Painless Online Fundraising Events (POFE)
Our Story
We had big dreams! After Allan and Katharine both – before we’d even met - left the business world to “make the world a better place” by working with nonprofits, we were accidentally introduced and ended up becoming strategic business partners … and, later, life partners!
Both of us had volunteered for numerous nonprofits all of our lives, and served on multiple nonprofit boards. Katharine worked for years with underprivileged children of color in Boston, gaining an uncanny understanding and empathy for them. Allan was the single parent of a son with autism (and the son of a double amputee), who enabled Allan to understand how amazing people with developmental and physical disabilities are but also how much help they need to achieve their true potential.
We launched our marketing and website businesses with the idea of providing corporate-level quality at nonprofit prices – all aligned to improve fundraising. Our goal was to help nonprofits grow their donors and donations.
But even though our clients ended up with beautiful, interactive websites and strong messaging, they weren’t getting the results they – and we – wanted for them.
Worse, we were getting one complaint after another – typically about website minutiae or things unrelated to fundraising -- and our dream was beginning to unravel.
It became obvious we had a very serious issue keeping our clients happy with us and their websites, so we tried to figure out what was wrong and resolve it. We reasoned that just revamping or creating websites wasn’t good enough. We needed to come up with integrated programs – much like you’d see in larger corporations.
So, we developed new products, processes, teams, and services for websites, social media, SEO, Google Ads, and more. Results improved, especially for our larger clients with bigger budgets.
But, still, we were losing both smaller clients or and those with limited budgets. We were still hearing complaints: “I’m not getting more donations from this” or “It’s taking too long to get results”. While these nonprofits needed long-term solutions, they also needed something to boost revenue. Quickly and significantly.
The bottom line was we were focusing on creating amazing long-term processes, but not on what the small to mid-sized nonprofits really needed or wanted: more donors, more donations, bigger donations, recurring donations – and ultimately, increased fundraising, now!
It started to feel demoralizing.
Back to the drawing board to find that all-elusive “perfect” way to fundraise.
We re-looked at in-person events, a popular form of fundraising in most nonprofits’ arsenals. But we knew that these events can be expensive, time-consuming, and risky. In one nonprofit where Katharine volunteered, the casino night - which cost tens of thousands of dollars and the blood, sweat, and tears of the volunteers – brought in nearly $80,000 in revenue. But after expenses, it netted a mere $8,000! The ROI was awful and that doesn’t even factor in the high cost of discouragement and exhaustion on the part of the nonprofit’s valuable volunteers and management.
Then, in 2020 right in the middle of COVID, a light bulb went on – all because one of our clients had to move their annual in-person event – an elaborate dinner – to a virtual 30-minute Zoom. Amazingly, they brought in $36,000 and netted $35,000 after spending incurring a mere $1,000 in expenses. Additionally, the event required a fraction of the person-hours and calendar time (under a month) to plan and execute, and people from as far away as London were able to attend! These results are the kind that nearly all small and mid-size nonprofits want to see.! Now we needed to find a vehicle to replicate that success for other nonprofits.
Then we got an email landed in my inbox that turned the light bulb into a live product. That email laid out an approach to reach hundreds of organizations with a solution that doesn’t teach the nonprofits the “how-to’s” of online events, it actually enables us to use uses coaching and hands-on workshops in which we to help work with nonprofits to create their own customized online fundraising event blueprint. The nonprofit then simply needs to pull the trigger for the event to go live online. We weren’t giving them a fish or even teaching them to fish. We would help them go through all the needed steps, side-by-side, to actually land that first fish and get it on their dinner plate!
We invite you to take the first step to create a successful online event – designed to get both donations and donors – by signing up for our free, introductory webinar where we teach you one very important element of fundraising: How to get your board and staff engaged to increase your presence on social media. This helps you build your list of followers and brings you one step closer to having more attendees at your events. To learn more about this free session, click here.
Register here
Our Story
We had big dreams! After Allan and Katharine both – before we’d even met - left the business world to “make the world a better place” by working with nonprofits, we were accidentally introduced and ended up becoming strategic business partners … and, later, life partners!
Both of us had volunteered for numerous nonprofits all of our lives, and served on multiple nonprofit boards. Katharine worked for years with underprivileged children of color in Boston, gaining an uncanny understanding and empathy for them. Allan was the single parent of a son with autism (and the son of a double amputee), who enabled Allan to understand how amazing people with developmental and physical disabilities are but also how much help they need to achieve their true potential.
We launched our marketing and website businesses with the idea of providing corporate-level quality at nonprofit prices – all aligned to improve fundraising. Our goal was to help nonprofits grow their donors and donations.
But even though our clients ended up with beautiful, interactive websites and strong messaging, they weren’t getting the results they – and we – wanted for them.
Worse, we were getting one complaint after another – typically about website minutiae or things unrelated to fundraising -- and our dream was beginning to unravel.
It became obvious we had a very serious issue keeping our clients happy with us and their websites, so we tried to figure out what was wrong and resolve it. We reasoned that just revamping or creating websites wasn’t good enough. We needed to come up with integrated programs – much like you’d see in larger corporations.
So, we developed new products, processes, teams, and services for websites, social media, SEO, Google Ads, and more. Results improved, especially for our larger clients with bigger budgets.
But, still, we were losing both smaller clients or and those with limited budgets. We were still hearing complaints: “I’m not getting more donations from this” or “It’s taking too long to get results”. While these nonprofits needed long-term solutions, they also needed something to boost revenue. Quickly and significantly.
The bottom line was we were focusing on creating amazing long-term processes, but not on what the small to mid-sized nonprofits really needed or wanted: more donors, more donations, bigger donations, recurring donations – and ultimately, increased fundraising, now!
It started to feel demoralizing.
Back to the drawing board to find that all-elusive “perfect” way to fundraise.
We re-looked at in-person events, a popular form of fundraising in most nonprofits’ arsenals. But we knew that these events can be expensive, time-consuming, and risky. In one nonprofit where Katharine volunteered, the casino night - which cost tens of thousands of dollars and the blood, sweat, and tears of the volunteers – brought in nearly $80,000 in revenue. But after expenses, it netted a mere $8,000! The ROI was awful and that doesn’t even factor in the high cost of discouragement and exhaustion on the part of the nonprofit’s valuable volunteers and management.
Then, in 2020 right in the middle of COVID, a light bulb went on – all because one of our clients had to move their annual in-person event – an elaborate dinner – to a virtual 30-minute Zoom. Amazingly, they brought in $36,000 and netted $35,000 after spending incurring a mere $1,000 in expenses. Additionally, the event required a fraction of the person-hours and calendar time (under a month) to plan and execute, and people from as far away as London were able to attend! These results are the kind that nearly all small and mid-size nonprofits want to see.! Now we needed to find a vehicle to replicate that success for other nonprofits.
Then we got an email landed in my inbox that turned the light bulb into a live product. That email laid out an approach to reach hundreds of organizations with a solution that doesn’t teach the nonprofits the “how-to’s” of online events, it actually enables us to use uses coaching and hands-on workshops in which we to help work with nonprofits to create their own customized online fundraising event blueprint. The nonprofit then simply needs to pull the trigger for the event to go live online. We weren’t giving them a fish or even teaching them to fish. We would help them go through all the needed steps, side-by-side, to actually land that first fish and get it on their dinner plate!
We invite you to take the first step to create a successful online event – designed to get both donations and donors – by signing up for our free, introductory webinar where we teach you one very important element of fundraising: How to get your board and staff engaged to increase your presence on social media. This helps you build your list of followers and brings you one step closer to having more attendees at your events. To learn more about this free session, click here.
Register here
