Charity Road Shows

Fingers of Blame - The Medium? Or the Message?

If you haven’t done it by now, you really should join LinkedIn.  Terrific website, kind of like MySpace for people with great resumes.  Another distinction I’ve heard (somewhat less flattering) is that the difference between LinkedIn and MySpace is that LinkedIn users sit on the other side of the job interview table from MySpacers.

One of the features of the site is that it allows users to toss questions out into cyberspace, to be answered by other users.  Questions can be on any number of topics, and are almost always professional in nature.

I spotted a question the other night, written by the development person for a non-profit.  He wondered aloud why so many non-profits are focused on events, despite the lack of evidence that they work.

My initial answer follows:

Simply put, non-profits are focused on events because properly executed events work.

I would invite you to check out an annual event called the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, which raises massive amounts of money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Similarly, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis has generated hundreds of millions of dollars from the “Country Cares” series of radiothons, which are two-day events held on radio stations all over America. Since you’re in Boston, I’d suggest you talk to the NorthEast Regional office of St Jude (located in Boston) for their perspective on how important those events have been to the hospital’s bottom line.

I guess I’m suggesting that your premise is as wrong as it could possibly be. There is a *mountain* of evidence that galas and events work. **If they’re done right.**

Properly executed events are a tremendous way for charitable organizations to make contact with *new* donors, and provide the launching pad for the donor cultivation which you seem to suggest is at odds with doing events.

What doesn’t work is a poorly conceived event, or one that requires an extraordinary amount of work for very little gain. Golf tournaments leap to mind as events that are enormous drains on manpower, and do little to help the charities develop relationships with new donors.

My experience over the last 20 years of doing events with non-profits is that successful organizations combine events with the hard work of cultivating a donor. An event alone accomplishes very little. Done right, events are the best way to establish a relationship to cultivate.

Immediately afterward, the original poster clarified his question, by suggesting that the types of events I was outlining were peer-focused, or the solicitation of funds *was* the event.

My answer:

My *only* experience has been with high-profile events. When I talk about St Jude Radiothons, I’m not talking about a PBS Beg-A-Thon where people you’ve never heard of claim that if you don’t cough up money they’ll put a bullet in Elmo’s head…I’m talking about events where in the middle of a shopping center on a busy Saturday, you can’t get within a mile of the place because Garth Brooks is inside talking about how much he loves the hospital. The events I suggested are ones that make extensive use of media partnerships - which is really the only effective way to do any kind of an event, unless you’re fond of preaching to the choir - and hook people with the event itself, and while they’re at the event, coincidentally provide a compelling message.

The United Way will tell you that in markets where I’ve done events for them, half the money that gets donated comes from people who they say they would never be able to reach, and never be able to get interested had the event that we created for them not happened (paraphrasing, but that’s *their* description, not mine).

Solicitation should **never** be the event. Ever. The event should be so compelling on its own that people are excited to get to the part where they can hand over the money.

What became clear to me is that the original poster wasn’t prepared to have his perceptions shattered; too often, we become convinced that because something didn’t work for *us*, it doesn’t work.  I’m reminded of my days as a copywriter, confronted by a client who guaranteed that radio commercials don’t work.  A respected member of his local chamber of commerce, he was the type of man that when he spoke, people listened.

I asked him how he knew radio didn’t work.  “Simple,” he said.  “I offered a 10% discount to anybody who mentioned the ad, and nobody ever mentioned it.”  I suggested he try a different strategy.  “Let’s do this,” I said.  “Why not tweak the offer, so that if people mention the ad, you’ll buy them a new car?”

The silence was deafening.

“Are you crazy?” he replied in disbelief.  “I’d go out of business in twenty minutes!  I can’t afford to do that!”

Suddenly he realized what he had said, and a light went on.  It wasn’t the medium.  It was the message.  If you do an event, and it doesn’t work, it’s because something was wrong with the event.  Maybe it was because you sent email blasts to the wrong people.  Maybe it’s because the venue has a bad reputation, or the date was inconvenient.  Maybe your event was just plain boring.  Ask Jerry Lewis if events work as fundraising opportunities.  Ask the United Way if their televised 9/11 event was successful for them.

Simply put, we get the success our events deserve.

Introducing DonateOfficeSpace.org

Freshly launched as of 10am ET on April 30th, DonateOfficeSpace.org matches charitable organizations who need office space, with philanthropic-minded corporations who find themselves with excess office space that they’re willing to donate.

The charity gets free office space, the corporation gets a tax write-off while simultaneously helping their community (and in some cases, increases other on-site resources at their disposal) so that everybody wins.

DonateOfficeSpace.org will feature a searchable database of user profiles so that the best matches within a geographic area you specify can be found for you. It works kind of like a dating service, without all the creepy photos and stalkers.

We’ll also feature exclusive editorial content that deals with technological and legal issues that make these newly-forged relationships run even smoother.

Right now, we’re offering free lifetime memberships to the first 50 charitable organizations and first 50 corporations to sign up. Signups after that will be with a $9.99 annual membership fee, but we wanted to get the ball rolling quickly.

Three things to note if this is of interest to you:

1) Editorial content is being written as we speak, so aside from the front page, there won’t be anything to read there until the weekend.

2) If you’re one of the first 50 charities or corporations to sign up, you’ll get a $9.99 discount on your $9.99 membership at checkout. We’ll post a note on the front page when the “Beta Discount Program” is over.

3) We will enable the Search functionality of the website as soon as there are matches to be made. THAT doesn’t happen until we have at least two or three of each type of user signed up.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. We’ve been working hard building this website, and as far as we can tell, it runs error-free. Hopefully that’s your experience too! (That’s why you do a Beta…)

http://www.donateofficespace.org

Alpha is Underway…Briefly

As a follow-up to an earlier post, I wanted to let you know that we’re rapidly moving through the Alpha-testing stage on one of the two new website projects we’re getting ready to launch; the Beta phase should be ready to launch by Monday, if not sooner.

If you’re a 501(c)3 charitable organization anywhere in the United States, you might want to keep an eye on this site or add it to your RSS feed for word about the Beta launch.  For-profits will find it valuable as well.

As for the second site we’re working on, we’re teaming up with our sister organization, the Gold Star Family Foundation for a massive website project that should be ready for launch before the end of the month, and will hopefully be rolling along nicely before Memorial Day.

Coming Soon: New Beta

There’s an idea that has been floating around in the blogosphere for a while, and in the boardrooms of charitable organizations for quite some time now; surprisingly, no one has done anything about the idea on a national scale.

Until now.

One of our missions at Charity Road Shows is to help bring charitable organizations and radio stations together to help both to put together better, smarter, more successful fundraising events.

In a larger sense, we also believe it’s part of our mission to help charities just plain succeed.

For the last several months we’ve been developing a new website that will help.  Right now, we’re close to wrapping up the heavy lifting of actually building the site, and will enter an “Alpha” phase where we’ll spend a couple of weeks inviting some geek friends of ours to try and crash it, as well as find bugs, and things we can improve.  After that, we’ll enter a “Beta” phase where we will throw the doors open to everyone, offering an incentive to the “early adopters” - in other words, free signups to the first 50 or so.

Tentatively, whaddya say we get together on it by April 15th?

Good Events in a “Bad” Economy: The Blame Game

I had a conversation recently with an old friend, commiserating about how far the toteboard for the 2008 edition of an annual fundraiser had fallen compared to years gone by, while listening to him recount the spin that The Powers That Be (TPTB) had put on the entire thing. The event in question raised over $600,000 - certainly nothing to sneeze at; quite the contrary, achievements like those are the kind that make people around the country stand up, take notice, and send spies to figure out how you do what you do. It’s humbling.
My friend, however, recalled the days when the same event, held on the same station in the same time frame, raised just shy of a million dollars.

The mantra coming from TPTB was one that’s likely familiar to many: It’s the economy, stupid. I hear a lot of charitable organizations, and for-profit companies as well, spinning things that way lately. The media is awash in doom-and-gloom stories about our lousy economy, just as they were when most of the US economic indicators were at their highest levels in history. “Bad economy” stories are easy pickings when journalists are as lazy as their readers.

The unfortunate hole in the story from TPTB, however, was that near-million-dollar year. It was before the Spring of 2002 when this particular event had its watershed year, and shattered all expectations.

Prior to the Spring of 2002, the airlines were in turmoil, the financial capital of the world lay largely in ruins, and a whole pile of non-profits all over the country took a collective kick in the groin, because so many people’s money had just gone to things like The Tribute To Heroes concert on television (you remember, the one that started with a bang - Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen - and ended with a whimper - Willie Nelson), and a dizzying array of other 9-11 related charities.

This economy is worse? That’s interesting - Jerry Lewis isn’t complaining about the economy. Just seven months ago, Jerry beat his all-time record for the Labor Day telethon for Muscular Dystrophy. Jerry is also walking and talking proof that some events never get tired if they’re done right.

With my friend’s event, however, something about the impact of the event changed, plain and simple. It’s unlikely that the cause lost any of its urgency - this particular charity has done an amazing job leveraging celebrity support over the past few years, and if anything is more visible now than they have ever been. So if it isn’t the economy, and it isn’t the cause, that leaves one inconvenient answer.

Blaming the economy is a convenient way of avoiding a gut-check. And it’s a gut-check we all need to take occasionally. In this case, TPTB are likely trying to prop up the spirits of a disheartened airstaff, or perhaps head off questions from anyone who dares invoke comparisons to “the old days”. By doing so, they prevent the kind of critical thinking that would allow them to rekindle the passion that made people give 50% more money to the same event just six years prior.

Every event can do better than it did the year before, regardless of the economy. Ask Jerry Lewis. Ask the majority of event-oriented fundraisers across the country, whose sole target for each year is to best the prior year’s total, even if it’s only by a dollar. However, that improvement begins with the acknowledgment that perfection hasn’t been achieved yet. Placing responsibility on the economy for an event that has lost some of its impact does nothing toward that end.

What was it my Mom used to say about pointing a finger of blame somewhere else, and the other three fingers?

–Neil Hedley

PS.  The opinion expressed above is mine.  Not the company’s.

Staffing News: Here We Grow Again!

We’re very excited to announce the addition of Lucinda Rowe to our staff; Lucinda’s primary area of focus will be as an Artist Liaison, although she brings a wealth of passion and expertise to the table from a variety of different disciplines, including commercial lending, real estate financing and development, and of course, the thing that eats up the bulk of her time:

Lucinda’s passion is music and is an award winning national recording artist. Immersing herself in every facet of the music industry, Lucinda has managed numerous artists and bands guiding them through their careers. Her love of the business side of the industry and her independent successes has won her recognition from national songwriting organizations inviting her to lecture on her self penned program “Building Your Career - A Grassroots Approach” to both beginner and seasoned songwriters and performers. As an artist, Lucinda has toured all over the U.S. promoting and performing her original music and has been embraced by commercial radio as well. Most recently Lucinda has been recognized as a campaign supporter of the Wanna Play? campaign introduced by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM). The Wanna Play? campaign was born to help entice children and adults alike to learn to play a musical instrument and introduce music into their lives. Lucinda is a proud member of LIFEbeat - The Music Industry Fights AIDS” “Hearts and Voices” program. Artists in the “Hearts and Voices” program perform in hospices, hospitals, residences and private homes for people living with or affected by HIV and AIDS. Lucinda was awarded the 2007 Bob Caviano Award for Outstanding Service by LIFEbeat - The Music Industry Fights AIDS. Her tour schedule and original music can be found at www.lucindaworld.com.

We’re psyched to have Lucinda aboard. As a member of the Songwriters’ Hall Of Fame, she provides a ton of much-needed perspective as we build relationships with recording artists and songwriters in every format across the country.

It’s In The Way That You Use It

Yes, it’s a great Eric Clapton song; but also an important mantra for charities and non-profits everywhere. The explosion of technology has made it easier than ever for the smallest among us to compete with the largest. However, the secret can be in knowing how to maximize technology, how to find the best of what’s out there, and how to make it work for your specific situation.

We’re doing it ourselves with the launch of this new website, taking advantage of the tremendous functionality and user-friendliness of the WordPress blog software.  Let me be among those shouting from the rooftops that if the only thing you use WordPress for is to publish a pretty blog, you’re really wasting a lot of the things it can do.

But how to navigate the seemingly endless jungle of stuff so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff, without a huge investment of time that takes you away from your core competencies?

Again, that’s where Charity Road Shows comes in.

One of the things we’ve noticed in dealing with non-profits across the country is an almost universal need - or at least desire - to streamline; to do things better, and cheaper.  Technology can help you do that.  We know, because we’ve done it ourselves.  So without getting away from our core competencies, we’ve decided to share the wealth of our own experience, and help non-profits to find the best stuff quicker.

We’ll be making a seriously large announcement within the next few weeks that will change everything.

One For The Record Books

Charity Road Shows’ first official event set the all-time record for the largest local fundraising event in the history of Internet radio when former WRKI-FM morning show host Neil Hedley descended to the bottom of a 30-foot scaffold after a 19-day stay in a tent netted $100,000 for the United Way of Western Connecticut.

Organized almost entirely by Hedley alone in just three weeks, the event quickly established itself as one for the history books when a check from Branson Ultrasonics for over $37,000 launched the campaign into the stratosphere. The event also established Charity Road Shows as the company of record when it comes to planning charity fundraisers for radio stations.

After having worked extensively in the past with organizations like the United Way, the Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, St. Jude Children’’s Research Hospital, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Foodshare and countless others, Hedley says his company is prepared to work in any market with any charity. “There’s virtually no situation that I haven’t personally been involved in during the nearly 30 years that I was in radio, and so we’re ready to meet any challenge,” he said. “While the ‘Guy In The Sky’ event was a little more hands-on than I usually am,” he added, “we’re there for stations from start to finish with our best effort throughout. And that’s true from New York City to Casper, Wyoming.”

So what’s next for Hedley and his crew?

“We’re hiring a bunch of people,” he says with a huge grin, “so I don’t have to do another event by myself. Ever. Then we’re changing the world. One market at a time.”

Welcome Our Newest Team Member!

Charity Road Shows is proud to introduce the latest addition to our talented team, and the first person to join our team on an exclusive, full-time basis.

Sarah Beaupre came to us after - literally - nearly working herself to death at ESPN’s X-Games in California, and after working without a net during our annual Guy In The Sky event for the United Way of Western Connecticut in Danbury. The original plan was for her to lend her considerable expertise in event co-ordination and planning on an “as needed” basis while she worked on other projects - she fit the family so well and brought things to such a high level we almost immediately began negotiations to make her a permanent part of our team. Her boundless energy, determination, professionalism and out-of-the-box thinking made her an instant hit with radio professionals and corporate bigwigs alike.

Sarah’s connections to the military and her deep-rooted desire to make a difference in the world will make her a tremendous asset not only in the work we do for the Gold Star Family Foundation, but for a variety of other causes as well.

Highway 16 Is Paved With Gold

Billy Joel once said, “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.” One of the keys to the success of our radiothons is the choice of just the right music. We’re excited to announce that one of the country music industry’s most respected authorities has agreed to join our team and be our link to Music Row.

Jay Thomas is the Music Director and evening host on XM Radio’s “Highway 16″, where he features the best in country’s hottest new music.

Jay brings a wealth of experience to his current gig, after many years in “terrestrial radio”. After having worked several radiothons, Jay knows just what it takes for a song to bring out the right responses in people, and what tunes will work best at helping to tell the story of a particular charitable cause.

Jay’s generous participation in Charity Road Shows can only mean great things to come for the organizations we partner with, and we’re excited to have him on board.

Learn more about Jay at this link.