Ultimate Guide to Eventbrite for Nonprofits

With more people connecting, communicating, and learning online than ever, now is the ideal time for NPOs to expand their reach by promoting fundraisers online and selling tickets to a wider audience.

The problem is with such an enormous potential audience to manage, doing these tasks manually simply isn't realistic. You need to access nonprofit tech resources that provide the digital tools and charity platforms for streamlining the fundraising process by automating tasks and processing huge amounts of data.

Enter Eventbrite. This leading event management platform is ideal for helping organizations manage events and sell tickets. Already used by music festivals, conferences, and rallies everywhere, this ticketing platform can be adapted to a wide variety of nonprofit fundraising events. In just 2023 alone, Eventbrite processed 620 million tickets, showing how familiar online audiences are becoming with its software.

Nonprofits can use Eventbrite's system to reach out to a vast online audience by posting social media ads on Facebook, Instagram, and other popular channels using Eventbrite's social media integration tools. The platform's email marketing tools help build attendee engagement while managing a larger list of subscribers. And as a ticketing platform, Eventbrite offers secure payment processing and detailed analytics to track the performance of your galas and improve future fundraisers.

Let's examine how nonprofit organizations can best benefit from Eventbrite and explore nonprofit fundraising strategies you should be using the maximize Eventbrite's potential. To help you capture more modern audiences, we'll also look at the current trends surrounding Eventbrite in 2025 and case studies that reveal the opportunities and challenges that come from using Eventbrite to manage your nonprofit fundraiser.

What Is Eventbrite?

Although Eventbrite promotes itself as a user-friendly platform that can be used by all event organizers, it's particularly useful for NPOs. 

At its core, Eventbrite is a ticketing platform, making it perfect for providing attendees a secure payment processing platform for purchasing tickets, as well as managing orders and refunds. What's more, Eventbrite lets you manage multiple ticket types, including paid, free, and donated tickets). Attendees can choose how much they want to donate for donated tickets, and Eventbrite even lowers the service and payment processing fees on donated tickets, letting your organization retain more of the profit. 

Outside of ticketing, Eventbrite also allows you to build event pages to promote your fundraisers, complete with FAQ sections, videos, and images to build appeal. You can share these pages on social media to reach more potential attendees. Other tools let you send out automated reminders and manage attendee lists, potentially saving you on marketing costs. 

What's more, Eventbrite has numerous integrations with popular email marketing platforms, CRMs, and website builders such as WordPress, Salesforce, and Zoom, making it easier for you to display your event on other pages, track event data, and manage leads. EventBrite's own analytics tools are particularly useful for tracking ticket sales, registration trends, and attendee engagement, helping your staff make data-driven decisions about building better fundraisers. 

Qualifying NPOs can also get a 50% discount on the Eventbrite Pro plan which increases the number of promotional emails you send each day while letting you manage pricing. NPOs will have to verify their identity through Percent and then sign up for a Pro plan.

Let's discover Eventbrite's nonprofit tools and the features you should be focusing on:

Feature                Benefit                                               Example

Ticketing              Increased sales                               Streamlined checkout creates better conversions

Analytics              Improves event attendance         Analyzing behavior trends helps tailor popular events

Integrations        Simplifies marketing                       HubSpot CRM integration automates email workflows

Key Event Management Platform Features

What should NPOs focus on when using Eventbrite to manage their fundraisers? Eventbrite offers multiple useful tools to facilitate fundraiser and event management, including:

Customizable Web Pages

You can customize various aspects of your event page to better fit your organization's brand identity. This helps you engage with your target audience and encourage them to buy tickets to your gala.

For instance, you can add custom background images to your page, as well as images or videos. This could include anything from your nonprofit's logo to clips of your previous fundraisers that show how much fun guests have at your events. 

To further educate visitors, you can offer promotional copy for your gala, such as a detailed description, activity agenda, and/or an entire FAQ section that answers commonly asked questions in detail. If you're seeking to inform guests about your cause, provide links to your webinars and documents that can help evaluate nonprofit impact. 

Naturally, you'll also want to provide a ticket purchasing section, and Eventbrite provides tools for creating free, donated, and paid tickets. You'll also have options for customizing on-sale dates, quantities, prices, and ticket names.

Virtual Gala Streaming

If you want to create an online fundraiser, Eventbrite provides useful tools for virtual event screening. You can integrate with popular streaming platforms like YouTube, Zoom, or Facebook Live and stream your event from those platforms, making it easier for guests more familiar with such channels to attend. There are also features for live Q&As, polls, and chats, providing additional ways to engage with your online audience. And you'll be able to promote your event with custom links to your dedicated page, which you can offer through social media sharing.

Analytics Tools

Following your event, you'll want to track key metrics like sales and attendance to improve future events and marketing campaigns. Eventbrite offers robust analytics tools that can track ticket sales by type and sales channel, letting you know where to focus your sales efforts next time. You can also identify your peak sales times and revenue generation to better maximize your efforts.

Want to know more about your audience? Eventbrite tools give you the rundown on attendee demographics and interests, including which activities or event sessions they participated in the most. You can also track which social media marketing channels or email campaigns generated the most conversions, letting you improve your ROI.

All this information can be accessed from your dashboard, which you can customize to highlight the type of analytics that are most relevant to you. Even better, you can export this data into a variety of formats to report your findings to your event team or board of directors. If you want some more comprehensive data, you can submit post-event surveys to attendees and request their personal impressions of your events, along with any improvements they'd like to see made. 

Mobile App

With so many moving parts in a fundraiser, it's important to use mobile tools that you can use on-the-go. The Eventbrite Organizer App provides a way for event organizers and staff to stay on top of gala activities by letting you monitor ticket sales in real-time, check-in attendees with a QR code scan, and even accept secure payments for tickets and merchandise.

This reduces wait times for attendees while allowing your staff to quickly verify tickets and reduce fraud. Guests get to enjoy a better experience and your team gets to have a smoother workflow. Incorporating such tools is just one of the ways you can learn how to use Eventbrite effectively. 

How NPOs Benefit from an Event Management Platform

As fundraising galas grow larger and attract bigger audiences, nonprofits need efficient ways to streamline event management and engage with donors. Eventbrite offers user-friendly tools and analytics to not only provide guests with a more personalized experience but also sell more tickets by simplifying the ticketing and registration process.

By providing nonprofit organizations with a single platform for event planning, promotion, and ticket sales, Eventbrite simplifies the entire fundraiser management process. Your team will be able to accomplish essential tasks like creating tickets, building webpages, and managing attendee information all from one place, saving time and reducing complexity. 

Even better, you can promote your fundraiser online from the same system, via social media ads and email campaigns, using Eventbrite's built-in marketing tools. According to Eventbrite, organizations that use their tools save themselves $2880 a year while increasing ticket sales by 63%. Considering that more event attendees are using search engines to find events to go to and 26% of attendees find ticketing platforms to be the most useful place to find recommendations for events (with 33% voting for Eventbrite), it just makes sense to use event management software to produce and promote your fundraiser. 

When you explore fundraising benefits, it becomes clear that, regardless of what type of fundraising type you choose, you need to immediately connect with your donors. And one of the best ways to engage with donors is by making the ticketing and registration process simpler for potential attendees. Eventbrite provides multiple ways to facilitate the ticket buying process, including a two-click registration process for returning users, digital tickets that can be received on smartphones and other mobile devices, and the Eventbrite Organizer app that can facilitate check-in at the event itself. With 80% of consumers stating they're willing to pay more for tickets, it's to an organization's advantage to make ticket buying as hassle-free as possible.   

Benefits of Eventbrite for NPOs

Cost Savings       Built-in marketing tools let you save money on software while increasing sales

Donor Reach      Social media and email marketing tools let you connect with more donors

Ease of Use        All-in-one platform lets you plan, promote, and manage events from one dashboard

Strategies for Using an Event Management Platform for Fundraising

How can NPOs maximize the benefits of using Eventbrite? While Eventbrite can make event planning and managing easier, your event team can extend their reach even further by employing some key charity event marketing strategies.

One basic tactic is to optimize your event page with SEO-friendly titles and tags. This means using keywords in your descriptions, tags, and event titles that people will use when conducting online searches for your type of gala or fundraiser. For instance, you can use key phrases that describe your specific cause (i.e. "animal rescue" or "eco-nonprofit") as well as the type of gala or fundraising activity you will offer (i.e. "charity wine tasting in Seattle"). This makes it easier for potential donors to find your event online and also puts you in touch with the right type of people.

Tracking key metrics for all your charity events can help optimize your future galas and make better data-driven decisions. For example, while monitoring ticket sales, focus on the type of tickets that bring in the most attendees (free, paid, or donated). Analyze your attendee demographics and track the type of activities they tend to engage with the most (i.e. charity concerts, silent auctions, online webinars etc.). Knowing the type of donors your galas tend to attract and the type of events that get them to support your cause can help you recreate successful scenarios while improving under performing aspects of your fundraisers. 

Eventbrite can integrate with powerful platforms such as Mailchimp, which can streamline data transfer and automate attendee management. By streamlining the process of adding new registrants or updating existing attendee data, your staff can better handle the process of managing large guest lists. In addition, after your event, you can use Mailchimp to send personalized follow-up emails thanking guests for coming and asking them to fill out feedback forms to improve future galas.

Other Eventbrite integrations with popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you promote your galas to both your target audience and new demographics. This can vastly increase your revenue generation. For instance, the State of Social Giving Report indicates that 41% of Gen Z states social media content inspires them to donate to a cause or find out more about a mission. In addition, half of Gen Z shares information about causes or fundraisers at least once a week, making this group a potentially powerful ally in your marketing campaigns.  

Steps to Maximize Event Management Software for NPOs

Set up event pages         Make web pages easier to find by optimizing copy with keywords and phrases.

Use analytics                    Track engagement metrics to make data-driven decisions on future galas.

Promote events               Leverage social media and email marketing integrations to expand your reach

2025 Trends in Eventbrite for NPOs

The 2025 Eventbrite TRNDS Report offers insights into the type of events and event management strategies that will offer good returns for nonprofits. In addition, the report shows how important it is to engage with younger demographics, such as Gen Z.

For instance, the report indicates that 48% of Gen Z is discovering events through Instagram while 30% find out about them via TikTok, indicating the value of these social media platforms in marketing campaigns. 72% also seek some kind of self-improvement in the events they attend and are particularly interested in improving their job skills and/or gaining networking opportunities.

At the same time, 52% of consumers are interested in events that can positively impact their mental health, while 48% want events that help re-energize or re-set. This opens up ideas for many potentially popular fundraising events, including IRL networking sessions, nature immersion sessions, hiking events, and self-improvement workshops.

In addition, niche- and music-inspired events are growing in popularity. This doesn't necessarily have to translate into full-blown charity concert events, as creative activities such as music-themed spin classes and retro-decade events that celebrate the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s are also drawing in audiences. 

Indeed, nonprofits and charities looking to attract a more niche crowd will appreciate knowing that micro events and intimate gatherings are showing increased demand. This could mean offering nice dinners for high-value donors or an exclusive networking event. 

Ultimately, the report finds that more and more people are hungry for events that offer opportunities for community building -- and are willing to pay higher ticket prices to participate in such events. Fostering a greater sense of community through your events and encouraging repeat visits also provides you with additional marketing options, as word-of-mouth is becoming an increasingly viable form of event promotion for consumers.  

Top Trends for Nonprofits in 2025

Explore 2025 fundraising trends by looking into the following popular options:

• Outdoor activities (hiking, rafting, kayaking)
• Community-building events (group fitness classes)
• Intimate micro-events (exclusive dinners)
• Personal growth activities (career skill building classes, portrait sessions, cooking classes)
• Music-inspired events (retro-themed parties, concerts, music-themed exercise classes)

Challenges Involved in Using Eventbrite

Along with competitive advantages, NPOs need to be prepared for several challenges that come with using Eventbrite. Additional fees, learning curves, and software limitations can affect the way you use this system -- but being aware of these limits can allow you to find strategic ways to overcome Eventbrite challenges.

Eventbrite charges ticketing fees which can reduce the profits made by your fundraisers. This includes a Service Fee (3.7% + $1.79 in the U.S.) and a Payment Processing Fee (2.9% of the total order in the U.S.). These fee levels can vary in other countries. While you can choose to let your guests pay the ticketing fees, Eventbrite also offers an option to absorb fees, which will cause the fees to be added to your ticketing price and then deducted from your sales later.

To get around some of these fees, try using free or donated ticket options. Eventbrite does not charge ticketing fees for free events, and while this may impede your ability to raise revenue through ticket sales, such events can help increase your brand awareness. Alternatively, Eventbrite does not charge a Service Fee for donated tickets (although it does continue to charge a 2.9% Payment Processing Fee in the U.S.). This helps you keep more of your profits for your organization.  

New users may also have to experience a learning curve while adjusting to Eventbrite software tools. While its interface is considered user-friendly, users less experienced with event management platforms may require some extra time to learn the customization options and reporting tools. To make sure your staff can get full use out of Eventbrite, take advantage of the webinars and help articles offered by Eventbrite, as well as their online forums and customer support resources. It may also be a good idea to start by hosting small events using Eventbrite before moving to larger galas that require greater familiarity with the advanced features.

Although Eventbrite provides built-in tools that can save NPOs time and money, some organizations find the online tools offered to be too basic for complex events. If you find you need more branding options for your event page or more powerful marketing tools for your social media or email marketing campaigns, it could be helpful to look at integrations. Outside platforms like Mailchimp, Facebook, and Instagram integrate well with Eventbrite, giving you with some extra options to create the look and extend the reach of your galas. 

Challenges and Solutions for Eventbrite for NPOs

Challenge                                          Solution              Example

Ticketing fees reduce profits       Use discounts     No payment processing fee on donated tickets

Learning curve for users                Training guides  YouTube videos provide Eventbrite quick start guides

Limited customization options    Integrations        Mailchimp integration expands email marketing options

Success Stories

So, how do nonprofits enjoy success with Eventbrite? The following nonprofit success stories show how investing in an event management platform leads to major fundraising event wins.

Wish Upon a Wedding

Wish Upon a Wedding is a nonprofit that aims to provide weddings and vow renewals to couples dealing with terminal illnesses or life-altering health issues. By alleviating the financial burdens of planning wedding activities, this NPO allows couples to focus on their health while the organization provides them with a memorable event.

According to president Sasha V. Souza, by using Eventbrite for Causes (an Eventbrite program that helps NPOs leverage events for fundraising), Wish Upon a Wedding was able to manage over 1500 attendees and offer them a trusted place to sign up and donate to their cause. Beyond the money raised via their fundraiser, Wish Upon a Wedding saved thousands of dollars in registration and email blast fees by using Eventbrite.  

SheJumps

SheJumps is an inclusive nonprofit dedicated to providing educational outdoor experiences for girls and women to encourage growth and transformation. Its fundraisers have been quite successful, with their 2023-2024 Annual Report indicating they raised $1,000,000 in their "Sweet Sixteen" year.  

For over a decade, SheJumps has used Eventbrite for its seamless ticketing system. Executive Director and Co-Founder Claire Smallwood reports that Eventbrite helps the nonprofit reach more people who feel more confident about the well-known brand. And with Eventbrite's nonprofit discount, the NPO can save money and continue making outdoor activities more accessible to their target community.

Jewish Food Society

Jewish Food Society is a nonprofit with a mission to preserve Jewish culinary history by sharing Jewish family recipes and the historical stories attached to them through cooking events and dinners. Their signature event is "Schmaltzy," an in-person event held in New York, Tel Aviv, and San Francisco. During the event, storytellers share personal narratives surrounding different Jewish dishes and guests get to sample the foods.

During the pandemic, the nonprofit used audio recordings from previous live events to transform "Schmaltzy" into a podcast, allowing Schmaltzy to continue and expand their online reach. Post-pandemic, the podcast continues to offer new episodes featuring interviews with Jewish storytellers and cooks, and has been listed as one of the "Best Jewish Food Society Podcasts" on Player FM-Podcast.  

Eventbrite provides the tools to both promote and manage ticket sales at the live "Schmaltzy" events. Later, the Jewish Food Society used Eventbrite to promote the new Schmaltzy podcast online and connect with new audiences. Program director Amanda Dell encourages nonprofits to invest in documentation of their events and leverage existing channels of communication. Such resources can be repurposed to help nonprofits continue their missions even during changing times.  

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are answers to some common fundraising queries about Eventbrite for nonprofits.

Is Eventbrite free for NPOs?

While Eventbrite offers a 50% discount of its Pro Plan to qualifying NPOs, it is not a free platform. However, NPOs can enjoy discounted ticketing fees on donation tickets (which only charge the 2.9% Payment Processing Fee in the U.S.) or can offer free tickets, which do not collect any fees.  

Can NPOs host a virtual nonprofit event on Eventbrite?

Yes, Eventbrite provides many tools for hosting virtual events on its platform. You can build virtual event pages with Eventbrite to promote your fundraiser online and promote your event using built-in social media and email marketing tools. If you require more advanced virtual event software, you can integrate popular video conferencing or streaming platforms like Zoom, Facebook Live, and YouTube Live that guests may find easier to log onto. 

What integrations does Eventbrite offer for NPOs?

Eventbrite offers integrations for every aspect of event creation and management. You can integrate with virtual event platforms like Zoom or Facebook Live to streamline your online gala. If you have a WordPress site, you can use Eventbrite's WordPress plugin to display your event details on your website and automatically update any changes.

Need more advanced marketing and email tools? Integrations with Mailchimp and Constant Contact make it easier to manage your campaigns. You can also integrate Eventbrite with your HubSpot or Salesforce CRM to sync and manage your event data. Other useful integrations include Zapier (for workflow automation) and Slack (for sending notifications to attendees).

How can Eventbrite improve charity gala attendance?

By facilitating event discovery and ticketing. Eventbrite's built-in marketing tools and social media integrations make it easy to reach out to a large online audience and promote your gala (especially if you optimize your marketing materials with good SEO keywords and keyphrases).

However, Eventbrite really shines in its ability to streamline the ticketing and registration process. Potential attendees can select from multiple ticket types, provide information quickly, and purchase tickets through a secure payment processing system. This smooth process makes it more likely that visitors will complete the ticket buying process.

Guests can also receive automated email reminders before your event, reducing the number of no-shows. Then, at your event, Eventbrite's mobile app makes the check-in process fast and easy, creating a better guest experience at your gala.

How can NPOs promote events on Eventbrite?

Nonprofits can create eye-catching event pages, complete with videos and branding imagery, using Eventbrite tools. Eventbrite also offers built-in marketing tools that can help manage email marketing campaigns and share event information on popular social media channels. Promo codes, donated tickets, and free tickets can all be offered through Eventbrite, creating incentive to buy tickets and attend your event.

If you need more advanced marketing tools, Eventbrite offers integrations with multiple platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, and Mailchimp that can help you manage your campaigns. An integration with Facebook Pixel can help track your conversions and optimize Facebook ad campaigns, enabling you to learn how to promote nonprofit events better. Likewise, Eventbrite's own analytics can help track your ticket sales, traffic, attendee data, and conversions to create better marketing campaigns and increase event attendance.

Conclusion: Using Event Management Software for Fundraisers

Expanding your marketing reach and managing larger galas is key to your nonprofit's future fundraising success. To facilitate all this, it's important to explore nonprofit technology solutions that help your team manage these larger workloads. Eventbrite provides the event management tools needed to increase donor engagement, drive ticket sales, and streamline your event staff workflows.

Eventbrite features help facilitate every aspect of event planning and production, from customizing event pages to letting you stream events online to providing mobile apps that can streamline the check-in/check-out process at in-person events. In addition, powerful analytics tools can help you make sense of your event data, tracking things like attendance, conversions, and traffic to improve how you run future fundraisers.

Of course, to leverage all these tools, it's important to use specific strategies in your event planning. Incorporating SEO-friendly keywords into your promotional online copy, integrating with platforms that can optimize your marketing and website design, and making data-driven decisions from the results of your analytics tools can all help keep you on the cutting edge of nonprofit fundraising.       

Keeping an eye on trends in the event industry can also help maximize your success. As younger demographics like Generation Z gain more financial and social power, it's important to offer events like self-improvement workshops and outdoor activities to attract donors from these groups and allow them to publicize your galas. 

If you're ready to plan your next fundraising event with top-of-the-line nonprofit event management systems, consider using Eventbrite. Learn why this platform is trusted by over 30,000 nonprofit organizations around the world and discover how you can use Eventbrite to get your fundraiser discovered by larger audiences, increase ticket sales, and better engage attendees at your events. Start by taking a walkthrough of the Eventbrite ticketing platform and learn which tools will benefit your NPO the most.

Key Takeaways of Investing in Event Management Software

• Eventbrite streamlines your ticketing process by offering multiple ticket options, allowing donors to provide information quickly, and facilitating the check-in/check-out process with a mobile app.
• Eventbrite engages donors by offering donation ticket options, providing QR codes to ease check-in, and track attendee information -- letting you identify high-value donors.
• Eventbrite users can leverage its analytics tools to track conversions, event attendance, and website traffic to optimize current and future fundraisers. 

And don't forget to check out PayBee's own fundraising software system, which can help you attract more donors and manage in-person, virtual, and hybrid events.