Episode Transcript
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Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:00):
Getting
gifts from individuals is one of
the most important things we canbe doing in fundraising in 2025.
We know that individual gifts are whatmake up the vast majority of donations
these days, and it's only getting bigger.
So how do we get infront of new individuals?
How do we grow that base?
How do we share our mission?
(00:21):
Well, events are a great way to do that,and so that's what we're talking about
today is what we need to know about eventsand fundraising in 2025 and how we can
make the most of it as we move through ourfundraising goals to really make the most
of the rest of this year to get us preppedand ready for year end fundraising because
yes, it's coming up fast and how we canmake the most of our events long term.
(00:47):
My guest today is Roger Dev Divine.
Roger has led a life basedon service, communication,
education, and entrepreneurship.
As the co-founder of school auction.net,he has spent the past 20 years assisting
and advising local and nationalnonprofit organizations and charities
on how to grow their programs andensure financial stability through
(01:08):
fundraising events such as gala auctions,golf tournaments, and trivia nights.
In addition to assisting organizationsacross the country, Roger has personally
chaired dozens of fundraising events forhis kids' schools, his Rotary Club, and
Pacific Northwest Nonprofits focused oncauses such as building schools in rural
communities, matching US military veteranswith service dogs and pandemic relief.
(01:29):
Now, I love his take on thisbecause again, it doesn't have
to be big, huge, fancy, overthe top types of things, right?
We can really get grassroots with it.
We can really have fun with it.
Um, and most importantly, get theright people in the room for you
to have conversation with so thatyou can grow your base, get more
donations in the door, continue tonurture, grow, and build relationships.
(01:49):
So I hope you'll tune in tothis episode 'cause it's a
good one before we get into it.
This episode is brought toyou by Do Good University.
This is a community built for smallto medium sized nonprofit leaders,
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You're a team of one or a team of five.
We're here for you to help youwith everything that you need from
(02:12):
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You can grab the link@thefirstclick.netslash dgu, the letter U. Um, learn
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(03:19):
is so important for us as nonprofitleaders, especially right now.
We're having lots of conversation aboutthe trends and things that are shifting
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I hope that you check it out,and I look forward to seeing you
on a future live q and a call.
Let's get into the episode.
You're listening to the DigitalMarketing Therapy Podcast.
I'm your host, Sammy Del Mulhern.
Each month we dive deep into a digitalmarketing or fundraising strategy that
you can implement in your organization.
Each week you'll hear from guestexperts, nonprofits, and myself on
(04:08):
best practices, tips and resourcesto help you raise more money online
and reach your organizational goals.
Hey friends, please join me inwelcoming Roger Devine to the podcast.
Roger, thanks for being here.
Roger Devine (04:20):
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (04:22):
Okay, so we're
talking about event fundraising, which
is something we haven't really talkedabout, uh, in a minute on the podcast.
So I'm really excitedfor this conversation.
But before we kind of jumpinto some strategies and why
now, um, why event fundraising?
Why is that something that youare passionate about, uh, and
something you love to teach on?
Roger Devine (04:42):
I.
I, first of all, I, in my career,I'm on Plan D or E or F you know,
we're fairly far down the line here,but, um, got into event fundraising
really because I was a PTA president.
Mm. And when my kid was in secondgrade, I was PTA president for a couple
(05:02):
of years and we had a fundraisingauction we would do at the school.
When I got there, it was all donemanually with spiral notebooks and
little knuckle busters to processcredit card payments and, um,
thought there had to be a better way.
And there was some softwareout there that was available
to help run fundraising events.
(05:24):
It's not like it was an, uh, a brandnew idea to the world, although
the business model of most of theorgan, most of the companies that
were providing this software.
Was a business model I did not wantto participate in as a PTA president.
I did not want to give away a portionof what we were raising on that night.
I understand that software costs money.
(05:45):
I'm willing to pay a cost, but I wantedto know what it was gonna be and I
wanted, so I, so that I could make afiscally responsible decision, et cetera.
And so started looking around andmanaged to find a couple of guys who
were thinking about starting a companyand had written some software for
their kids' school here in the samedistrict to do the same kind of events.
(06:09):
I got to them and said, Hey, why don'tyou gimme your software for free?
And they're like, okay, whydon't you join our company?
And I was like, alright.
And that was 20 years ago.
And it's a, it's a real niche in that, um.
Most people, even the, even the peoplewho are really involved with grassroots
(06:30):
nonprofit fundraising really don'twant to think about fundraising events
any more than they absolutely have to.
You know, they tend to be things thatwe consider to be, I don't know, we
would call them a necessary evil,but they're, you know, they're less
fun than some of the other kind ofthings you can do in fundraising.
Um, but we're at a point now where,you know, I feel like the lessons that.
(06:54):
Um, schools and churches and smalllocally focused nonprofits have
to teach about fundraising Eventsare worth teaching at this moment.
Yeah, there's a whole lot of charities,whole lot of nonprofits that have not
necessarily relied on events in thepast or turned up their nose at them or
(07:16):
thought that they weren't cost effective.
We're living in a place wherefundraising is, is uncertain.
Um, you know, we're in an environmentwhere many federal grants are
being pulled or reviewed or paused.
Um, it has a knock on effect toprivate foundations who are expected
to pick up some of that slackand all the way on down the line.
(07:38):
So bringing events back into thefundraising mix for a given organization
seems like a pretty reasonablething to consider at this point.
There are ways to do these things ina cost effective, efficient manner.
Yeah.
It's just those methods are ones that,um, if you're thinking about putting
(07:59):
on the kind of fundraising auctionthat you see on a TV show, yeah.
You know, you're not, those are, thoseare events that break even at best, you
know, with the, uh, doing them at the Ritzand everybody's in tuxes and you've spent
a zillion dollars on the decorations.
Schools and PTAs and boosterclubs know how to do these
things in a cost efficient way.
(08:21):
And so I think it's time that wekind of take that out there and
talk about it a little bit more.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (08:26):
I love that.
Well, let's talk.
Because the power of an eventis the way that you kind of
engage with your audience.
So I love that you kind of started withlike, it doesn't have to be the gala,
it doesn't have to be the big thing,you know, with the lobster dinner.
Um, so kind of how do we start tocraft, like maybe you've been doing
an event for a while, it hasn't beendoing that great, or you're just
(08:47):
kind of starting to do an event.
Like, how do you kind of think aboutwhat you want that event to look like
and how much does your audience causeand creativity kind of play into that?
Like, I think you can kind ofdo whatever you want, uh, with
regards to what a quote unquoteevent fundraising event looks like.
Roger Devine (09:04):
So I think that the key
thing here is always know your audience.
Know who your supporter base is.
Know, and, and it's a segmentof your supporter base.
It's not everybody but the segment ofyour supporter base that you think.
Really wants to participate morein the life of the organization.
(09:24):
They want to be present, they wantto show up, they want to talk to the
people who are working on the mission.
They want to talk to the people whoare, you know, running the organization.
They want to rub elbows withother donors of like minds.
Yeah.
So those organizations, thatsegment of your, your supporter
base out there is, um, worthdoing a little bit of research on.
(09:45):
You know, sit down and talk to 'em.
Tell them, you know, Hey, these are,these are things we wanna do here.
And what's important to you.
And I think that if you come outand you say, you know, is it really
important that we have, you know,phenomenal high-end decoration?
You're gonna find that many ofyour guests who are, and let's
(10:06):
face it, these are not necessarily.
The part of the user base that'sgonna write the six figure
checks or the five figure checks.
Sure.
This is the one where you think you'regonna get four figure checks out of them.
Right?
Maybe the occasional small five,but these are people who are
probably gonna turn around and say,no, don't spend my money on that.
(10:27):
Yeah.
Don't spend my money on an ice sculpture.
It's not necessary.
It really isn't.
Yeah.
Um, you know, one of the thingsthat is, uh, a thing we go back and
forth with when we're talking toorganizations about putting on an event
is, can you get away with a buffet?
Can you get away with a buffet insteadof offering three different plated
(10:49):
dinner options where you have to collectthat all in advance if you do need to.
And some organizations willput on an event that requires
that kind of structure to it.
And if you do need to, you know,great, there's methods for doing that.
And you can do that in acost effective way too.
But there's all sorts ofways to say, let's not throw.
(11:10):
The gala you might think of forthe American Cancer Society.
Let's have a barn raising here.
Yeah, let's get together.
I'm not aiming for one guyto gimme a $50,000 check.
I'm aiming for 50 guys to give me athousand dollars check and let's get
'em together, figure out what thatcommunity is most gonna respond to
(11:31):
and for the and, and, and, and whatthey're not going to respond to.
Um, and many of these, uh, manyof these fundraising events will
include things like an auction.
Mm-hmm.
Most of them that we work with do.
Uh, and our software is designed tosupport that kind of functionality.
Um, and one of the key tips I'llalways give people about, you know,
(11:54):
one of the things that's difficultto do if you're gonna have an auction
is getting items for the auction.
Mm-hmm.
Especially the kind of things that youmight have an auction yourself from
the stage and a live auction format.
Those want to be big trips andthey want to be kind of things
with higher value, et cetera.
And getting those donated can be.
So I'll tell people aheadof time, you convene.
(12:17):
Your 10 favorite wallets who aregonna be at the room, and that's
a little insensitive of me.
I know I should refer to thethem as people, but I think
of them as wallets first.
Um, we're gonna get 'em in the room.
We're gonna, uh, we're gonna feed 'emsome wine and cheese and we're gonna
have a brainstorming session where weask them what they've seen at prior
auctions that made them excited.
(12:37):
What was, you know, what tipsdo you guys as auction goers?
Have for me, the auction teamwhen it comes to our live auction.
And what you're really asking withoutusing these words is something like,
what do you wanna buy when you get there?
Yeah.
You know?
So you can focus your effort ongetting the kinds of things that
(12:59):
your audience is going to respond to.
There are a bunch of other choicesyou can make in how you're gonna
structure everything, but I tendto come back to the same answer.
What is your audience gonna respond to?
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (13:11):
I think that's
so good and I think that it also
simplifies the process becausewhen we get on our own heads.
I mean, I've been on so many differentcommittees, um, you know, event
committees and whatnot where everybody'sjust like, okay, go out and get silent
auction items and like, just go do it.
And that is so hard creativelyto be like, okay, well, you
know, it's who do I talk to?
(13:31):
Where do I go?
But when you know, okay, you know,this person really likes golf
experiences and this person reallywants to go to like exotic safari,
whatever, when you know those things,now you have a much more targeted.
Approach for where you're going andwho you're making connections to.
And I find, and maybe, you know,you might have this experience too,
(13:54):
that the creativity flows so muchmore when you know like, okay, these
are the types of things that we cantarget for these specific people.
Roger Devine (14:01):
We all need a little bit,
a little bit of limitation, a little
bit of a boundary condition there thatwe can kind of push against, right?
We're like, okay, I can put my feet here.
And then I can, you know,move forward from that point.
And it's a lot, lot easier, like you say.
And, um, you know, this is this ideathough, that, that for when you're, when
(14:25):
you're going to be planning an eventplan, the event that your supporter
base wants you to plan for them Yeah.
That they want you to throw, um, therehave been, you know, there have been
technological, uh, advancements duringthe 20 plus years we've been doing this.
Um, things, you know, uh,inevitably move online.
Um, silent auctions now, really oneof the most interesting trends we've
(14:49):
seen in the last two or three years.
So, notably post lockdowns.
Uh.
Um, one of the most interesting trendswe've seen is organizations that are
saying like, okay, I'm gonna havean event, and at the event we're
gonna have a live auction, and maybewe'll sell some raffle tickets and
maybe we'll do some other things.
But the silent auction portion, I'm justgonna put that online for a week ahead of
(15:11):
time and close it so I can just wrap thatpart of it up before the event begins.
Really, kind of an interestingway to restructure that.
It allows you to, of course, extendyour reach, et cetera, et cetera.
Mobile bidding was a thing thathappened, what, 10 years ago?
Um, yep.
In advancement.
And, you know, we'll still supportorganizations that wanna run their
(15:32):
auctions without mobile bidding.
That's fine.
You know, it's gonna be an appropriatechoice for some communities and, you
know, is it, is it, the trend hasflipped now they're more mobile bidding
than not, but you know, we're gonnaalways offer a plan that will fit.
The event you need to designfor your community to respond.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (15:57):
Yeah.
Well, I wanna back up alittle bit because I, um, yes.
Tailoring the event to thepeople that are gonna be there.
With the caveat of don't let the oneloud board member in the room derail your
entire planning process, which we cantalk to a little bit about maybe later.
(16:17):
But backing it up even before thatis like really being rooted in what
are the goals that we're trying to.
Achieve with this eventbecause it can be varied.
It can be, Hey, we just wanna have ahundred new people that we can talk to.
We, if we can raise a little bit of money,that's great, but like this is the goal.
Or like all of those things, I thinkwe tend to get lost in the whole goal
(16:39):
is just to raise money and that'snot always the case with an event.
And also.
Paying attention to, like what arethe average gift sizes that we want?
Or like what is our trend of people givingadditional gifts throughout the year?
Like how do we kind of measurethe success of an event?
So kind of what advice might you have onkind of that data piece first so that we
can make sure that we're tailoring theevent to the right people and not just the
(17:04):
one loud board member that's in the roomthat wants to try to dictate everything
that isn't necessarily representative of.
The whole big picture.
Roger Devine (17:12):
This is really where,
and I've, I've avoided being a
marketing guy up until now, but thisis really where software shines.
This is where committing to a pieceof software that you're going to use
year over year, building your, um,institutional memory of how those
events worked into a database thatyou can access later on is a really,
(17:35):
really productive thing to do.
And when we're talking to prospectivecustomers that maybe have not done a gala
or an auction before, we're gonna tell,you know, we generally tell them like,
okay, you tell me how many guests youthink you can get there and I'll tell
you how much money you're gonna raise.
'cause it's pretty easy to dowhen they're just starting out.
(17:56):
Um, we've seen a lot, etcetera, but we'll tell them.
It's like, yeah, but you're gonna growover the next three or four years,
and the reasons you're gonna grow aregonna be a, we're gonna share with you
a whole lot of things that other groupsdo that are, you know, we're gonna,
we're gonna be a connective tissuehere that, that make sure that you're,
you're constantly getting new ideas.
And two, um, you're gonnabe building this database.
(18:19):
You're gonna be buildingthis database of what's sold.
Who spent, what levels didthey spend at, et cetera.
And then you've got, you've gotthe ability to go back and look at
what happened last time out of thepeople that were my top 20 spenders,
you know, um, maybe 17 of them arestill connected to the organization.
(18:42):
Great.
Mm-hmm.
I'm gonna identify those as my VIP list.
Yeah.
And, you know, to outweighthe board member to get back
to the loud board member.
If the Lord Loud Board memberis just a board member with
a, with a, with an opinion.
Mm-hmm.
Great.
They're a board member.
You need their opinion.
You waited a certain amount.
(19:04):
If they were also one of the top threespenders at last year's event, maybe you
give it a little bit more weight, right?
Totally different.
Yep.
You absolutely give it alittle bit more weight.
But I'm gonna say that you, you start out,you take a look at, you know, everybody
that's spent over a certain thresholdlast year, and if you are running your.
Auction here as primarily a fundraiser,and I am gonna be one of those
(19:27):
people who's primarily looking atit as a fundraising, uh, event.
Um, if you're doing that, then you treatthose people as your VIPs, you sit them
down ahead of time, and you go throughthe conversation about what have you seen,
what's out there, what's exciting to you,what do you think about mobile bidding?
Does that make sense forus as an organization?
Mm-hmm.
You know, you involve thosepeople in the planning process
(19:49):
and you're giving their opinions.
More weight than the guy who justcame and bought a ticket and ate
dinner and cheered, you know?
Yeah.
And those people are important.
You gotta have them there.
No, they're too, they're,this is, these events are Phil
philanthropy as spectator sports.
So you have to have an audience.
But, um, the, uh, you're gonna, you'regonna start building up with your database
(20:12):
of past results, some hierarchy thatyou can use to help make decisions.
Um, not everybody's opinion shouldcarry the same amount of weight.
Yeah.
And truthfully, if a board memberis going to suggest large changes
to your event, you know, that isabsolutely a time where you should go
(20:35):
to that board member and say, okay.
Um, can you help us bring in people whoare gonna respond to this type of event?
It's not what we've done before.
Can I count on you to sellat least two tables worth or
three tables worth of guests?
You know, I love turning around tothe people who are making my life
difficult and giving them stuff to do.
(20:56):
You know, basically here, oh
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (20:57):
my gosh.
You were speaking my language and thatis so true, and I think what I love
is the data points to back you up.
I think a lot of times, um, nonprofitsmake decisions, especially with events
on emotion and like how they feel theevent went or how they feel about the
comments they got from the guests.
That they brought.
(21:18):
Uh, and so I think taking it back to,okay, but here's how we did this is
the percentage of people that donatedthis year versus last year were up.
This is yada, yada, yada.
Now you're also arming.
Your board and your table host orlike whomever, that's kind of your
stakeholders, your, your cheerleadersfor the event to say pro and con.
(21:39):
Like, Hey, okay, I understand thatthis didn't go the way you wanted, but
here's how we actually did overall.
Um, so using the data to kind ofsupport you in those growing pains
is nothing is gonna go perfectly.
You're not gonna make everybody happy.
But being able to say, yes, we hearyou, we understand, and this is what
we did, I think is a beautiful thing.
(22:01):
And having software to helpyou kind of navigate through
that and pick those top VIPs.
I love the way that you framed that.
Um, look year over year and seewho's consistently spending.
I think there's a lot of good stuff inthat that we don't pay attention to.
Um, and so like when you are workingwith clients on their events.
(22:21):
Like what does that kind ofpost-event debrief look like?
Like what types of things are you askingor are you wanting to gather so that you
can make better decisions moving forwardso that you can make your fundraising
events even better and better and better?
Roger Devine (22:35):
So in our debriefing
calls, we're primarily focused on making
sure, do you know how to pull reports?
You know, do you know howto get the data outta here?
And, and we have got a recommendationfor five or six different data
polls that I, that we, we reallyrecommend that people pull down.
Um, we're also debriefing constantly onhow the guest response was to whatever
(22:58):
bits of technology we added this year.
So if we add a feature, we added afeature last year that allows the
organization to ask for tips at the endof the night to help cover expenses.
And, um, we're doing this in a slightlydifferent way than most companies
do it, but you know, we introducethis feature, we encourage people
(23:20):
to use it, and I'm getting feedbackon what was the guest response.
We are allowing our customers to.
Um, customize those littlepitches, the little, the mm-hmm.
The language that's gonna beused when you ask for a tip.
So we're gonna ask them,what was your language?
How might you change thatnext year, et cetera.
(23:40):
We're constantly looking for all ofthat kind of feedback to make not
only make the software better, whichis of course a primary goal, but also
to fish for those tips that we couldthen tell other organizations about.
You know, we, we really do see that oneof our core missions here is to understand
(24:05):
that especially one of our targetmarkets is schools and school groups.
The K 12 groups, PTAs, booster clubs,young Life chapters, that kind of thing.
We do know that those are almostalways completely run by volunteers.
And the thing to know about volunteers isthat they're not gonna be around forever.
(24:28):
I mean, staff won't either, butyou know, volunteers are Yeah, are,
are a little, little more volatile.
You have
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (24:34):
a new
president, you have a new president
of the PTA every single year.
Every year,
Roger Devine (24:37):
exactly.
And a new fundraising chair.
And the person who did last year'sauction is like, Hey, I did my part.
Thank you.
I've, I've served proudly.
I can go off, be the audience now.
So, um, you know, part of whereall of that institutional memory.
Should be in order to pass itfrom one team to the next team.
To the next team is inthe data, in the software.
(25:00):
Part of that's gonna bein, let us build the lore.
Let us build the guides for nothow to use the software, but how
to run a fundraising auction.
Here are some things that are out therethat are amazing games you can play,
um, approaches, planning approaches.
Um.
I brought up the thing a couple of minutesago about how we saw the trend of, uh.
(25:24):
People taking their silent auctionand not divorcing it from their event.
Yeah, but not bringing it to the event,just doing it online ahead of time.
When, when that started happening andwe could see that, you know, I start
recommending this to groups with that.
Are I. You know, telling me abouttheir struggles at an event.
You know, we did, we hadtwo smaller room this year.
(25:45):
We didn't have, yeah, enough, enoughroom for people to move around.
Well, here's somethingyou can do next year.
You can take your silent auctioncompletely outta the room,
reclaim some of that space.
Um, so in our debriefing calls, we're,we're fishing for those kinds of
tips and tricks because it's really,really creative out there, you know.
Especially volunteer driven groups.
(26:06):
Sometimes, yeah, it can be like a,oh, you know, not to mischaracterize
anybody, but sometimes some ofus men or women will get stuck at
home for extended periods of time.
We're either caretaking, I takecare of my mom the last five
years she was alive, et cetera.
(26:26):
You can go a little stir crazy.
Where do you want us?
Like, put your creative brain.
Okay, you got this volunteerjob, let's go nuts.
You know, sometimes good ideascome outta going nuts like that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern:
Yeah, no, that's so good. (26:37):
undefined
Uh, so kind of one of the things that Ilove that you're saying is like building
in that professionalism in the datatracking, but then also having a partner.
That is working with multipleorganizations that can kind of help
you say, okay, like this is whatyou're doing, this is what your
goal is, this is what you've seen.
These are some creative ideas, andlike help you brainstorm with that.
(26:58):
So with that in mind, like before wekind of close this out, like what are
you seeing like that's kind of funand exciting or what are some creative
ideas that you've seen organizationsdo that are maybe kind of out
there wacky off the wall, but like.
Um, you kind of found excitement in,uh, as you've worked with clients.
Roger Devine (27:20):
My fa one of my favorite,
favorite, funny, uh, not terribly
commonly used tactics, but I wish itwere a more commonly used, replace
your live auction with a talent show.
Oh.
Um, have your own Dancingwith the stars going on.
Recruit six to 12 couples to get up and.
(27:43):
Dance or sing or you know, whatever.
You can make the talent kind of whateveryou want to implement mobile bidding as a
way for everybody in the audience to buyvotes for their favorite candidates and
buy them early and often and repeatedly.
And we've built in a little leaderboardfor these kind of events so you can see
the vote hanging happen in real time.
(28:05):
Uh, with the idea being like,oh no, I gotta keep buying more
votes for my guy, you know?
And, and I think that that'ssuch a fun, uh, moment.
And I will recommend that, uh,especially if an organization is
nearing the end of the productiverelationship with their auctioneer.
(28:28):
Um mm-hmm.
It's good to keep the same auctioneer.
For three or four or five years.
Generally after five years, youraudience tends to know them a little
too well and they tend to knowyour audience a little too well.
And then you kind of, kind ofgotta switch it up a little bit.
And if you're gonna, if you're gonna tryand do something new in an in between
(28:48):
year, take a break into a talent show.
See how that goes.
You know, put it up there.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (28:54):
I similarly
have this idea that I have not run
with for an organization that I,uh, have supported for a long time.
We've thought about doing thisas a fundraiser and calling it
the, um, not so talented show.
And in fact, taking corporations,having corporations sponsor or
business, local businesses sponsorsomebody from their company to
(29:15):
compete against other companies.
So now you have corporate sponsorsbaked into the competition as
well as like, like, you know,if you get two or three banks.
And they wanna compete against eachother and they wanna be the top bank.
So now it's not just, Hey, I know Rogerand I'm gonna support him, but hey,
I also know my coworker and I don'twant that bank to win, or I don't want
(29:36):
that other competing business to win.
So we're, you know, I, so I love that.
But with using just regularpeople with stupid hidden
talents, like, you know, I can.
Do the washboard really well or fun?
I can play with spoons,so I haven't done it yet.
If I ever do it, I'll let you knowhow it goes, but it's something that
I've been considering, um, for aperforming arts nonprofit that I support.
But I've got
Roger Devine (29:56):
a, I've got all the
infrastructure for you if you need it.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (29:58):
Yeah.
Okay, so let's go there.
Um, 'cause as we wrap this up, I wouldlove for you Roger, to share a little
bit about your company, what you do,um, and how you support organizations
and all of the amazing things thatwe've been talking about today.
Roger Devine (30:11):
So we have a software
product and it is designed to help
you put on fundraising events,whether they are online or in person.
Um, our pricing model is, um,different than many in our industry.
It was unique when westarted the company in that.
We would charge a flat fee andno performance fee, no percentage
(30:33):
of what you were raising.
It's like, let all of the upsidebelong to the organization.
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna give you tips to make yourevent bigger, but we don't need to
participate in that delta, you know?
Yeah.
Between where you are now and where we'regonna get you, that should be your upside.
That should be the benefitof working with us.
(30:54):
We have added over the, over the years, wehave added a, an entry level subscription.
That does work a little bit differently,but that's for our organizations and
we will, we will tell them, you know,either you're, you're too, you're, you're
likely to raise too much money for thisto work out for you, or, you know, we
really, you really will have a morecost effective experience over here.
(31:18):
Um, and the other, the other elementthat we, um, decided to embody really,
really early on was to embrace an appetitefor the volunteer led organization.
Hmm.
Um, it is much easier to sell toorganizations that have an office
(31:39):
and have people who have titlesand you, they have email addresses
that you can find and all of that.
Um, but that end of the market isactually pretty well covered, you
know, and it is pretty competitive.
And when we started out as the kindof scrappy, bootstrapped, tiny little
software company, we decided the only shotwe've got is to do things differently.
(32:00):
Yeah.
So part of that was saying like, okay,yeah, it's harder to support a volunteer
led organization that's gonna forgeteverything you told them this year
by the time they come back next year.
But that's who we were when we neededauction software and we realized there's
a market of those people out there.
Let's embrace that.
Let's, let's work with that.
(32:22):
I am, of course, happy to workwith big national nonprofits, but I
don't spend my money targeting them.
Mm-hmm.
I really don't, my, my marketingbudget does not go to trying to
win the American Red crossover.
It just doesn't.
There's, there's, there's,there's, there's more.
Out there that I can go out and, andcultivate and we can have that be
(32:44):
kind of our niche, our target here.
Love that.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (32:49):
Well, what's the name
of your company you haven't even shared?
Roger Devine (32:51):
I haven't even shared,
it's called school auction.net.
Um, and that is also the website.
Um, it is notably, it's plural, or sorry,it's singular, not plural, school auction.
No s and it's a.net and not a.com, but
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:07):
I'm a.net too.
I'm, I'm with you.
Roger Devine (33:10):
After 12 years,
we did get the.com finally and
we just decided not to switch.
It was just like, everybody knowsthis is a do net, it's fine.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:16):
I love it.
Roger Devine (33:17):
And, um, uh, so
school auction.net is out there.
If you want to get in touchwith me directly, you can email
me roger@schoolauction.net.
Um, Roger has no D in it.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:30):
I love it.
Roger Devine (33:30):
Yeah.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (33:31):
Well, and
we'll link everything up in the
show notes at the first clicknet absolutely slash 3 1 0 3 10.
Uh, so you can connect withRoger there if you're working on
a nonprofit fundraising event.
And just wanna kind of seewhat option is out there.
I love it.
I'm a huge fan of digitalfundraising and um, online auctions.
Um, if, if there's kind of anylast words of wisdom or trends
(33:54):
that you're seeing or inspirationyou wanna leave, are nonprofits,
like, what would you say to them?
Roger Devine (34:00):
I, you know, my primary
message would be that if you are a, an
organization that has decided you don'twant to do fundraising events in the past.
This is a year to reconsider that.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe you're, maybe it's not gonna beas efficient as hunting the great white
(34:21):
whales that are out there, but some ofthose whales are feeling the pinch right
now, and yeah, this is a way to at leastmitigate the current situation somewhat.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (34:33):
Yeah, I love that.
I'm a huge fan of multiple streamsof income for every organization.
So Roger, thank you so much for sharingyour wisdom and your organization with us.
Uh, I really appreciate your time.
It was a lot of fun.
Thanks.
Big, big thank you to Roger forsharing all of his wisdom and insights.
I love that his platform is really builtfor grassroots campaigns and people that
(34:54):
aren't super techie or have a lot ofexperience or just a lot of turnover.
Um, his strategies are just sohelpful for anybody at any stage,
uh, any level of experience.
And so I hope that his ideas kindof help spark something for how you
can use an event to help spark yourfundraising and grow your audience.
You can find the show notes inadditional resources@thefirstclick.net
(35:16):
slash three 10.
Uh, I really hope that you will sit,subscribe wherever you're listening, and
if you are watching us on YouTube, leave acomment below with your biggest takeaway.
What's something that you'rereally excited to implement today?
Do it now.
Before you forget, you just listento the episode and I'm sure there's
something fresh in your mind.
For now.
Thank you so much for listening.
(35:37):
Share this episode with someoneelse that you think might use
some help in their event planning.
Uh, and I can't wait to seeyou in the next episode.