“The major donor mistake that changed how we ran events…”

Get ready to trauma-bond, because we've all had this moment: your stomach drops, your eyesight gets hazy, and you have NO idea what to do.

For Tremayne, it happened on show night in a brand new theatre with a group of major donors who didn't have seats for the very program they funded.

Hear how a power drill fixed the immediate problem... and how policy changes stopped it from ever happening again.

Meet Tremayne and learn about his tenure in fundraising here 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tremayneedwards/

Got your own story to tell? Submit a diary entry to be featured on the podcast 👉 https://bit.ly/4tXt0d6

Connect with our community on LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/company/nonprofit-diaries/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Nonprofit Diaries, where we share the stories that don't make the newsletter. I'm your host, Kimberly Bottom, and this week's guest is a self-proclaimed storyteller for social change. And if you follow this guy on LinkedIn, you'll know that is 100% accurate. His leadership currently supports one of the country's foremost black and brown-led movements to end gun violence as the director of fundraising and strategic partnerships at the Community Justice Action Fund. When Tremaine and I first spoke, we actually realized we had a lot in common. We're Virginia kids, we're theater enthusiasts, and his energy. It just filled my cup so much. I'm so excited to fill your cup today with the same joy. Everyone, please welcome Tremaine Edwards. Tremaine, thank you for being here. Yes. Oh my gosh, you are just like my family. I just can't. I can't. I love you so much. Okay. So Tremaine, thank you for joining us. Let's set the stage for your diary entry, shall we? Because you've been in fundraising for a little little while now, right? You said that a few years ago, you were the director of community engagement at the Academy Center for the Arts and you were putting on a show. So set the stage for us. What would the what was the show all about?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, so picture the year was 2020, 2019. At some point, one of those years, because we've lost a lot of time after 2020. Um, but we had just opened up our grand historic Academy of Music Theater, um, which is a huge feat for the organization. That had been a $30 million capital campaign. It was a club for the region of Central Virginia. I was really so honored and happy to be a part of the organization during that transition. Um, and in my role, that made me a couple different things. As a director of community engagement, it meant that I in nonprofit world, we have our hands in a lot of different buckets, but I was helpful in oversight of our front of house team, our CRM, which held a lot of our donor data, their benefits, um, just about everything that could happen through the organization. That was the hub. Um, but it also meant I got to start working a little bit more with our donors and our sponsors and kind of being that part of the experience. As our former chief development officer, Beth Doyle, if you happen to watch this one day, uh, she always reminded everybody of the organization that you all work in development. You're all a part of the experience. I love that. Literally got put a part of that experience in this role. Um, and then this day, as we're trauma bonding today, um I had the wonderful opportunity of having to put my beliefs to pen and paper where I've always believed there's never problems, there's only possibilities. Uh, but this day it was put very much to be uh where we had a sold-out event with one of our partners uh for the ballet. And we're really excited because they've had a couple shows. It's a sold-out show, and then that theater, historic theater, it's sat about 835 people. So it's a big, nice crowd for the area. We love that for the arts, we love that for ballet. Um, and we're getting all the folks in, they're getting seated. Yes, yes, we've done it. And naturally, in this time.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Something just had to go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

And I can I can literally see her walking up still to this day. And she walked up to me with a smile on her face. So I'm thinking, we're great, we've done it, we've gotten all the folks in. All of our donors have come out of, you know, um, our members' lounge, they're going to get seated, executed well.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Until, however, comma, she comes up to me and she lets me, you know, know that like some of our guests, and by some of our guests, major donors, folks who helped the VIPs, no big deal. You know, only the people who, you know, give to ensure that this program was even possible to be on the stage today happen to be here. Uh sponsors didn't have seats. Uh, didn't have seats for a sold-out event.

unknown 4:01

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Meaning there were no seats anywhere available. Um, so that was a fun journey. And first when she approached me about it, you know, I was really confused because I am a visual learner. Through and through, that is my call-on card. You can show me something, and I'll remember 20 years from now. Uh, which is often when I'm talking to people, if I look away, it's because I'm like visualizing and having a full-on recall of the moment.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Like you're doing right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Right now, because I'm pulling it all back. I'm setting the scene and I'm getting back in character, and I'm feeling the magic if I'm it's all coming back.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Virginia Wolf, name them all. It's all happening right back now. Thank you to my theater professors out there. Um, but as she approached me about this concern, I was like, no, that's no, that's not real. Like, no, this is Am I hallucinating?

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not, that's not true. Uh, and she proceeds to tell me, no, it is like I sent this message to you. And again, as the visual learner, I was like, how about we just open up our emails right now and like test this to be true? Because if I'm wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. I've never been afraid to be wrong and like e crow and then you know, take that hit and we'll figure it out. But it turns out in this moment, I wasn't wrong, the email ever got sent to me. And so at least on that end, I was like, okay, because that would have been a double journey of like us as a partner with them, right? Us as a partner with them and our sponsors, like that would have been a whole nother issue. So once we addressed that, then it was still the moment of, okay, well, what can we do? Because these are the major sponsors that helped put on this event today. Um, so then the panic slightly ever so just starts to sink in, where you know you might want to, you know, cry and bomb and all the things at the same time. Because at this moment I don't know what to do. And anybody who knows me knows my greatest pet peeve, whether it's me, whether it's working with a team, the phrase I don't know is not my favorite thing. It is to actually ignite my soul where I'm like, I'd rather say I'll look into it. But in this moment, I really didn't know what to do as a show was literally started that these donors helped put on. Um, so at this point, we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do. Our chief executive officer comes out, what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

No more pressure added on to the situation.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

You've got all the leaders of development, you've got the partner leaders, you've got the literal sponsors hanging in the lobby with us trying to figure out what they're gonna do about a show that they helped put on as they're watching it from the screen in the lobby.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

So wait, they were aware they didn't have seats?

unknown 6:29

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Oh, wow. So even more pressure. It's not like they were like waiting, you know. Oh, oh, I think we have seats and they're just, you know, in a holding area. No, they knew that okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

They're in a hold because they don't have a single ticket with their names to it at all. Oh so at this point now, we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do because they have to get in. Yeah, but there's no ifs, ands, or buts about this. They need to get in. So I, you know, I'm trying to think through quickly in my head, and I'm thinking of all the different options that we can do with our team across the board. We're starting to look at what staff are there because at this point I'm starting to think if you're part of the team, Kim, I might need to take you and you're you might have you might have to just go today. I'm sorry, we'll pay for it later. Yeah. Um, I'd say that to my CEO. Thankfully, in this moment, he's like, well, you know, we're sitting here, but they'd have to cross over people, but like you can take these seats. We start looking at you know the box office area and looking at the team of who didn't show up and where are those seats, because again, we're trying to find the best seats as well for them to in the second mezzanine. We need them somewhere on the floor. We need them present in the moment to see what's happening. So we're trying to figure that out. And then at this moment, while people are looking at different maps, they're looking at the systems, where you know, at this point, the donors are kind of thankfully just being very laxadaisical about it, but also I'm sure they want to get into this event. Our partners talk about our CEO, all the things are happening, and I'm just in real time watching all these moments happen and trying to figure out body experience. What are we gonna do? Uh so eventually I take a moment away from myself and I'm like, I'm gonna look into the theater and just like see what's happening. So this gives me time to like walk away and regroup because I need to figure out what are we gonna do, but I need to get away from the noise. Uh walk away, I'm thinking about the seats that are potentially available. I'm looking at some extra areas that are available, and a couple things happen at that moment. We have a little space, I guess the technical term would have been egress, if I can pull from the facilities manager back in the day. But there was essentially some spaces that were possible where we could sit them, you know, in a row. But then we also had some seats that were pulled out for our um A V team. So we actually had extra seats that had been unscrewed and moved that could be put back. So in that moment, we took some of the seats that um our CEO lovingly gave up for us. We had our team sneak those chairs back in and like temporarily half drill them in because we didn't want to make too much noise. Yeah. We were able to kind of get them seated, put some of our folks that had to give up their chairs to put them in some really nice cushy chairs on the floor. Them all in there. Yes, they came into that part maybe 20 minutes late, but they got in, they got seated. We gave them all the things popcorn, wine, have all whatever you want, just walk up to the bar and grab it. Just say tramains at show and have it. So we're having that moment happens. We get them all seated, we solve it. It's all good. We never have to hear about it ever again, thankfully. Um, but in that moment of that wonderful trauma, it also allowed a couple things. In the moment, we got to have some of our own major donors also see this. Um, and one of our major donors, as I was walking away, he saw all of this happening, and that's really trying to, you know, handle this with grit and grace and a smile. And he liked me on the back and said, really good job. And that felt really good because now our donors also saw how we were handling this experience, right? Because I have a big belief that there's customer service and there's customer experience. Service is transactional, quick one-off. Service would have said, we don't have anything, we're gonna let experience says, Oh, we want you to still be a part of this experience. We also know that you're a sustainable giver. We want to make sure that this experience that you help create is something that you can experience. Um, but it also taught us things after the fact for the event of how we handle our data a little bit better and how we communicate with our team. We started adding into every show hold seats for every single show. There was a sponsor, a special donor, emergency. We always held about five to six seats for every single show, and those only got released from permission, from development, or our operations director. So like it was high-level clearance of until development is said they have no need for them, these seats never get released. So that we always held space for that experience. So while in the moment, not fun. No, in that moment ever again. The good thing is it never happened again. Well, yeah, with us at the organization. Because just my tenure there.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Exactly. See, and that's the thing is that these moments are always going to happen. Something is not going to go right. And I'm kind of with you where you're like, okay, it wasn't my fault, and I have the receipts to prove it, but I'm saying, hey, I'll help fix it. Yes. No. But yeah, then then you move forward and new policies are in place that you know improve the experience that wouldn't have ever happened if you didn't have that moment. So I'm gonna ask this just because we're on a you know a podcast where we can all be real and I'm a little I'm a little petty. Did the person who dropped the ball admit that they dropped the ball?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

They did.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Okay. Okay, that meant that warms my heart.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Now, was it was it you know a nice drop off of food and some flowers as the only child in me would have loved? Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

A spa day? No, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, no, didn't get the didn't didn't get the facial that I would have loved to deserve a spa day. Um, however, comma, I did get that praise, and it was also um mentioned to our executive leadership, so that it was at least clear that this wasn't my fault. But even then, in a way that not trying to play the blame game, but at least an understanding of okay, hey, a moment got missed here, right? It was on me, and he still rose to the occasion to help our sponsors, especially because often these sponsors, right, they overlap. So they may be your sponsor, but they're also our sponsor. So this experience can also impact us and our work as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

And that's stewarding your organization and your mission well, because even like if you said you're not there anymore, now they have a framework for this place that you love and appreciate and wanted to do well by, and you did because you left a legacy of uh strategy. And hopefully no one will ever feel that stomach drop sensation. Do you I have to ask because I still have news producer nightmares where like I'm sitting in the booth and my rundown disappears and like I wake up in a panic. Do you have is this one of those for you?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Oh yeah, it'll never, it'll never go away. Even for our ELO, that I was like, I have triple checked this thing, but I'm just gonna check one more time. Um, and if you two are out there watching this info that way, maybe we'll just drop uh a hotline number for help service to them. And it's just news classes, it's our cell phone numbers. We don't have a hotline, it's us.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

No, it's us. Just call us and we'll, you know, we'll walk you, we'll walk you through it. It'll be fine. Wow, that's so sweet. A support system. Tremaine, this is why this is this is why I love you. You're just you're always thinking of others, even in your own drama. What is it?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

You know, that's that's the best way.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

It's the best way. Oh, well, thank you so much for sharing. I really feel like this one's gonna hit home with a lot of people because whether it's a major donor experience or you know, even if you're working in data and IT and something goes wrong, we've all had that feeling in our stomach where it's like, am I gonna survive this or should I just roll into a ball and cry now? So just by the way, crying's fine if you need to do it. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Get the thing done and then go in that corner and have the cry. Done that too.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

And then go in the corner, cry after.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Right. We're here to accept all reactions to trauma. We are not here to judge. I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And for all of you nonprofit professionals who are listening out there, this is your weekly reminder to hydrate, practice self care, go easy on yourself, Tremaine. Mm-hmm. I see you. And if you have your own diary entry to submit, please click the link in the description below. We would love to have you on the podcast and bring you in front of our lovely audience who wants to just connect and relate. Thank you, Tremaine, so much for being here, and we'll see you next time.