Virtual events bringing in new younger audiences for charities, report shows
Melanie May | 2 October 2017 | News
Virtual events are bringing in new and younger audiences for charities but communications need to focus more on the challenge than the cause to encourage more fundraising, a report has revealed.
The report, What Creates Virtual Event Success, by Blackbaud’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform Everydayhero and fundraising consultancy More Strategic, is based on in-depth interviews and analysis of quantitative data across virtual and physical events run by charities through Everydayhero. It shows that average audiences are younger for virtual events, with 23-32% of participants going on to fundraise. In comparison, the average physical event fundraiser raises between 34-79% more than a virtual event fundraiser, according to the report, while the donor-to-fundraiser ratio for virtual events is between 23-63% lower than for physical events.
According to Everydayhero, the findings show that the key to encouraging more participants to fundraise is to understand their motivators, with cause identified as a secondary factor for the supporter, behind the activity itself.
In addition, while low retention rates have been assumed for both types of event due to them being seen as ‘Bucket List’ items that people like to tick off, the survey found that good stewardship can help increase retention. The availability of live data throughout challenges was cited as a major advantage of virtual events, allowing for greater personalisation of supporter journeys as well as better stewardship. Another key strength of virtual events highlighted was their ability to bring a more real-time, novel experience which, when combined with better stewardship, sees a significant number of participants join in a physical event the following year.
To launch a successful virtual event such as the British Heart Foundation’s MyMarathon and Children with Cancer’s Mr Men & Little Miss Virtual Run, Everydayhero’s research identifed three main areas to focus on:
- Supporter understanding: Capturing this knowledge at the start of a supporter’s journey enables charities to segment their participants depending on their commitment and connection to the cause, and adapt communications accordingly.
- Fundraising drivers: With lower fundraising targets achieved through virtual events, it is important to instil and reinforce the same principles usually embedded in physical events, such as helping participants understand the impact of reaching their fundraising goal, drip feeding them ways to fundraise, and embedding gamification and incentives to inspire them to keep fundraising.
- Tribal mobilisation: Key for virtual events where participants are separated from others taking part, creating an active online ‘Tribe’ that engages participants and assists them with the lack of ‘reality’ they may experience is vital as it will help to define a story.
The full report can be read on the Blackbaud site.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.