How to volunteer your time for wildlife - Part 4/5: Hosting Fundraisers
By Jared Frasier, Executive Director
In our volunteering time series, we have shared some best practices and tips for habitat cleanups, wildlife counts, and habitat improvements. All those activities happen outdoors, on the landscape, surrounded by nature. It is easy to motivate team members, create positive media, and communicate value to your community and customer base through those kinds of conservation projects.
Hosting a fundraiser can feel challenging to get similar outcomes from, but when done right, it could be the strongest catalyst to bring your brand, a conservation cause, and both of your “camps” together.
The majority of our members who volunteer their time by putting on a wildlife fundraiser are already event or entertainment-inclined people. Engaging and inspiring their community to give comes naturally to them. If that sounds like you, go ahead and skip down the page a bit to the section on “laws and liabilities”. Odds are, you need to give that section a read. ;)
Our members who are most effective at hosting fundraisers do not put on fundraisers - they throw parties.
Great parties are thrown by enthusiastic and generous hosts. Enthusiasm and generosity are contagious. When a great party is thrown, guests are enthusiastic about their own generosity for the cause the party is being thrown for. Money flows; no “sales pitch” needed.
Hard truth: If this does not sound like you, or any member of your team, this might not be the best way for you to volunteer your time for wildlife. And that is ok! Over half of our members do not host fundraisers because it is not their forte. They are highly effective with their volunteered time in other ways. Time given is more precious than dollars donated. Use it where your strengths are.
If throwing a party as a volunteer activity sounds like it is in your and your team’s wheelhouse, there are a few simple things you should do to ensure you get the most out of your volunteered time.
1. Make it about a cause your team cares about.
While employees are often enthusiastic to volunteer in nature (and receive direct benefits from it), hosting a party for a cause they do not care about is just work. Worse yet, probably work outside their job description. Unfortunately, we have seen businesses struggle after an owner or manager tried to use employees to fulfill that individual’s personal philanthropic goals. Being generous lights up the reward center of the brain. Using someone else to help you get that dopamine hit is a surefire way to make an employee feel used, not appreciated.
Instead, connect with each member of your team to find out what causes they are passionate about. Many are surprised to find that even their most stoic and introverted employees are actually very passionate about a variety of causes. Don’t just ask your core team. Often, the most dynamic connections are made through employees further out in the flow chart.
What should you do if your team has philanthropic interests outside of conservation? Embrace it! Many of our members throw fundraising parties for more than one cause at a time. Throwing a party that supports more than just one type of cause often brings in a more diverse cross-section of your community and potential customer base. Diversifying the causes also gives your community and customers a more well-rounded and authentic view of your brand. It shows your team as leaders in and for the local community. Not to mention the added PR/media opportunities. On that note…
2. Get the fundraiser plenty of media coverage.
Ok, we can hear you white-hearted and pious folks in the back, “That is just sleazy!”
And you would be right… if you primarily used the PR/media to flaunt your generosity. But that is not what you are going to do.
When it comes to any communications about the party your team is throwing, it is ALL ABOUT ENTERTAINING YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROMOTING THE CAUSE(S) YOU ARE SUPPORTING. Period!
Anything else will come off as disingenuous. Not just to the community, but also to your (now former) customers.
Here is the reality: Keeping your company’s charitable fundraiser out of the media does not make you look humble. At best, it makes you look unfriendly/exclusionary. At worst, it makes you look unsure about the cause you are supporting. Kind of like your ex who would meet up with you, but never posted anything from those dates on social media. If you care about something, talk about it!
If you want to do the most good, get as many types of media to cover the fundraiser as possible.
Share your passion for the cause, not your new product line or services.
Talk about why the cause is so important to you and your company.
Encourage others to give their own time and money to the cause.
Use the coverage to do exponentially more good for the cause than what quietly hosting the fundraiser on your own could ever do.
From watching what has worked for our membership, we recommend a good blend of local and social media coverage. Reach out to the local papers, radio stations, and television networks. Get your social media ambassadors to the event and covering it in real time. Make folks wish they were there or had been there, and watch the purse raised that day grow ten-fold for the cause you are supporting.
Or, put in a ton of work just to raise a little money and leave it at that.
Remember…
3. It has to be for your customers and community.
One of our members, Stone Glacier, puts on the kind of party we have been describing. For the last several years, they have hosted an annual “Summer Bash” at their headquarters. It takes place on a Friday night at the end of summer, right before their employees start going on their PTOs during Montana’s long hunting seasons. It is an all-hands-on-deck week, getting their parking lot and showroom ready with tents, stages, archery golf, food trucks, coolers for cans and kegs, and more.
The work on the event starts much earlier in the year when causes are selected. Usually, there is one conservation cause as well as a couple of local kid’s programs that will benefit from the funds raised that night. Weeks in advance, they design and send out promotional materials (both print and online) to their local and online communities. They work with partners to get great raffle prizes and deals on food and beverages. Before the event even takes place, they have already volunteered more time into setting the fundraiser up for success than what we require for annual certification.
On the day of, they help the conservation cause set up their booth and ensure that their team members all know basic information about the causes being supported. The band is queued up, the food truck grills are lit, the kegs are tapped, and the community turns out in a big way. They even have a bunch of dudes jump out of a helicopter and parachute into the parking lot. Every year, they raise thousands of dollars for local and conservation causes. It is wildly effective at connecting the causes their team cares about to their brand in the minds of the community.
And they also sell a whole lot of gear to the hundreds of new customers flowing into their showroom that night, because…
4. The best fundraisers are not loss-leaders.
Like you would with any promotional event, make fundraisers a part of your company’s marketing budget. No matter your margins, it still makes sense. You are essentially using generosity and goodwill to attract new customers and solidify the retention of long-time customers. In fact, hosting fundraisers should help you deepen your margins.
Always ensure you are making it possible for attendees to purchase your goods or book your services at the fundraiser. Either give them a reason to spend that night or a reason to come back later and spend. That could be a one-time discount, priority booking on future services, you get the idea. Make it work with your margins and the people in attendance. And again, this should be seen as a marketing expense.
When the craft beer market started exploding, a tried and true fundraiser style reemerged. In the years after WW2, taverns around the Western world started holding these one-night events to raise funds for local and social justice causes. Over time, they stopped being events and turned into designated days of the week as a cross-promotion cause-marketing strategy. Some morphed into bingo nights and meat raffles to keep the interest up. But by the ‘90s, most had disappeared. But in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s, a wave of new local breweries needed more than their beer to attract people. Most went for the obvious “pairings” nights with food, art, music, and other pay-to-play events.
Still, some looked deeper into their community and rediscovered the great social unifier: The pint night.
For those who do not drink alcohol, or care for craft beer, the economics will still make sense to you. Breweries are businesses with extremely thin margins. Some beers are actual loss-leaders, just to win prizes and get more folks in the door. For most, there is not a whole lot of liquid cash to donate in a lump sum. However, you have inventory that needs to be moved. If you take a small one-night hit, (say, the amount you would spend on a small marketing campaign) but it guaranteed your house would be packed with new customers… no duh, you are doing it.
That is what a pint night is. You find a conservation cause you care about and let them come to your taproom for a night. That day, $1 from each pint sold goes to that conservation cause. You add to the offer that you will give the cause gift cards to raffle off. You help them find more raffle prizes from local businesses. You invite those businesses to bring their employees. You help the conservation cause promote the night with posters around town and social media posts beforehand. Maybe you even line up a band to play live music that night. You keep the taproom open to your regulars and anyone else who happens to drive by and wonder what is going on. You do Step 2 (the media one).
In the end, a lot of money is raised for the cause and you have a pile of new customers without getting burned on the final tally. It just works.
One of our members, Randy Newberg, is a regular speaker at conservation pint nights in his local community. He doesn’t even drink, but he helps raise a lot of funds for conservation by giving his time at pint nights.
Hack: Sounds great, but you aren’t a brewery? Partner with one. Do a dollar match for the night. Donate to the raffle. Have your team help run the raffle tables. Stand up on a table (or if laws allow, the bar) and share your passion for the cause that is being supported. We absolutely count this as giving your time to conservation because we have benefitted first-hand from folks who have done it. Both the businesses and the causes they do it for benefit. Think about it: A huge chunk of your budget probably goes to trying to get in front of people when they are relaxed and enjoying themselves. This costs you very little and gets you personally in front of them when they are about as relaxed and happy as they can be. Not only that, you are not dealing with the liabilities that come with hosting the event on your property. Speaking of that…
5. Know your local laws and liabilities.
Before you even start budgeting to run or partner up for a fundraiser, you need to find out a couple of key things:
Is the cause you are fundraising for a government-recognized non-profit? In the US, are they a 501c3? If not, you could be looking at a paperwork headache, at best. A PR nightmare, at worst, if they turn out to be a sham. In the US, the easiest way to know is to do an entity search on your state’s Secretary of State site. In Canada, go here: Registered Charities
Do the research and protect yourself.Are you allowed to serve food and beverages at your location? Odds are, probably not. Not without a caterer that also has a beverage license. You may not have local laws about it, but your insurance company definitely has some policy stipulations about it. Reach out to your insurance provider and tell them what you want to do. Extra coverage for a basic one-time event is usually quite affordable. Certainly more affordable than a suit if someone chokes on a burger or overdoes it at the bar.
What are your state’s gambling laws around raffles? Local businesses get busted for not following their state and local gambling laws around raffles quite often. And depending on where you live, the liability could actually land with you - not the business, should someone file a suit over not winning a prize. This is where partnering with a trusted conservation cause is so important. They likely have a very clear and current understanding of the laws and regulations around raffles and auctions in your town and state. If they say they do not really care about those laws, find another organization. You should not make yourself or your team liable for their due diligence shortcomings.
What is your building’s capacity? If you have music thumping, and one of your competitors drives by and sees hundreds of people in your building… prepare for a visit from the fire marshall. The best way to manage your numbers inside is to have enough activities to keep people also entertained outside.
Hack: If you can swing it, host your fundraiser outdoors on or within view of the landscape cared for by the conservation cause you are raising funds for. Make it a catered outdoor dinner party for your best customers, complete with live music, lawn games, and an inspirational talk from someone doing the work you are raising funds for. Don’t think your business is posh enough for that? We have seen building contractors and butchers put together very memorable and effective fundraising parties at their shops. And the customers that got invites cannot shut up about them, ever since!
Hunting down your local laws and discovering your liabilities is some dry work. But trust us, it is worth it. We have seen businesses and personal lives devastated from not knowing local laws or not protecting themselves from liabilities.
In the end, hosting a fundraiser just comes down to the basics:
Pick a cause your team cares about.
Get plenty of media coverage to promote the cause.
Do it for your customers and community.
If at all possible, do not do it at a loss.
Know the laws and your liabilities.
If you do those five things, not only will it be great for your business in the short term, but you will position yourselves as leaders to both your customers and the communities they live in.
There are nearly an infinite number of ways that you could host a fundraiser as a business, and our membership does about 50 per year. If you would like help planning one, reach out to us! We love helping businesses volunteer their time effectively for wildlife and fundraisers can be the most effective way of all.