Are Your Festive Events Costing You Money?

The festive season is crucial for charities, filled with opportunities to engage supporters and raise significant funds. From Christmas fairs to Light Up a Life dedications, these events bring communities together for a good cause. However, too often, charities find that the financial and operational costs associated with these events can outweigh the returns.

An efficient, digitally driven approach can prevent this. By leveraging the right tools and strategies, charities can maximise their festive events' impact whilst improving their ROI. Here's how to ensure your festive event doesn't end up costing you money:

Streamline Ticketing and Registration

One of the most immediate ways to improve your event's cost-efficiency is to bring your ticketing and registration process digitally in-house. Relying on third-party event platforms often requires manual intervention and charges hefty fees that reduce your ROI.

What to do:

Use in-house or low-cost digital platforms to manage registrations and payments. Platforms like hapi and hapiLite empower charities with full control over their event sign-ups and enable automated email confirmations, reducing admin time and ensuring a seamless supporter experience.

Automate Data Transfer to Your CRM

Manually transferring event participant data into your CRM system can be time-consuming and prone to errors. These inefficiencies can result in missed opportunities to engage supporters and lost revenue due to poor data management.

What to do:

Ensure your event platform integrates seamlessly with your CRM system to transfer supporter data automatically. This lets you instantly capture attendee information, donation history, and preferences, giving you a complete view of real-time supporter interactions. Automated data transfers significantly reduce administrative costs and provide valuable insights to fuel future fundraising strategies, allowing you to act quickly on event results.

Incorporate Virtual or Hybrid Event Options

While in-person events are valuable, offering a virtual or hybrid option can widen your audience reach and reduce on-the-ground costs. Virtual events eliminate venue, catering, and staffing costs while providing a meaningful experience. Adding a virtual element to an in-person event can boost participation from supporters who cannot attend in person but still want to be involved.

What to do:

Consider live-streaming parts of your event or offering virtual dedications as part of a Light Up a Life ceremony. Selling online participation tickets increases reach and creates an additional revenue stream without additional logistical costs. Integrated with donation portals, platforms like Zoom or YouTube Live allow for easy attendee interaction and contributions.

Utilise Automated Stewardship and Follow-ups

Manually thanking participants and following up with further asks can be time-consuming and resource intensive. Automated stewardship can save you time and ensure no donor or participant slips through the cracks.

What to do:

Set up automated email sequences that thank event attendees, provide them with post-event content, and encourage further involvement or donations. Personalised digital stewardship can increase the likelihood of follow-up donations or engagement at future events. Use these automated tools to upsell post-event merchandise, similar events, or donation opportunities.

Leverage Data Analytics to Optimise Performance

Many charities don't realise the full potential of the collected data during and after events. By leveraging analytics tools, you can gain valuable insights into what's working and what's not, helping you optimise your festive event for maximum returns in the future.

What to do:

Track metrics like ticket sales, average gift values, returned donors, and donor behaviour. This data can inform future events and your overall fundraising strategy. For example, if digital dedications outperform in-person sales, you might prioritise digital aspects in next year's event planning. Analytics also help you understand where to cut unnecessary costs.

Sell Digital Merchandise

Physical event merchandise, like t-shirts or mugs, can add significant upfront costs. By offering digital merchandise—such as downloadable gamification certificates, digital artwork, or even virtual Christmas tree bauble personalisation —you can provide a valuable keepsake for supporters without the associated production and shipping expenses.

What to do:

Consider selling festive-themed digital downloads or virtual merchandise during your event. These low-cost items can generate additional revenue streams while offering supporters a meaningful way to participate.

Plan for Scalable Success

One of the most common pitfalls of event planning is not accounting for scalability. While you may expect a certain number of participants, the unpredictable nature of events can lead to increased costs when scaling up.

What to do:

Use scalable digital systems that offer room for growth without high costs. For example, a fundraising platform that charges PAYGO per attendee with only a small flat fee or a payment gateway that charges per transaction, can help manage expenses as the event grows. Ensuring your digital infrastructure can handle high traffic and increasing demand will also prevent technical issues that could result in loss of revenue or participant dissatisfaction.

In Summary

Festive events are an exciting opportunity to raise funds and awareness, but without careful planning and the right digital tools, costs can spiral out of control, and ROI can suffer. By focusing on digital aspects, charities can ensure that their events are not only successful but also cost-effective. By embracing digital transformation, charities can make the most of the festive season and turn potential costs into significant returns.