What a Fundraising Conference Should Deliver - And How to Plan for It with Andrew Edwards

If you've ever been the only fundraiser in the room running the gala and fielding board questions about why an auction underperformed, today's guest has been exactly where you are. 

Andrew Edwards spent years on the front lines of nonprofit fundraising, from coaching small shops, to scaling 60+ events nationally at the Epilepsy Foundation.

In this episode, we’re getting into what helps small teams focus, larger teams scale, and fundraisers at every level work smarter, how to make the case for attending a conference (even with limited budgets), why investing in your team pays off, and how to approach networking and planning so you don’t waste the opportunity!

Resources & Links

Check out one of my favorite books, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.

Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. 

Bloomerang is the trusted, all-in-one giving platform that connects your data, streamlines your systems, and helps your mission go further. Learn more at bloomerang.com.

If you’re building a movement, join Bloomerang’s GiveCon in St. Louis May 15-17 to learn what’s working in donor retention, AI, major gifts, recurring revenue, and community-driven campaigns. Register now and use code M2M to save $200!

The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:54

If you've ever been the only fundraiser in the room running the gala, managing a walk, fielding board questions about why an auction underperformed, fielding questions from donors, all in the same week or even the same day, today's guest has been exactly where you are. Andrew Edwards spent years on the front lines of nonprofit fundraising from coaching small shops where one person does everything to scaling 60 plus events nationally at the Epilepsy Foundation. That range gave him a view most event directors don't have. And that is what fundraisers actually need versus what conferences typically deliver. Now, as the event director at Bloomerang, Andrew is building GiveCon into something different. It's a conference designed by someone who's had to justify the travel budget, sit in the sessions, and go home with something that really moves the needle. So in this conversation today, we are getting into what makes a conference worth your time, how to make the case for investment in your leadership, how to network and plan for an event, and who Andrew believes most needs to be in St. Louis, May 17th through the 20th at GICon. And if you want to join him there, use code M number two M M2M for$200 off your registration. The link is in the show notes. Andrew, welcome to Missions to Movements.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Fundraisers don't necessarily need more ideas. I think what fundraisers really need, though, is like the clarity to determine what matters most and the confidence to focus on the right things. Small organizations need more of that like system and focus where I think the larger organizations, once they've matured out of that small organization, they're gonna need a little bit more alignment and scalability. Fundraisers are going to have to take away like what are those time-saving strategies and proven strategies that are actually gonna help them do the work.

Practical Learning Over Theory

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Okay, so Andrew, you've done a lot in your history. And so I want to give a little bit of like background for people. So you've run national peer-to-peer campaigns, Gallus, you've done walk events, you have been the fundraiser, like in the room that conferences like we're gonna talk about today with GiveCon are literally built for. So I'm curious, like when you stepped into this event director role, which I would also love to talk all about at Bloomerang, what did you see? Or like, what were you told at GiveCon was so different? And and how have you kind of like made it your own as you step into this role as somebody who's been like the one attending things like this?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

You know, I've attended conferences, right? Like not just as a practitioner or and not just as event planner, but you know, I think so many of these conferences are a little bit like too high level and theoretical, right? Like we're talking about strategy. We're not actually no implementation, right? And I think so many others don't necessarily solve like that Monday morning problem that you're encountering, right? They're not realistic in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

That's good.

Be Present With Real Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yeah, separating strategy from execution, they work hand in hand, right? And so that's something else that I've experienced over the years. GiveCon, though, is totally different. I'm a former fundraiser. So many of us on the team are former fundraisers, and so it is built by fundraisers, not just for fundraisers, right? So we understand that it's a big difference. Oh, completely, 100%, right? We really see the opportunity to make it practically actionable to really focus on real world application. I don't want just inspiration. I want people to be able to take things and run with it and like implement it the minute they're they're walking out of a session or as they're meeting with their donor next week. I want things that are going to be fast and easy for these folks to turn around. And then we also really have focused, and this is a big, you know, Bloomerang believes in this, and obviously GIFCon is hosted by Bloomerang, but it is designed for organizations of all sizes and realities. And so this isn't just not for the organization starting out at$200,000 and not for an organization just raising$50 million. This is for anyone in any size. We have teams that are coming with like five plus people. We have teams of one that are the only staff person or maybe a volunteer-run organization. So we really believe that GIFCon is built for all shapes and sizes of nonprofits.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Very cool. What do you think, from your experience, being on the fundraiser side is the most beneficial thing about? I'm a big believer in in-person and attending in-person events. What do you think is the most important, crucial thing that someone should do when they step foot into an experience like this?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

You need an out-of-office up and you need to be able to actually I mean, you've got to actually step out of the work.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Thank you for saying that.

Networking That Actually Works

SPEAKER_02 6:04

You've got to step out of the work. And so, like supervisors, bosses, organizational leaders need to understand that like you are there to focus your time on learning. That is your priority in that moment. Not, hey, I've got an event in three weeks and I'm still trying to execute while I'm maybe listening in the background. We're not built to multitask like that. It's a challenge. And so, like, really being present is gonna be the most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

That is the most fabulous answer to that question that I did not see going, but that is great. How can you make sure that you can be completely present and put on an out of office and respect your out of office? Boundaries. I will say boundaries. I am horrible at that. I put on my out-of-ice, and of course, I'm checking and responding to things, which I am.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

I did the same. We need to we gotta practice what we preach probably a little bit, Data.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

That's right. That's right. Oh my gosh. Okay. Do you have any networking hacks?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

You know, uh, networking for me is a little bit of a challenge. I find that fascinating considering that I love events and like I've planned so many. I think being willing to introduce yourself is probably the first step of like sit beside a stranger. Like, where are you from? What do you do? What's your role? Like, I think those are easy things. But you know, showing up and being present, asking questions. I also think it's a great thing whenever you're we're going to have like at GIFCon, we'll have some affinity type group meetings where, like, yeah, in lunch one day, you're able to sit with like like-size organizations or maybe find like individuals from certain states or the LGBT community, whatever that's going to be, like, what are those affinity groups where you're maybe bond with people showing up to the receptions. We also do like a welcome reception. We also have an off-site party for everyone. And I think that also brings kind of that level down a little bit to let people really enter your like normal day-to-day interview. Yeah. Right. And like just to be a human being and to show up versus like always having to like show up at a higher level and really kind of have that game face on. Okay, we we can bring it down a little bit. We're all human. Let's connect on a different level.

How GiveCon Fits Any Nonprofit

SPEAKER_00 8:13

So good. I know we've been talking about this event. It's coming, it's May 17th through 20th in St. Louis. And I'm not gonna bury the lead, but since you're listening, if you have been interested in attending a conference this year and this is sounding intriguing to you, we're gonna get into more of the details. But you can use there's a link in the show notes to the event itself to GiveCon. You can enter code M, the number two, and then M, so M2M permissions to movements, if you get what I'm throwing down there. And you'll get$200 off your ticket. So don't lose out. Snag that in St. Louis, May 17th to 20th. So you worked for Thread Strategies as well. I did a little bit of LinkedIn stocking, Andrew.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

And my friends at Thread. Thread, you spend three years and you're working inside small nonprofits, where typically, and I'm sure you see this a lot at Bloom Ring, like one person is running all of fundraising and probably a few extra things on the side. But then at the Epilepsy Organized Foundation, you were scaling 60 plus events nationally. There's a wide range of organizations, right? As we know of across the board that you find people walking into an event like this needing that they might not be able to articulate themselves. It's those things where it's like, we think we're going in for one thing, but I actually need this. And how do you, as an event planner in this role, create that?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Oh, I mean, I think such a big topic, right? How do we solve for what that looks like? You know, fundraisers coming to conferences, we really want them to have clarity, you know, walking away with prioritization, with confidence and the ability to work smarter, right? Like pretty simple stuff at the end of the day, right? Like I don't think any of that's like mind-blowing in any shape, totally form, or fashion. You know, at Thread, when I was, you know, consulting, we were working with so many different organizations that were, like you just mentioned, tiny, small teams. And, you know, most of them were connected to the organization from a personal standpoint, you know, mother, daughter, sister, brother, someone was impacted and they decided to make a change. Whereas, like at the Epilepsy Foundation, we were really focused on those scalable events, engaging the community, right? Like, how can we double and triple nationwide growth? That's what we were focused on. And so, you know, I don't know if fundraisers don't necessarily need more ideas, right? At the end of the day, like, I mean, I have those examples. I'm sure others listening have examples where like a board member pulls you aside and says, I have an idea, or let me tell you about this that I think would really help us out, right? I want to host a golf tournament or a gala. And it's overwhelming hearing this stuff, especially like we hear this all the time. I think what fundraisers really need, though, is like the clarity to determine what matters most and the confidence to focus on the right things.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Small organizations need more of that like system and focus, where I think the larger organizations, once they've matured out of that small organization, they're gonna need a little bit more alignment and scalability. Fundraisers are going to have to take away like what are those time-saving strategies and proven strategies that are actually going to help them do the work. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's good. And GiveCon, so like we are, we design our sessions to really reduce noise. We want to have the connections with others that normalize the challenges we're facing and to really have tools and templates, like for everyone attending, to have tools and the templates and actionable learnings that are going to help drive their mission further, not just theories, right? Like, what are you walking away from each session throughout the day where you can take a snippet here, implement it, and it's going to only help your organization?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Love that. One thing that I've done whenever I attend events is I try and really scour and research who are the speakers and panelists and connect with them in advance. And because I know their schedules are busy, can I meet with you if you're really interested in a specific topic?

unknown 12:33

Yeah.

Make Leadership Approve The Trip

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Talking about clarity. Like if you've really figured out, like I'm coming here specifically for blank and blank, right? Then how can I carve out and find like this speaker? Yeah, I want to listen to them, but I also want to ask them this question. This one big question. Do you have time beforehand or afterwards, whatever, to grab a coffee, whatnot, or going up to a member of your team and saying, hey, these are my top priorities while I'm here. Who do you think would be great to chat with? Because you guys have so many client customer stories in your heads, I'm sure, that you could be like, you know what? Let me see if I can find and actually do like a one-on-one connection with. So I think the clarity, and I loved you said the confidence to have the clarity and to focus on it is huge. And then who are the connections that you can make time for? Because kind of to your point earlier, like networking can be hard, but not really if you're like zoomed in, hyper focused on yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

And I love the research that you mentioned. I think that's like allows you to do that with such stronger focus, right? Like if you're if you're walking in with a list of who you want to target to try to get a coffee with or 10 minutes, can we sit together during lunch, right? Like those are the kinds of things that like everyone's going to be doing. So how can you utilize those times in a smarter way to build capacity?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, a thousand percent. I always am having little like working connection meetings now at conferences and events, instead of normally sitting there and opening up my laptop by myself and working.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

I'm guilty. Yeah, guilty as charged. Yeah, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Okay, so I want to also talk about something that probably happens a lot. And you might be listening, listener, and you're like, I really want to attend something like this or this event itself. Okay, and you probably have dealt with this yourself, Andrew, or consult with clients that do, but getting either an executive director, leadership, or a board to approve conferences and or travel can be a barrier. Now we've already done like$200 off codes, like there definitely is that. And I'm sure you've had to make the case before for investments. How should somebody build the case for GiveCon or an event similar, right? Like, what should they realistically say, like, this is what I'm gonna bring home, or what's normally like your go-to?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

I think this is a probably a challenge across all nonprofits, right? Like you've got limited funds. Typically, there's not a ton of money and professional development, even there, though there should be, right? One on the GIFCOM website, we actually do have a letter that would help support anyone to like build the case so that you can present it to leadership. I would I would hope that people can take that riff on it, be able to like expand on what they're looking to accomplish, right? I think it's a good starting place, but that's not gonna meet everyone's needs for proving or asking for the money that they're going to request from leadership. From my standpoint, I'm gonna take this a little bit different direction. One, for the leaders listening, I would just say like invest in your people. Yeah, right. Like it's such a simple thing, but we've got to make sure that like our staff and the community really are able to have this investment so that they can help bring results to the organization and it builds motivation. So like staff for attention and like turnover with fundraisers is super high. We know this, right? Like, I mean, I have hopped around because I knew that my way to move up was to move out and move up as I went, right? And so, like, I was always I was open to opportunities. And so I think this is one of the ways where like you're able to really help hone in the skills that your staff has by showing them the investment of what you're able to make. I would also say for leaders listening, if they're gonna come to GIFCon andor any other conference, don't make them do a presentation for the board of what they learned or for staff, right? Like I don't see that much in the corporate space. And I'm not sure how this is, I think it's become that like necessary proof of what someone's learning.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

My gosh, I've never heard that.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Right. Like you never hear about anyone at one of these major corporations attending that's you know worth hundreds of millions of dollars attending a conference and going back and presenting to their team on what they learned.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Well, it's more like let's just apply this and see the results.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah. Exactly. And that's my proof here of like what we should be doing. So, like if you're thinking about total investment, maybe this is like$1,800,$2,000, whatever this amount may totally be for your organization. If you think about it from a budgetary standpoint, right? Like for a million dollar organization, that's gonna be like 0.001% of your budget, right? So very small, very small. But think about the impact, right? Your staff goes, they bring back tools, they're bringing back like new ways of working, they're understanding their tools in a smarter, stronger way.

Invest In Staff To Reduce Turnover

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I always felt seen. Yeah, they feel seen. I felt seen by my leadership whenever I got sent to something. I felt trusted. Yeah. I remember in my like early years, and I was in New York City at the time, and I was being sent to events in Los Angeles. And one, I had never been really out in California. And so for me, I was like, wow, this is such a cool opportunity. Like totally different perspectives, talking with different people, yeah, being able to be given that responsibility and trust. I felt like, wow, okay, this is like next level. You get a little pride, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

And that's a huge deal for what you're talking about, the retention and everything. I would go download the letter, but I think that's even that's a way bigger proof point.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Completely. You know, like when we think about it from an impact standpoint of like, okay, so you are spending a little bit of this money, right? And then let's say they come back and they've got like end of your goal for running a campaign at let's use$100,000 and they exceed their goal by 10%, which has never been done before. The impact of that small investment has already returned results, right? For the organization. So it's going to pay for itself. And I think beyond that, like we talked about skill development, we talked about tools. You're avoiding costly mistakes, right? Because they may hear examples of something that like they were thinking about doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

And then they're not going to due to some of the lessons of networking, sitting in the sessions, listening to the other speakers of like, I was going to do this, or we've always done this with our auction, but now we're changing it to only X or Y, right? Like avoiding those mistakes is only going to help your organization. And then as you mentioned, yeah, Dana, I mean, like the confidence. I mean, that is like, I can't even speak to the level that of that investment of like what that says to your staff members about how you care about them and really want them to like develop further as a human being, but as an employee, someone that's able to drive impact.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Yeah, I love that. I want to flip it a little bit and ask you a question about events in general, because also listeners, many of you run your own events. Andrew, in your experience, what do you think makes a standout event experience?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

I mean, it's exactly it's event experience, right? So, like as I think about this, I think about people that there's a few things for me that are like big no-nos, right? And I probably can go down this line more. Lines. I don't have lines at like when I think about events, I want people walking up and customer services there. So like I think about registration. You don't want registration with a line of 50 people where it's gonna take someone 20 to 30 minutes to get in the door to your event. That's already a terrible experience, right? So that's one. I even think about like lines from a perspective of like a bar.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

And two, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Like, I don't for generally speaking, like, you know, bars, okay, but like after you've waited a little bit in time, especially if it's a a fundraiser where you're serving guests that have spent hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars to be at this event, it should be moving, it should be well equipped to where they are receiving whatever they're expecting in a faster mentality because that is servos.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

That is so funny that you mentioned that. I was just at an event and somebody, multiple friends of mine commented about the bar, and they're like, it seemed like the bartender was trying to serve slowly. That was that was something they call that. That was like a memory of the fascinating.

What Makes Events Feel Great

SPEAKER_02 22:31

And people remember this stuff. And I think that's the funny thing is like something so simple, like getting a drink. If that's what you're walking away from this event from, like that was not the experience you wanted, right? And so I think about what's gonna lead the lasting impression. It's the same thing of like I walk away from events thinking about the food, like you also just mentioned. Okay, like was this actually decent for like one, what I paid and what I expected, or am I gonna still have to order some type of delivery or run through a some type of fast food on the way home to make sure I'm actually full before I have to go to sleep to wake up the next day? Right. It's simple, but I think all these things like really add up to where like people want to come back. You're driving experiences drive what people remember. Totally. They're not going to necessarily, especially for folks that aren't connected to the mission, there you don't have necessarily that personal again, that personal connection. And so you've got to think about this from a little bit of an outsider perspective of like, how can I drive what our event, how are events going to be perceived and then build it from there from a public standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

One of my favorite books, you've probably read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Gadara. Yeah. So it just talks about how do you create an unreasonable hospitality atmosphere in whatever you're doing. And that does not have to mean an unreasonable budget to create it. It's just very thoughtful moments that could be very simple, but just again, thoughtful and personalized. Okay, one last question based on everything you've built, everything that you're hearing from the sector right now. I know there's so much going on in the world. Again, GiveCon, it's May 17th to the 20th in St. Louis for the people that are going to be there. What do you think they're gonna leave with that they just in this moment of time couldn't get anywhere else?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

You know, there's just so much from like executive directors to operations to development team members with how everyone's expected to do more with less, right? Like I we hear about everyone losing, especially here in the States, everyone losing grant funding, right? From government grants that they've had. But so thinking about this a little bit more, it's where are people going to thrive with GIFCon, right? What team member is being asked to figure out something when your budget didn't increase, when you're down a staff member, because there is that turnover because you're not investing in your staff. When you're asked to just add on another project that wasn't necessarily in your job responsibilities, but somehow you all have to execute as a group, as a staff contingency within your nonprofit, those are the folks that I think are really going to be able to take things away from GivCon in a really strong way. And, you know, thinking about it, if you've ever like left a conference inspired, but unsure of what to actually do next, I think GiveCon is designed to fix that, right? Like we want you to walk away with those tools, with those assets to be able to directly implement from the day that you leave.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Amazing. It's so fun to actually get to talk to somebody who's creating the event before it happens. I think that's such a rarity. So thank you so much for being here today and sharing just event logistics and inspiration for being there. And I hope a lot of times life is so busy before we attend a conference, and then all of a sudden we're just like there.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

But if we can do a little bit of the prep work and recommendations of what Andrew gave today, then we can just like really settle in to make sure that you walk away with that really hyper-personalized, tangible experience with tactical ideas that you're looking for. So don't forget, click the link in the show notes if you want to attend and use the code M2M. I'll again I'll have that in the show notes too for the$200 off. And you'll have a fabulous time this spring. Andrew.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Join us. Thank you so much for being here. That's right. Thank you, Dana. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

You're so welcome. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.