After one year of live-streaming events, we’ve come a long way to support the needs of so many non-profit organizations that needed to pivot back in March of 2020 in order to keep supporting their critical mission through the means of virtual/digital fundraising.
Many nonprofit organizations and schools have had all fundraising events postponed or canceled since March 2020 and so their need for financial resources is greater than ever.
Most organizations are focused on minimizing exposure to expenses.
To say that the climate of events has been challenging is an understatement, and yet we’ve had tremendous success with virtual events and virtual fundraising. We shared three other case studios here that provide the back-up to our claims and in this post we’d like to share three more case studies in the evolution of what virtual fundraising could look like, especially for organizations that are still hesitant to spend a good amount of dollars on an in-studio production.
In-Studio Production can be Costly
Ask anyone in events and they would 100% say that an in-studio production is ideal and it’s just beautiful, you, as the client, Emcee, Auctioneer, support staff, show up and hour before the event going LIVE, and everything's safe, setup and ready to go for you. You do a quick tech run-through and you’re set. No hassle, no bustle, no drama. Turn-key solution without you needing to worry about one thing because there’s a team of professionals behind the scenes turning the knobs, adjusting things, testing the technology, running the show basically so you don’t have to.
Now, as you can imagine, that team of superheroes doesn’t volunteer or work for free. Expertise comes at a cost and studio time comes at a cost as well. In the age of virtual events you can put on a very sophisticated production that looks amazing on the front end, but at the end of the day, your bottom line, your net profits will tell you a different story. You didn’t come net-neutral from your amazing event, you came under. Not only did you not raise the funds you so needed to raise, but in some cases, you ended up having to pay out of pocket for that awesome production and technology that you were bragging about on social media.
Live Streaming on a Budget
We listen to our clients and we hear this one common theme more times than we would like to. And so the need to come up with a different solution, another broadcasting model, a more budget-friendly model without compromising on the quality of the live-stream has been our priority. We wanted this solution to be affordable to the smaller nonprofits that can’t afford the big name studio production, yet at a fraction of the cost of that in-studio production, they could still benefit from the experience of a highly produced virtual event, with the guarantee now that their net will be a positive one.
Budget Friendly Live Stream Model
And this is where this virtual live-streaming model comes into place. It’s a simple model. The main ingredients are:
- an auctioneer comfortable with live-streaming from their home location, with a technically adequate home set up ready to go live (C.A.L.L.S. certified) such as Patrick Siver, BAS
- Live streaming virtual studio such as StreamYard
- Easy to use cloud-based auction platform with an app option such as Auctria
- A virtual event producer running and executing the production, such as Tree-Fan Events
These four ingredients provide the “secret sauce” to planning and production a virtual fundraising event that now won’t break the bank while providing you with an unparalleled professional broadcasted production complete with branded graphic overlays, lower thirds, tickers, comments, chat, wheel of names giveaways, and of course content (live and pre-recorded).
Using this model, working in close collaboration with gEvents, StreamYard, and Auctria we were able to creatively provide a cost-effective solution to our clients and the results were outstanding, with one school doubling their net from their last gathering event, another netted twice their goal and the third exceeded their overall goal.
Anca Trifan
"It felt great to help these nonprofit clients with these tried tools that we have successfully used for live-streaming virtual events in the past and that now we’ve applied to virtual fundraising events."
These three case studies are just a few to highlight how great it feels to be able to “help the helpers” by assisting these nonprofit organizations secure the revenue they desperately need to further their missions. See the virtual showcase.
Special thanks to Tree-Fans founder, Anca Trifan for sharing her expert advice. If you’d like to learn more about the model and what that might look like for your upcoming fundraising event, schedule a short 20 min call with us, risk-free.
We won’t try to sell you, we love to share our experience and it is ultimately your decision to apply our experience and expertise to your event and help serve your organization in any way we can.
Click here to get a complete package of virtual event templates including:
- Virtual Event Script & Tech Notes
- Run of Show
- CALL Tips
- Virtual Event Checklist
Podcast: Events: demystifyied Auctria was episode #19 and there are many that are directly related to charity and fundraising events.
YouTube: Tech Tuesday On the Tree-Fan YouTube channel you will find a Tech Tuesday playlist. Here Anca discusses and answers all your virtual event tech questions.