There is a lot of advice about planning and running your first fundraising event. Conventional wisdom is that your initial fundraising event will provide the seed money to get things started, including starting your online presence.
That’s not necessarily true.
Your online campaign should start long before your announce that you are running for office.
In fact, it’s a great idea to have your campaign website and social media accounts up and running long before your first big fundraiser. Your means of taking online donations should also be in place.
With some planning, you can use your existing online presence to turn your fundraising event into something that increases awareness, attracts more interest in your campaign – and perhaps brings in some additional money!
Here are a few things you want to do to make the most of your big event:
Set up for online donations.
Even if event attendees have paid for tickets, you can still use your campaign fundraiser event to bring in even more money. If possible, set up a laptop to show off your campaign website. Encourage attendees to make an additional online donation or set themselves up for recurring donations throughout the campaign. If it’s your first event, emotions will be high. It’s a good opportunity to tap into that optimism.
Post the event to your website and social media accounts.
Encourage attendees to start following your campaign. Many can do so from their mobile devices. Before the event, ask them to Tweet and post live status updates. Let everyone know about the event #hashtag and encourage them to use it in their posts.
Ask for online contact information from your guests.
Not only should you ask for email addresses when attendees sign in, but also ask for Twitter IDs so your campaign can follow them and they can follow back.
Put your own people to work.
Have one or more insiders at the event post live during the event. Mix pre-scheduled posts using tools like Hootsuite and live posts during the event. Multiple people posting can have an amplification effect on social media. Word of the event and your new campaign will reach a much wider audience.
Do an online follow-up.
After the event, post a “wrap up” of your event’s highlights. Post photos, videos and commentary on your website and your other social media accounts. Don’t do it all at once, though. Talk about the interesting things that happened over the next few days to get some extra mileage from the event.
Hope this helps get your first fundraising event to a great start!
Want more tips and ideas on starting your online campaign? Check out our exclusive ebook Running for Office as an Online Candidate. Have your own fundraiser coming up? You can get your campaign website started fast for a price that meets any budget.
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