Engaging Your Community With Your Events: With Special Guest, Janet Smith

One of the biggest concerns we see from our customers is how to engage your donors, and how to utilize FundEasy to do that. In this webinar, Madison & Lyndsy interviewed long-time customer Janet Smith from A Woman's Choice. Janet is an amazing example of using her community to increase donor engagement.

A little bit about her organization:

"A Woman’s Choice is a licensed, non-profit medical clinic providing free and confidential medical services and accurate information on all options regarding unplanned pregnancy, including education on abortion, adoption, and parenting."

Per usual, there is a link to download the webinar slides below, as well as any additional resources our hosts or panelists may have mentioned during the webinar, but unfortunately, while our hosts always work hard to ensure that a recording is taken for those who may have missed it (or want to pass it on to their team)...

during this webinar, technology was not on their side.

Due to a system error, they were not able to retain the recording and thus are unable to provide it for you this time. Their most sincere apologies go out to all those who were looking forward to accessing the recording - the FundEasy team is working to ensure that this same issue doesn't happen again.

We don't have the recording this time, but you can still access the written highlights of the webinar below!

Resources

Download handout

Highlights:

  • Events Janet uses to engage church communities:

    • Pastor’s Prayer Walk: This event is geared towards all local pastors as she invites them to walk through their facility and pray over the building and those who work, volunteer, and use services there.

    • Pastor’s Appreciation Dinner: This is a dinner to which she invites pastors and their wives. It’s a simple dinner where they are able to show their appreciation for the spiritual leaders of their community and offer a time of community and engagement with their mission. She mentioned that they had a marriage counselor come and speak for them and it was a wonderful event.

    • Janet also mentioned that their walk-for-life is a great way to create friendly competition and get church congregants involved in fundraising for their mission.

  • Events Janet uses to engage her community:

    • Janet and her team attend their local First Friday community gathering. It’s here that she is able to establish their place in the community and increase awareness of the services they offer.

    • Walk-In-Her-Shoes Tour: This particular event was a huge topic of discussion between hosts and attendees during the webinar! Janet explained that this event is similar to an open house in the way that it offers a chance for donors to see their facility and the direct impact they have on the community.

      • Each attendee is given a printed, laminated shoe (of all different kinds). Each shoe has a different client story on it.

      • They are then invited on a tour where they meet the staff and volunteers that provide their services. They get the opportunity to ask questions and hear about the impact those services have made on individuals in their community.

      • At the end, they are shown posters with follow-up information about the people’s stories written on the shoes they were given at the beginning.

  • Janet’s organization increased its annual revenue from just over $525k in 2018 to just over $1.18M in 2022.

  • The revenue from their annual Walk-For-Life increased from around $63k in 2018 to almost $173k in 2022.

  • Janet credits FundEasy’s products as the primary tool she used to make their numbers increase as much as they have.

WebinarMadison HullEngaging Younger Generations, Engaging Donors, Gen Z, Increasing Donors, Fundraising Ideas, Fundraising Best Practices, Development