It becomes a one-way conversation. If they're on the golf course are they talking about your non-profit? Are they talking, if it's a foursome, about whatever is kind of the commonalities of that for, and yes if you have the CEO or the chief development officer, playing with the foursome that's great. But in most if they fill the tournament, 144 players, you can, you're gonna have 36 foursomes there's only one CEO or chief development officer, which means there's a whole lot of foursomes that may not be talking about you at all. That's not transformational. It's transactional. Intimate.

The second is concept of what I would call is easy to introduce. How many of you have had problems with your Board of Trustees fulfilling an obligation or responsibility of introducing someone in the organization to their friends, to their social gathering group? How many have had the trouble with faculty members or clinicians or other executives doing the same? A porch party or whatever you want to call it, what a great way to kind of push down the concern that board members, executives, clinicians, educators, whomever you partner with have regarding well you're just going to ask my friends for money. No I want you to invite them to your porch, to the country club, to the hospital, to the to the classroom, where we can just chat about what we're doing and why it's important. Doesn't mean they're all going to give you lower, or lessen the anxiety of volunteers or non-fundraisers who happen to be employees in your organization about how they can be actively involved in introducing you and other philanthropic officers, leaders, foundation office, personnel, into relationships.

Every study says that the most likely major gift owner comes from a volunteer introduction. Think about all of the opportunities you have if you did a series of these porch parties, and we'll get to the tactical on how to put them together here in just a moment. I wanted to add one more thing on this idea of easy to introduce. How cool is it if you have a long time donor who really doesn't want to volunteer on the board and really doesn't, they write their $50 or $100 check, maybe they're a great planned giving prospect. How easy would it be for them to host something? I, the, if you do this enough you're going to start connecting radical connection. Nathan Chappelle and Brian Kerman, again, into more relationships that you can develop to find out who wants to be transformational in their giving. Remember, transformation's not a dollar figure. It's what it means to the donor, to the prospect. How they can help people. So the value's intimate and easy to introduce, pull off.

So how do you do this tactical, because we always try to get to the tactical pieces so you can use this. Today the first thing is you got to have an engaged, intriguing, active host. Let me break this down into two ways of thinking about it. Number one is, it can be someone who is incredibly well-respected and it's at their house and so people are willing to come, or if you're dealing with a faculty member or clinician or your CEO that they're hosting. But there's someone behind the scenes that's actively helping them get this pulled off because I think we all agree that you know the CEO and the clinician and the faculty member and others, see they're not doing this on their own in terms of planning. It's not their strengths so they may need a little help. That's where your office can come in, but the key is that it's engaging. There's something to talk about. What is their expertise? What is your mission? Expertise? What does this mean to the community? An engaged active host.

Number two is making sure you're messaging something, and this is something we talked about in the very last podcast where I equated Billy Joel and poetry to the idea of how we should be telling stories. Storytelling. What are you trying to accomplish? How do you tell the story of the value of what you deliver because you need to get to a little bit of emotion.

Number three is these should be short - an hour or less. Not high level candelabras and white tablecloths. If they're at night, maybe they have a cocktail, but it can be just as simple as a box lunch. It's not the event that's going to drive the next step, it's people who come to the event and are engaged with that content leader overall, organizational leader, whomever, and being smaller. So the idea of short is also intimate, meaning there's not going to be 50 people there. Maybe six, eight, ten. The bigger the group the less likely you are to keep it short. To have the ability to message it correctly, and you're going to over engage the coast, so small and short.

Number four is about tracking whom have you invited. If they couldn't come to invite them again in the future. If they come, what's the follow-up and how do you follow up? What I always told my staff was, is when we did these, you know lunch time with the CEO is, as I would have gift officers in there and whoever was the gift officer would be responsible for the follow-up. It wasn't the CEO's fault, problem, issue, to do the follow-up. If we needed him again we'll bring him back in, but it will be planned. It was our job to follow up and there was a transition moment near the end in terms of allowing follow-up, to occur. We taught Glenn how to say I've got Randall over here he's part of my team. I'd like for him to follow up and see, after you think about it for a few days, see if you have any more questions. I'd like to hear, give him a chance to tell you a little bit about what we're doing, what we're looking to accomplish. And Randall, in this case, was in the meeting never said a word. Would sit back watch engage, take notes, and then follow up afterwards, making the CEO, the physician, the faculty member, whomever the star.

The last piece is feedback. Number five, can you get some feedback about what people think would they make suggestions on how to change it, where to hold it, how to do it, how many people should be in the room, or who else might be good for them to invite to the next one. That can be done by survey, by phone call. Don't make it overly complicated, but asking someone for their opinion brings up one of my favorite sayings - if you want somebody's money, ask them for advice. If you want their advice ask them for money. If you want their money go ask them for what they what they think, and by the way that should also apply inside this conversation, that it's a dialogue. It's two-way. There may be a short presentation in terms of a program in the short portion, but really it's more about what do you think about this. So it's 15, 20 minutes, so here's what we're doing, here are the problems, here are the challenges. Are you seeing the same things? What do you think about all this? Great host, strong messaging and storytelling that's short, with a small group. That's interactive dialogue, conversation. Where you track who's coming and when they're coming, and what to follow-up is that leads to opportunities of feedback.

Try these porch parties, small gatherings, lunch with the CEO. You'd be surprised. Replace them - one or two a month - over the top or in place of the auction, the gala, the golf tournament. You will be surprised how much more you get out of it in terms of relationship building opportunities.

I'm always appreciative for people joining me here, and if you want more information I do a twice a week blog you're welcome to check that out at Hallettphilanthropy.com - just things to get you thinking. There's an RSS feed now so you can subscribe and it'll come right to you when they're posted, or if you want to contact me directly at podcast@Hallettphilanthropy.com, glad to take your questions. If you have a suggestion on a particular subject, always welcome. Please share this with a friend that it might be helpful, or leave a review on Apple, YouTube, wherever you have taken part in this hopefully thought-provoking conversation about philanthropy. Don't forget what you do is critically important. It has unbelievable value. If you don't sense and feel what you're doing on a daily basis is making a difference then you're missing the best part of this job, this profession. It's critically important that we all have a chance to know we're making a difference. The world's complicated. What you do is important. It does make a difference, even if you don't see it day-to-day, indirectly. Remember some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who just wonder what happened. Philanthropy is about making things happen for the people, the things that we wonder are wondering what happened, and that's a great way to spend a career and to make a difference in this crazy world of nonprofit. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on "Around with Randall" and don't forget make it a great day.