If you’ve been holding out hope that you will be doing your spring 2021 event in person, I’m here to encourage you to embrace virtual. Even with multiple vaccines on the horizon, there is little hope that we will be holding full-scale, in-person fundraising events in the Bay Area in March, April or May of 2021.*
It’s hard to believe it has been over eight months since we last did an in-person fundraising auction. And it’s even more challenging to think that it will be another seven to eight months before we are able to start doing in-person fundraising again.
This should not stop you from raising money next spring. Virtual fundraising events are successful and continue to engage, entertain, and raise significant amounts of money. In the past eight months we have had multiple events raise over $500,000 onstream, and a handful have cracked the million-dollar mark.
Equally importantly, we’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees who appreciated the opportunity to engage with and support their favorite organizations. Virtual galas are not the same as being in person, obviously, but they offer creative and unique ways to tell your story and engage your crowd.
Whether you’ve done an event virtually or not, you can benefit from the wealth of experience that 2020 has forced upon all of us in the fundraising auction industry. We have spent the last eight months working with numerous event planners, audio-visual companies, and non-profit organizations to figure out what works (and what doesn’t) in a virtual gala.
Virtual galas aren’t magic – they still take lots of advanced planning and hard work. And there is still time to plan and implement a successful virtual gala this coming spring.
I miss seeing people in person, and I miss gathering as a community to raise funds for important causes. But if there is one lesson I’ve learned in 2020, it is to make the most of what the world is currently giving you. And this coming spring, virtual is going to be all the rage again.
*As of this writing the majority of the Bay Area was “Purple” and the 49ers were preparing to play their “home games” in Arizona because the county of Santa Clara had placed contact sports on the “no” list.
