Event Fundraising Software - Fundraising Event Software for Charity and Nonprofit  Fundraising 

When it comes to funding your nonprofit’s cause, events are still one of the best ways to raise funds quickly and engage your donors. The problem is, old style events have their fair share of hurdles lately like donor fatigue, limited engagement, and the complexities of tracking and managing large-scale fundraising events. This is where event fundraising software comes in, a game-changing solution that is revolutionizing the way nonprofits and charitable organizations approach their fundraising events and entire fundraising  structure.

What Is Event Software for your Nonprofit Fundraising Event?

Fundraising software is an online solution tailored specifically for charities and nonprofits to assist them in their fundraising efforts. Using event software allows your nonprofit to streamline their entire event almost effortlessly. From automating tasks such as event registration, ticketing, donation tracking, and attendee management, this software can handle all types of events both online and off, giving you and your employees or volunteers more free time to interact and chat with guests in order to boost donations and cultivate relationships. From streamlining event planning to fostering engagement and providing data-driven insights, we will explain how this technology can be used to help all nonprofits with their event fundraising and beyond.

What to Look For in an Event Fundraising Software?

There are a plethora of virtual features and tools different event software can offer your nonprofit event, but it really comes down to your own nonprofit to decide what you will actually use and what is just noise. Some things you should be looking out for are the basics like an easy to use user interface so your employees, as well as donors, don't need to feel like they have to read some guide to learn some new computer program just to make a donation. The back and front-end should be easy to use an navigate, and everyone using the platform should feel they know exactly what they're doing. This will save your nonprofit a ton of time and the embarrassment of loosing donors because your software was too sophisticated and they couldn't even buy a ticket to the event.

You'll also need to think about what features you really need the software to include for your fundraising, and what you will likely need in the future as your nonprofits grow. Some of the more prolific features nowadays for fundraising event software are live auctions where all attendees register online and buy tickets and join a virtual auction where they get to bid in real time on the items being auctioned off. This is a great feature when there are times people just can't be there physically for some reason, but they still get to feel involved as it's all live.

Then there should be tools to help you organization as well. Great platforms like PayBee have everything you could ever need to keep track of all your employees and volunteers, as well as offer support and the ability to track pretty much anything your nonprofit could ever want about your donors and leads. That means you can see how often they donate, when and what type of event it was, how often they go to events, and a lot more. Think about how much a donor database like this is worth to your nonprofit or organization. These platforms can be a savior when used correctly.

Key Features to Look For in Fundraising Event Software

This will be a list of typical features found in most event software online today. They're in no particular order, and which features you choose to incorporate into your own organization or software will depend on your current and possibly future fundraising needs. But it's still smart to know and understand all the possibilities of these sites and how they can impact your entire organization.

Event Planning and Logistics for Fundraisers 

Event planning and logistics is the backbone of any software and involves using the software to streamline the process of bringing your fundraising to life. Using the event dashboard, your able to see the entire timeline and every facet of your events. You can then organize all the necessary tasks, notice any looming deadlines, and assign each thing that needs to be done to one of your employees or volunteers, all including real time updates for all those assigned. Plus, you can have event checklists outlining essential tasks and their respective deadlines and even attach what resources are needed for each to be completed.You can be as detailed as you need to be.

There are even features for venue management and supplier collaboration so nonprofits can always keep track and verify every single step and decision throughout the entire process of planning your fundraising so you always understand your resources. Know where and when every chair will be delivered during the event, its' cost and who is responsible for it and even who will use it during your fundraising . Or try features that incorporate registration tracking so you know how many guests will attend and how much space you have available so you never overbook your events. And crisis management tools can also come in handy just in case something does go wrong, you and all involved will automatically know 'Plan B' and what needs to be done right that second and what resources are available. Crisis avoided!

Donation Management for Fundraising Software 

Another integral feature of a robust event software is its ability to manage donations and other resources . This goes beyond just accepting a one time or recurring donations your donors would normally be giving. With donation management tools you’re able to view resources about every donation that comes through your organization, who was giving the gift, where it was spent and a ton of other useful fundraising data all presented in as many ways as you need, visually, statistically, or just break up your data into different categories, it's all possible. The one important thing to note when making your decision for a great site is how many different payment processors do they have and can donors fund your organization through multiple payment methods and even cryptocurrencies. You may have to request different packages if your platform doesn't offer what your donors want to use. You should also notice if they offer automated supporter driven peer to peer fundraising capabilities that give your supporters the power to raise funds on your behalf from their peers.

Customization and Branding for Classy Fundraising

When deciding on which virtual software and what features to use for nonprofits, one feature you want to learn is that everything your donors see is your charity’s specific branding. This includes anything from event pages, registration forms, to communication templates. All of these pages should be easy to customize so no one even knows you’re using a system that isn’t you own.

Online Registration Software and Ticketing

Online ticketing and registration software provided by fundraising event software streamlines the process of inviting attendees, managing registrations, and handling ticket sales for a smooth and user-friendly experience both online and off. And there’s so much you can do with these tools like offer a different type of ticket including a general admission ticket, VIP, early-bird, and group rate tickets all automatically. You can even go as far as entice early registrations with early-bird ticket pricing or offer promo codes for further discounts, even for future fundraisers.

Other features can include assigning and reserving seats or sections for those special auction guests and all your other seating arrangements for your offline events. Or create personalized registration forms that can collect any sort of data you want, or even ask your donors if they have any special preferences or dietary restrictions. Then at any time, you can use all this data for post-event analysis and future fundraising event planning.

One important detail to note is if the software offers multiple payment methods, including credit cards and digital wallets and can be used for both online and offline events.It's also important to understand if the platform uses SSL encryption and data protection software to ensure financial security as well as all of your donors private information. Most platforms will offer this information on their website. .

Communication and CRM Integration for Fundraising Events 

Communication and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools offer a seamless and personalized interaction with event attendees and donors so your organization can continue to nurture relationships, enhance engagement, and streamline the communication processes between your organization and your donors.

This should include access to a comprehensive profile of each donor complete with all of their interactions with your charity including background information, contributions and fundraising resources, and even their engagement levels at live and virtual events . Armed with this information you can now have the system create automated and highly personalized invitations and messages for registration confirmation, event updates or changes and even reminders. Once your nonprofit event is finished, you can send follow-up emails and surveys to gather attendee feedback and insights to use to create even better fundraising for the future.

Event Marketing and Promotion

Event marketing and promotional fundraising tools can go a long way to helping get the word out on your upcoming fundraising. Software that includes ways to incorporate creating event-specific landing pages or digital and printable promotional materials with event information will always be important. Multi-Channel campaigns that can include email, social media, unique website event pages can all be used to track user data and convince them to attend your events and make a donation.

Live and Silent Auction Solutions for Fundraising

Auctions are a fantastic way for both physical and virtual attendees to get excited and donate more, and even more often, at all of your fundraising events. And any event software that can be considered a complete solution has both live and silent auction capabilities coded into it.

The best nonprofit event software should include online registration and multiple auction types for nonprofits that can support mobile ticketing, bidding and checkout, as well as live streaming your event on as many platforms as possible to engage your donors and get them excited throughout the auction. Here at PayBee we actually provide the option for live streaming on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and more while at the same time allow all attendees to interact with each other in real time using our live chat and a live stream activity monitor.

All of this action can guide bidders to get even more excited, and by using a hybrid approach where virtual bidders are competing with live bidders at the same time, the end result should mean more funds for your organization in the end.

All of this peer bidding is tracked by the software online, so when it comes time for the nonprofits auction to close, all your donors need to do is go to their virtual cart and make payment through one of the many payment options provided. For those at live events, they can be given smart paddles that have a QR code on them so all they need to do is swipe their paddle and get their total. Super easy and classy fundraising event, just like donor want it to be! And you as the organizer of the event can simply use a computer or even a mobile app to run the entire event from anywhere in the world.

Wrapping Up

Virtual event software specifically designed for nonprofits can help increase fundraising while also performing complete employee and donor management behind the scenes. Software like this is meant to be a complete virtual packed solution that is easy to learn and doesn't require extensive training, and packed with all the features your nonprofit needs to grow your fundraising capabilities as easily and quickly as possible. The best ones include event ticketing so you can sell tickets, request myriads of donor information, create customized packages for events and even communicate with other companies to help organize everything and delegate resources.

Learn about PayBee and all of our features that have been specifically designed for nonprofits. You can sign up for our free demo anytime here.

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