Cultivation Events: A 12-Point Checklist for Major Donor Fundraisers
What is a cultivation event in major donor fundraising?
A cultivation event is a carefully planned opportunity for your major donor prospects to experience your work, your people and your mission at close quarters. Its purpose is not to ask for a gift on the night but instead to move the right donors meaningfully closer to one.
Whether that happens depends almost entirely on the twelve factors below.
Get them right, and an evening with twelve guests can unlock gifts that no letter or meeting could have achieved.
Events will never be the be-all-and-end-all of major donor fundraising. Whilst they can be delightful, fun and a real talking point at home, they are more often than not an expensive distraction. If you are going to hold any cultivation event then you must be clear on all twelve of these points:
Before the event: the six questions to answer first
1 Your event POO (purpose, objectives and outcomes).
2 Criteria for each guest e.g. qualified capacity to give over a certain level, knowledge that an event will make the difference.
3 Criteria for home team attendance – only those with clear roles to attend.
4 Nobody attends “because they ought to” outside of these clear criteria – guests, staff, trustees. Nobody.
5 Never less than three months’ notice and longer if you’re running an A and a B list so that the B listers still get their three months’ notice. This advice comes from donors.
6 A briefing on the day of the event for all home team.
On the night: what makes the difference
7 A debrief the day after the event to download all of the actions, lessons, intelligence of the night.
8 A bespoke plan to follow up with every attendee.
9 No group asks – never stand up and ask the room to give a gift.
After the event: the follow-up that turns a good evening into a gift
10 Smaller is better. You are trying to have meaningful conversations with your key donors – make sure you can do that in the event you’ve planned. You can’t do that in a room of 80 people.
11 Allow for plus ones in your numbers. But only for guests. Your home team are working, so they don’t get a plus one usually.
12 Consider the time of year – private school holidays, skiing season, busy social calendars in the run up to Christmas etc. People go away. You can’t change that.
To hold an event without due consideration of these factors is to risk that your event will turn into a jolly – no meaningful conversations with your key donors and not leading to gifts.
Planning a cultivation event?
Cultivation events work best when they are part of a broader major donor strategy. We can help you plan an event that actually moves donors, and build the follow-up approach that turns the evening into gifts.