Case Study: Manhattan Wine Auction Virtual Gala

The Manhattan Beach Education Foundation normally holds its “Manhattan Wine Auction” in early June. A crowd of 2,000 people spends the afternoon enjoying wines from 70 vintners and food from 50 chefs on six tennis courts, before settling in for a 28-lot line auction. Netting over $1,000,000 annually, the Manhattan Wine Auction is a significant source of income for Manhattan Beach’s public schools.

The 2019 Manhattan Wine Auction: the stage is set for over 2,000 attendees

As soon as the pandemic struck, we knew there was no way they could hold anything akin to their normal event in 2020. And the money the wine auction raises is extremely important, as executive director of MBEF Hilary Mahan notes, “Although we have a robust donor campaign, the Manhattan Wine Auction is the only fundraising event hosted by our organization each year and raises significant money for our schools.”

We reached out to Hilary and her team in mid-March to encourage them to consider holding a virtual event this year. There were a lot of concerns, not the least of which was attendance and participation. “I was concerned that our stakeholders would not embrace tuning into a livestream show,” says Mahan. “It just didn’t sound as appealing as our traditional in-person event. But our need for funding was still prevalent…and Greg assured me that he would partner with us to make it happen.”

The first step was to partner with an audio visual company who could produce the show and broadcast it to a streaming platform. MBEF chose to work with The Lux productions based on the fact that they were one of the first AV companies in California to create a virtual gala solution for non-profit events. MBEF also brought in event planner Beth Sandefur to help produce the virtual event.

“We collaborated on ways to guarantee an audience, reach virtual attendees prior to and during the event, and maximize the attention span of our audience,” says Mahan.

One of the ways MBEF engaged its attendees was to create six different virtual tasting events to be held immediately prior to the main gala. These varied in price from $75 for a beer tasting with a brewmaster to $400 for a high-end wine tasting with a vintner. “The goal was not to make a lot of money on the virtual tasting,” says David Brennan, Director of Development & Partnerships, “but to get our community members involved at 6pm with the hope they would transition over to our 7pm live stream event.”  

And it worked! MBEF sold over 250 virtual tastings on a per-household basis, which means approximately 500 people participated. And over 1,000 screens tuned into their livestream. Their fund-a-need raised over $550,000 during the stream, and brought in another $100,000 over the course of the next week. “We could not have been happier with the results!” says Mahan. “Our event netted just $25,000 under what our in-person event typically does, raising over $1M for our schools.”

The 2020 Manhattan Wine Auction virtual event was a stellar success, tripling previous years’ fund-a-need totals and raising over $1,000,000

Two of the key factors of MBEF’s success were committing wholeheartedly to the concept of a virtual gala, and getting their stakeholders to buy in to the concept. The number of people who watched the stream is roughly equal to the number of people who normally attend the event in person. MBEF did great work in making the virtual gala fun and accessible and working hard to get their crowd to be there. And they did it all in under eight weeks.

It's (Still) Time to Go Virtual

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.

Stellar Fundraising Auctions Virtual Gala Demo

This recording of a 100% Virtual Gala was recorded in conjunction with The Lux Productions and Beth Sandefur Events in support of the fictional “Madill Theater Company”

The Four Phases of Fundraising Auctions in 2020

This webinar covers the four phases of fundraising galas in 2020, from current virtual galas to what galas will look like as social distancing protocols are eased region by region. The 20-minute presentation was followed by 40-minutes of live Q&A.

The Four Stages of Virtual Galas

What does the future hold for virtual galas – and possibly in-person galas – in 2020? It’s the $64,000 question on everyone’s mind right now, and while our crystal ball may not be crystal clear, we have some solid guesstimations. Based on what we’ve seen so far and conversations with our virtual gala partners The Lux Productions and Beth Sandefur Events, we envision four phases of virtual galas.

And though these virtual galas may differ in implementation, they all share one key component: the ability of your at-home crowd to interact with you and your auctioneer in real-time. Fundraising in a virtual environment works best when a crowd has a sense of community and feels a sense of urgency to their participation. Pre-recorded asks and online-only auction lots with no live encouragement raise between 30-50% less than a truly live, interactive virtual gala.

Phase One: 100% Virtual Galas
We are currently in Phase One of virtual galas: completely virtual galas, conducted 100% remotely by people sheltering-in-place. Initially, these productions were very last-minute and produced solely on a single platform, like Zoom. As organizations have more time to plan and start utilizing offerings like The Lux’s virtual studio solution (link), we will see more virtual galas that look like a TV show – but are still 100% virtual with every participant broadcasting from their own home/office.

Phase Two: Soundstage Productions
Once the shelter-in-place orders are shifted so that we can gather a small group (say, ten people) in the same room, we’ll see Phase Two of virtual galas: soundstage productions. Staff and a production team will gather at a soundstage, hotel ballroom, school stage, or some other setting with a/v, cameras, and so forth and put on a gala to broadcast to an at-home audience.

We actually saw some examples of this in the first weekend of the outbreak, before social distancing protocols put an end to gatherings of any size. As soon as we are permitted to have a small group of people in the same room again, we’ll start utilizing this type of production again.

Phase Three: Micro-Galas
When we are able to slightly larger crowd, perhaps 50 people, we’ll start having micro-galas. The protocols are yet to be determined, but it is easy to imagine 60-inch round banquet tables being converted from ten-tops to six-tops. An organization could then hold a micro-gala with eight tables of six attendees per table – bringing their largest supporters into the room, and broadcasting the proceedings to an at-home audience.

Phase Four: Full-Blown Galas
Once all social distancing protocols are lifted, there will probably still be some donors who do not feel comfortable mingling in a crowd of 500 people. Plan on it. Plan on keeping a virtual component to your gala, so you can enable attendees who choose to stay at home to participate in a way that still makes them feel part of your community, and expand your reach beyond the ballroom doors.  

There could be variations on any of these themes. Tom at The Lux envisions Satellite Galas, where small crowds of 50 in ballrooms across a city, county or even state are linked together. Either way, a virtual gala needs to have two components: the broadcast of “the show” and an interactive “bidding and pledging” component for the live auction and fund-a-need.

As for when this will all come to pass, estimating that is way beyond our crystal ball’s capabilities. We simply recommend that every organization planning a gala for the foreseeable future plan on a virtual component.

Now is NOT the Time to NOT Be Fundraising

Many organizations are having a difficult time fundraising right now. Or rather, they are having a hard time justifying to themselves that they should be fundraising right now. They feel that since they are not a direct service organization feeding the needy, or providing PPE to front line workers, or helping maintain a roof over people’s heads, they don’t deserve to ask for money.

It is an understandable sentiment, but one that may prove to be extremely self-harmful. If you are an organization that is dependent upon annual fundraising efforts for survival, 2020 may be the most important year to be asking your donors to support you.

We know from experience that if you do not ask supporters for donations one year, it is harder to get them to engage the following year. People who are used to being asked to support you on an annual basis won’t simply stockpile that cash on your behalf. They look elsewhere to donate and give another organization the opportunity to build a meaningful relationship.

Now, more than ever, is the time to be reaching out to your supporters and engaging them to support you.

This tendency is being heavily multiplied right now since we also know that in an economic downturn, donors don’t stop giving, they simply reduce the number of organizations to which they give. They pull back and fortify the organizations they perceive to need them most.

During 2008, for example, if a donor usually donated $10,000 across five organizations, the trend we saw was to reduce the number of events they attended and possibly increase the donation per event. So a donor would attend three events and donate $10,000 to each, or two events and donate $15,000 to each. They didn’t stop giving, but they became more selective in their giving. Organizations who were able to clearly and effectively communicate the immediacy and relevance of their need were able to convince these retracting donors to fortify them, and not another organization.

Which brings us to right now: you may feel like now is not the time to be asking for money. You may feel like the right thing to do is to encourage people to support our front-line health care workers, a food bank, or another organization that is directly addressing our current crisis. It is a valid and understandable feeling, and those organizations deserve support. But so does yours.

I am a firm proponent of honest, engaging fundraising. So indulge me three questions:

• Has your need become greater since the outbreak of the Coronavirus?

• Do your clients need you?

• Are you dependent upon fundraising to survive?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you have an honest, engaging reason to reach out to your donor base and ask them to support you. If you answered “yes” to all of those questions, you should undoubtedly be fundraising this year.

My final thought: people want to give money to more than just one set of causes. Yes, people want to support direct service organizations; but they still want to support the arts, and their kids’ school, and…well…you.

The Virtual Gala Pivot

The CDC recommendations released on Sunday, March 15th effectively cancel all in-person fundraising auctions until mid-May. For the many galas who were holding out hope that the social distancing efforts recently implemented would be lifted in time for your event, this recommendation feels like the final straw in a crazy, unprecedented series of events.

But it doesn’t mean that you can’t still engage your supporters and raise much needed funds. Now is the time to pivot to a Virtual Gala. A Virtual Gala can maximize everything that you and your team have worked so hard to build: the auction lots your committee has solicited, the messaging your team has worked to hone, the focus and attention of your supporters, and the goodwill for your cause.

A Virtual Gala might not be for every crowd, event, or organization, but we have always been advocates for honest and engaging fundraising. If your organization needs the funds from your gala immediately and cannot postpone until next year or roll the dice on when social distancing recommendations will be removed, you can achieve solid results online. We have already seen multiple events across the Pacific Northwest hold successful Virtual Galas, in some instances surpassing the goals they had set for their in-person gala.

A Virtual Gala enables you to utilize the reality of the moment to engage your supporters, tell them your story, and enable them to support you. A Virtual Gala will never replace the sense of community and camaraderie created by an in-person event, but it will help you raise enough money to make your cancellation less painful, and keep your organization top of mind with your supporters. It will also provide your supporters with a way to feel competent again, to feel like they are making a difference in the face of uncertainty.

There are two approaches to a Virtual Gala: live, and pre-recorded. In a Live Virtual Gala you put on an extremely scaled-down version of your gala in an event setting like a live-stream ready event space, your school’s theater, a hotel conference room, or your offices and simulcast it to your supporters. You have your program, speakers, testimonial, live auction, and fund-a-need happen real-time, online. Guests at home participate on two screens: one (hopefully large) screen to view the livestream, and a smartphone to bid and make pledges. Two schools in Portland had Live Virtual Galas this past Saturday night, including the Caitlin Gabel School.  

A Pre-recorded Virtual Gala is similar, but instead of happening in real-time, the speeches, testimonial, fund-a-need pitch, etc. are all pre-recorded and uploaded to YouTube or some other video on demand site. Upaya, in Seattle, was forced to have a Pre-recorded Virtual Gala and was able to exceed their original live-event goals with it. Their blog post offers excellent insight into the ways a Virtual Gala can make the most of the moment and rally your crowd to your cause.

We are working with numerous clients to implement both live and pre-recorded Virtual Gala solutions. We have secured a set-price of under $4,000 from an event space that is livestream ready with multiple cameras, a professional sound system, video switcher, and high-bandwidth internet.

If your gala was scheduled to happen between now and June 1st, let’s chat about ways we can make the most of the current situation and help you raise some needed funds. We are ready to do whatever it takes to work with you to find successful fundraising solutions. If that means wearing a tux to your offices to record video introductions for auction lots, we’ll be there; just let us know the color scheme, so we don’t clash.

Tips for Holding an Event During the Coronavirus Outbreak

March 2020 is an incredibly challenging time for fundraising auctions, especially in cities or counties where the government is calling for social distancing (i.e., no non-essential large gatherings or social events). There is a lot on the line for every organization that puts on a fundraising auction, and the decision to hold or cancel an event in the midst of a public health crisis is not an easy one to make.

Organizations are faced with a daunting decision, and many are deciding to proceed with their fundraising auction. If you are choosing to proceed with your fundraising event, there are some simple steps you can take to help make your guests feel comfortable, help your event succeed, and (more importantly) also help prevent the spread of any infectious disease – but especially Covid19.

1) Encourage guests who are sick to stay home. Screen for obviously sick guests at the door and send home anyone who is showing visible signs of sickness. It seems obvious to state this, and while we haven’t had issues in the past with people who were sick with the flu showing up to events and spreading their germs, it is still worth communicating to your crowd.

2) Support guests who choose to stay home and offer them alternative methods of supporting you, either via proxy bidding or some online participation tool like GoTo Meeting. Whether they are sick or worried about getting sick, the decision to stay at home is theirs to make. You should make sure that decision doesn’t preclude them from supporting you and your cause.

3) Provide clear messaging to your crowd about your decision to hold the event. It is always a good idea to reach out to key bidders and attendees in advance of your event to make sure they are committed to attending and supporting the auction. A high level of pre-event communication is even more crucial now. You have done a risk/benefit analysis and arrived at this decision conscientiously, now bring your crowd into the loop. What are your needs and how would cancelling or postponing your event negatively impact your organization? What won’t happen if you don’t hold the event?

The Pure-alien is here to help keep your hands clean.

4) Once guests arrive, do everything you can to make them feel safe. Provide at least one hand sanitizer station at registration, preferably more around the event as a whole. We’ve seen events with a small bottle on every table – which may have been overkill, but it was appreciated by guests. If you are having a difficult time locating hand sanitizer, you can always make your own.

5) If you are having a silent auction, offer everyone their own, brand-new pen at check-in. This will make attendees feel more comfortable and at ease. It will also reduce the amount of hand sanitizer your crowd uses.

6) Reevaluate your auction items based on the reality of the present moment. Check in with donors or providers to see if they can extend expiration dates to two or even three years, instead of the standard one-year expiration; especially for trips, large-scale events, parties and sporting events. Consider pulling trips to impacted areas and cruises out of your auction. In fact, don’t consider it, do it. Trips to Italy and Princess Cruises are not going to do you any good if you keep them in your live auction.

7) Encourage guests to embrace zero-contact methods of greeting; eliminate handshakes and hugs. Embrace fist-bumps or come up with your own greeting if possible (the “Vines and Vision Toe-Tap”) and have greeters demonstrate it on the way in. Normalize the new normal. People probably want to get away from the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that is inundating us these days, but we still need to encourage safe behavior.

8) Work with your caterer and venue staff to adjust the layout of your room if you are suddenly expecting a smaller crowd. Subtle changes in ballroom configuration or usage of pipe and drape can make a room feel intimate.  

9) Work with your caterer or banquet manager to evaluate and adjust your food plan if necessary. Now might be a bad time for an un-staffed buffet or “family style” service. Some creative collaborating with your food services team should be able to find a solution that makes everyone comfortable.

10) Finally, thank your guests and appreciate their presence! You don’t need to overwhelm them with how thrilled you are that they braved the outside world and came to your event, but gratitude for everyone’s desire to congregate and support you is always a good thing.

Need Help at Your Event? One Brick Volunteers are Standing By...

If you need volunteers for your next fundraising event, One Brick is there for you. One Brick is a non-profit “community of volunteers that support other local nonprofits by creating a friendly and social atmosphere around volunteering.”

In short: they are an on-demand army of volunteers waiting to help with your next fundraising event. One Brick has chapters in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Washington D.C.

They accept applications for volunteers a minimum of six to eight weeks in advance of your event, and their volunteers will only work two- to four-hour shifts. They also only volunteer for weeknight or weekend events. If your organization is new to them, they’ll want to get to know you before sending a team to your event. See their guidelines below for more detailed information.

If you are in San Francisco, you can request help via an email containing the below “Information We’ll Require”. To find the One Brick chapter nearest you, visit their website: https://onebrick.org/request-help

Following are their guidelines for engagement:

ONE BRICK GENERAL GUIDELINES

·         We typically work 2-4 hour shifts. If your event is longer than this, do consider breaking out the volunteer responsibilities into shifts. One Brick can then take responsibility for bringing volunteers to one of the shifts. (Rarely will we be able to arrange to cover multiple shifts.)
·         While we are there to volunteer, we do try to incorporate a social element, enabling volunteers to chat with one another while working together. Activities that are conducive to this are preferred.
·         One Brick will provide an event manager at every event to help mobilize the volunteers and keep things running smoothly. A representative from your organization must be present at all times as well.

TIMING
·         One Brick requires a minimum of 6-8 weeks notice to consider requests for volunteer support. We are sometimes able to accommodate requests with less lead time if we do not have any conflicting events during the time you need and we can secure an Event Manager and Coordinator to oversee your event.
·         As One Brick is completely volunteer-run, we generally limit our events to weeknights and weekends.
·         Please also understand it may sometimes take a few days to respond to your request, as we pass information across our team to determine if we will be able to coordinate coverage for your event.

INFORMATION WE'LL REQUIRE
·         If we have not worked with your organization in the past, a short bio on your organization and its mission.
·         A short description of what we will be doing during the project and how this benefits the overall effort.
·         If it has been an ongoing project, please provide a little history about the project itself.
·         How many volunteers you will need.
·         Dates and times you will need volunteers.
·         A clear meeting place.
·         Special instructions such as parking or clothing to wear, etc.
·         Directions to the site.
·         Contact name, telephone and email of the person we will interface with at the site.
·         Anything else of note that you would like volunteers to be aware of.

SETTING UP AN EVENT
If you have a project is within our guidelines please send us an email containing the above "Information We'll Require."

HELP SPREAD THE WORD...
Once we've set up an event for you, we'd appreciate your help spreading the word about One Brick. Please list/thank us in your newsletter, email outreach, or event website.

How to Knock Your Next Fundraising Auction Out of the Park

I was recently contacted by Anthony Wilson, founder of Groupfinity, about participating in his podcast series. Groupfinity is a new resource for volunteers and volunteer organizations, committed to providing support and tools for success.

Anthony contacted me because he had served on a number of fundraising auction committees, but had never worked with a professional fundraising auctioneer and consultant before. He had a lot of questions about best practices, and once we got rolling our conversation was, as you can imagine, extensive. I ended up providing him with enough material for two podcasts. We covered myriad topics, from how many volunteers it takes to make an auction successful, to the goals of fundraising auctions, to how to leverage your board to make your next fundraising auction successful.

In short, it was a distillation of my entire philosophy down to an hour of podcast. You can find the entire podcast here, and the timestamps below outline the entire podcast.

[2:48] How many people do you have who are committed to volunteer to make the auction successful
[3:08] For an auction to be successful you have to have a couple of key components taken care of
[3:52] Get people you know have capacity and are prepared to support your event/organization
[4:12] Every event is made by 15 bidders
[4:42] You need people who have connections to invite your supporters
[5:02] The goals of a fundraising auction is three fold 1 Raise money 2 Tell your story 3 Engage new supporters
[6:47] For an event chair, you’ll spend 700 hours over 9 months
[7:39] If you’re looking for someone to chair your fundraising auction, find the busiest person you know
[9:58] In putting together a fundraising auction, it has to be FUN and it has to be FUNdraising
[10:28] Don’t throw a big party and then hit them over the head with an auction when they get there
[15:14] Fund a Need
[16:02] Keys to making your Fund a Need successful
[19:15] 7 Keys to a Fund a Need
[20:35] Fundraising is conversation with your community
[21:00] Talk to your donors to see what they’re interested in supporting
[22:20] We need somebody to get the ball rolling
[23:33] An auction breaks into 3 groups of people
[25:38] Your board needs to do 3 things to make the auction successful
[27:58] What item can I count on you to help bid up?
[28:39] Peer pressure drives donations
[28:56] Fundraising auctions are a place for people to make donations in a public setting