Donor Acquisition Through Webinars?

I recently received an “exclusive” invitation for “select” guests to participate in a live webinar aimed at getting prospective students to enroll at a distance learning institution. Participants were promised the opportunity to interact with faculty members as they outlined their syllabus, connect with current students and even to discuss career paths with past students. In general the 60 minutes online were agreeable: informative, fun and, yes, a little pushy — with incentives designed to get prospective students signed up to a course of study as soon as possible. While I decided against this particular course of study, I realized there is a lot of potential in this webinar format for making sales, and I wondered how it could be used for fundraising.