From Auction Night to December 31: Turning Event Momentum Into Year-End Gifts

Your event was the single biggest moment of connection your organization created all year. Then the thank-you email goes out, everyone recovers, and eight weeks later December 31 arrives with most of that momentum already gone.

This session is about the stretch in between. Mallory Erickson will walk through why post-event follow-up stalls, which has less to do with discipline than with how your brain treats a finish line, and what to do instead. You'll leave with the five kinds of supporters in every event room and how to sort them before the night ends, a four-touch rhythm over 30 days where the ask comes last rather than first, the specific words that open a real conversation with someone who showed up for you, and what to say in the moments that usually make us freeze.

Grounded in behavior science and in data from hundreds of practiced donor conversations, including the finding that 90% of donor conversations end in positive feeling while only 49% include an effective ask.

Three key takeaways

1. A way to sort every event guest into supporter groups before the event even ends
2. A 30-day follow-up rhythm that leads with gratitude and curiosity, not the ask
3. Language for the hardest post-event moments, including the guest who didn't give and the donor who gave more than you expected

Bring the whole team!