5 Event Fundraising Best Practices

5. Focus on retention
“It costs less to have someone who participated in an event before come back than it does for you to acquire a brand-new participant,” Young said. “In some cases, that cost can be zero.”

Young offered these tips for event fundraising retention:

• Acknowledge past participants. Recognize the efforts that they’ve made in the past so they feel appreciated and want to come back. And get them back as early as possible to maximize their effectiveness in raising funds.
• Keep in touch year-round to maintain a relationship.
• Turn fundraising event participants into full-time constituents. Event participation churn is about 20 percent to 30 percent higher than your general constituent churn, Young said. If you can take event participants and turn them into constituents of your entire organization, you have a better chance retaining them overall. “Moving them into a deeper relationship is always a good thing,” Young said.