Ep. 198: The Give-Get Fundraising Trap That's Costing You More Than You Think
EPISODE 198
The Give-Get Fundraising Trap That's Costing You More Than You Think
About the Episode:
Your donors don't need a goodie bag, a raffle prize, an auction item, a t-shirt, or a chicken dinner. If your fundraising strategy is built around giving them something in order to get something back, that's the give-get model, and it might be exactly what's slowing your organization down.
In this episode, I'm breaking down the difference between a real SPRINT™ campaign and an old-school fundraising method wrapped in new language. I talk about why events, raffles, auctions, and 5Ks aren't inherently bad, but why building your entire fundraising strategy around them adds friction, drains people's power, and quietly signals that you don't trust the mission to be enough on its own. If you've ever said, "Why don't we just do a raffle?", this episode is for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
What a SPRINT™campaign actually is, and what it isn't
Why wrapping an old-school fundraiser in SPRINT™ language doesn't make it a sprint
How events add friction for donors and where the money gets lost in the process
The give-get mentality and why donors don't need to be bribed to give
Questions to ask before choosing your next campaign vehicle
Why defaulting to events usually means you don't yet trust the ask, and what to do instead
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here!
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“When the event becomes the whole machine, you are no longer simply fundraising; you're adding steps for your donors, steps of friction, and those steps are where the money gets lost.”
“Just because a board member says, ' Why shouldn't we do it too? ' that doesn't mean it's a high-value ROI.”
“Simple doesn't mean lazy. Simple means strategic, scalable, and sustainable.”
“Your donors don't need to be given a treat. They want to share in your success, of your collective mission and vision.”
“The reason why donors show up to be a monthly giver is that they share that same vision you do for your organization. They just want to make that happen faster.”
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Double Your Donations - Raise More From Your Laptop Without Chasing Grants or Galas
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
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Christina Edwards 0:00I my goal with today's episode is to help you unwind, unravel this very classic old school fundraising method that I'm calling kind of like the give-get model, okay? And we're going to specifically talk about events, and how events are getting confused for Sprint campaigns, short laptop fundraisers, done quickly, and the difference in where you might be getting stuck and why your donors don't need another goody bag. Okay, so if you're somebody who has events, if you're somebody who's thinking about hosting event, this conversation is for you, specifically in person events. So a sprint campaign is not just any fundraiser done quickly. So you may have heard me already talk about sprint campaigns, which is the core method that I teach, really inside of both of my programs. But I do have program called the sprint method, where we teach organizations founders, solo led organizations, emerging organizations to raise $10,000 or more in one campaign, okay? We teach them how to do this from their laptop. Now, it is not just any campaign done in a week or two, right? A sprint campaign is a short focus fundraising window, designed to remove that friction that is so rampant in fundraising, to tell one clear story and make it simple and easy for people to give now, not six months from now, that's the difference. Okay? So it's not just like donate or help give now, right? It has specific urgency, but what the distinction I want to make is a sprint is not a raffle, an auction, a 5k A gala, right? It can include an event, but when the event only already has momentum built in. So for example, if you come to me and you say, Christina, we have an annual gala that people love our audience loves it, our staff loves it, our board loves it, our donors love it. It raises a significant amount of money. It is very profitable. Then I say, Great. Now let's have some fun. Let's layer on a sprint strategy with this. Now it's going to be even easier to sell those tickets. However, what I'm noticing is people want to reverse engineer and say, I feel weird about asking for money, so I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to do an auction, or I'm going to do an event, and I'll just have a condensed window for it, so then it'll be a sprint campaign, and that is not a sprint campaign. So if you do not already have some sort of established audience and momentum around your event, you don't need an event. Okay? Because when the event becomes the whole machine, you are no longer simply fundraising. You're adding steps for your donors, steps friction, and those steps are where the money gets lost. Think about it, if I want to donate to your cause, because I also care about the community you serve, and you are in full promo mode. And the number one way, the only way, your only call to action for me to donate is to buy a ticket to your Gala. I don't want to go to your gala or to sign up for your auction. I don't want to go to the auction or to run your 5k I don't want to run the 5k you've lost me, right? All I wanted to do was help the people you serve. I was in but you've added more friction and more steps, and I have questions, what's the 5k like, oh, I don't know. This auction platform, you right? You start to get confused. I don't see an auction item I want, right? Friction, friction, friction. So I was coaching a nonprofit leader about this, and that's kind of when this light bulb moment happened in real time. They started by wanting to use more of an old school fundraising method wrapped inside sprint language. Now again, think about it this way, if somebody on the board says, why don't we just do a raffle? I raffles work. I actually used to be on a board of another nonprofit. Their raffle would raise $50,000 let's just do a raffle. Or another board member. Or staffer says, What about an auction? And then somebody says, Oh my gosh, have you seen how much so and so's organization raises with a 5k we should do that. Very well meaning, very well intended, very common, old school ways of fundraising, right? Suddenly you're like, Should we make it a gala too? And instead of building a short, focused, low expense to no expense campaign with a strong story, a clear ask, you're building a whole production, think about what it takes. You need prizes, items, ticket sales, registration volunteers, volunteer check ins. Who's going to organize the volunteers, follow up with the volunteers, set up, clean up, so when to manage the whole thing. Then the question becomes, why are we choosing this? Is this making giving easier, or are we choosing this? Because this is what we think fundraising is supposed to look like. We think our audience needs to get something in order to give stay with me here. They need to get a raffle prize. They need to get an auction item. They need to get to run in the 5k otherwise they're not going to be motivated to donate, right? They need to get a goodie bag, a swag bag, a t shirt. So events aren't bad. I want to be clear about that. Love in person, beautiful thing, connecting with people. None of these are bad ideas, but I want you to think about these as the long game. If you decide we are having our annual auction, and we love it, and it's something we're going to do year after year after year, fine. It is a long game. It is high expense, high cost, high people power, right? Most of these initiatives I've given you are booth rentals, space rentals, caterers, bring your board on. And we have clients who use events and do these events inside sprint campaigns. And it can work, but if you're using this as an idea from scratch to just create a fundraiser, because you don't want to just fundraise without something, then I want you to rethink that.
Christina Edwards 7:30
Because when you're creating an event from scratch, meaning it's not an established thing, you're selling it from scratch. You're getting your audience to know about it from scratch. You're golf outing, right? This is another one, right? You're staffing it from scratch. You're creating SOPs from scratch, the sponsors from scratch, and then also trying to raise money through that campaign. That's not a sprint when it's from scratch. That's a second job. So I want you to think about a burrito. When I was writing the notes for this, I was like, it's kind of like a burrito. You can't roll a sprint campaign into a burrito where the middle is just an old school fundraiser. Okay? So you might put a deadline on it. You might send a few more emails, but if the center of the campaign is still buy a ticket, win a prize, bidding on an item, run in the race, come get dinner, then the campaign is still built around that give-get mentality. That's why a sprint is different. That is why a sprint is different. Because a sprint says, come build with us. Come make this possible. Come help fund this vision, this milestone, be a part of this momentum.It's so much cleaner and easier. It's faster, it's more powerful. Think about this, because I have two kids, it's fresh in my mind, the goodie bag. Now some people might not agree with me. I would even argue on like a on a like chill day, I would argue my kids would even agree with me. They don't want the goodie bag from the children's party. You know, the goodie bag that has, like, a lollipop, a fidget toy, and a bunch of, like, just random things just kind of clumped in, like stickers, once they sort of age out of that, or, like, get the same various things somewhere along the way, we decided every child has to leave a party with a goodie bag, right? And so we're just kind of passing these things around that just end up like in a bin, in a box on the floor, given away, thrown away. So we decided we got to give them a goodie bag, because the party wasn't enough. The cake wasn't enough. Celebrating wasn't enough. But we got into this weird habit of thinking, well, they came so we have to give them a bag of plastic things. And this is what fundraising can do. We think the donors need an adult version of this, right? T shirt, tote bag, chicken dinner, raffle ticket, auction item, swag bag. But donors are not sitting around waiting for these things. I can think of many donors who have said, don't mail me any. Okay, I don't need the pen. Now I want to give you an asterisk. There are times where it does make sense to have some swag. So I'm not saying never do the t shirt, never do the hat. There are times, but I'm saying, if the the foundation of your fundraiser is built on, give-get, that's when I want you to rethink it. So I hope that nuance isn't lost. They're not waiting for this. They're waiting for meaning momentum. The mission is the party. And that's one of my favorite things about kids birthday parties, is like, if they ever leave the party with their face painted, that's the goodie bag they left with, the thing, if they left the party with a really awesome memory, if they left the party with, like, really great photo a photo booth, those kind of things. They don't need an extra thing the party. It's like, I love the invitation that says, Your presence is presence enough. Just come to the party. You don't need to bring anything, right? And the same is true for your attendee. Just come to the party. Like, come hang you, don't we don't need to give them a gift bag.
So before you choose your next campaign vehicle, like, how you're going to run it, you can ask yourself a few questions, are we choosing this because it makes giving easier, or are we choosing this because we're scared the mission isn't enough, the Ask isn't enough, and it might sting to think about this. Are we putting all of our people power into the auction or the 5k because we were like, I don't know how else they're going to give. I don't know why they would give anyway, then you need to join sprint. Need to join the sprint method. Because the answer is, you don't need any of that stuff. Now another question you can ask is, are we choosing this because it's truly the right strategy, or because someone said, why don't we just do a raffle? And we didn't know what else to do, we didn't have another way, right? Are we choosing this because we've maxed out conversions. We've maxed out donations in our other campaigns we don't need and we don't know another way to move a needle. We've tried monthly giving, and no one really joined. If you need that kind of close look at triaging your fundraising, your marketing and your communications. That's what we do inside the purpose of profit Club, where we really from, like soup to nuts. Fix it. Okay? So just because a board member says that a volunteer or staff member says it, someone tosses it out in a meeting, or the comparison we saw another organization do it. So why shouldn't we? Too? Doesn't mean it's simple. Doesn't mean it's a high value ROI, because just do a raffle is never just a raffle. Just do a 5k is never just a 5k there is no just when it requires months of planning, logistics, people management, item procurement, tech setup, ticket sales, reminders, volunteer show up, emotional labor and the friction on the donor side, I've spent a lot of time talking about your org side, but on the donor side, it sounds like we need people to register first. We need to find auction items. We need sponsors before we can launch. We need t shirts. We need a committee. None of those are inherently bad, but each one adds wait and time. Wait and time. So instead, a sprint has designed to have a clear goal to execute on, and strong enough to convert. That's it. It does the lifting for you, and we teach you how to do that inside the sprint method, where there's one path to donate with all the extra stuff. Simple doesn't mean lazy, right? Simple means strategic, scalable, sustainable. So the reason so many organizations default to events is maybe because they don't trust the ask. They don't have yet a plan or strategy in place to do it without. And I want to normalize that that's a really common place people are in. They don't trust. People will give without the prize, the food, the entertainment, the theme, the committee. So this is bigger than an isolated, one off thing, right? This is a deeper fundraising issue, because you're not just choosing a campaign format. You are choosing how you relate to your donors, what you believe about them. And I don't think your donors need to be bribed. I don't think they need to be given a treat. I think they want to share in your success, of your collective mission and vision. That's what I want as a donor. That is the number one thing I want. Doesn't mean occasionally I don't want to rep you in a hat or a cute sweatshirt. I'm down for that. But in general, doesn't mean I don't want to gather with you here and there for a special community night that's low lift, high impact. But in general, the reason why I give, the reason why I give again, the reason why I show up to be a monthly giver, is because I share that same vision you do for your organization. I just want to make that happen faster.
Christina Edwards 15:00
That's it.
Christina Edwards 15:02
So if this resonated with you, this is why I have my programs. So the sprint method is the place to foundationally learn this process from your laptop, right? Raising more $10,000 or more in every single campaign without months of planning giant event, a huge team, we have, most solo led nonprofits, many founders in that program, inside the club, is where we scale it. We wrap in your email, your social street team with influencers and ambassadors, your entire major donor strategy that is an accelerator program in that so the next time you think about, why don't we just do a raffle? What if we just made a 5k How about an auction? I want you to pause, take a deep breath and say, Am I making it easier for people to give, or are we just adding a goodie bag because we forgot the mission was already worth showing up for and giving to and giving to again. I'll see you in the next one.