Double your income! This post is part of a series on specific steps you can take to meaningfully increase your fundraising revenue. This is part 4.

We’ve been focusing on the power of spending more to make more in fundraising – and not by simply mailing or emailing more, but by connecting more deeply with your best donors.

Here’s another way to raise more money by deepening your connection with your best donors: Donor webinars.

These are meetings with groups of donors by Zoom or other webinar platforms.

These took off during the pandemic, when couldn’t have face-to-face meetings with donors, yet donors were more interested than ever in learning more about our work and getting involved. At first they were mainly one-on-one video calls, but it became clear we could scale up to turning some of those “calls” into more structured “webinars.”

And with video calls and meetings growing more and more common, more donors are comfortable with them. And the technology works better than it did in the past.

At the same time, online meeting software got a lot better – fewer glitches and more useful features were added. And a lot of people grew used to connecting that way. Online meetings went from a tool for techies to a mainstream part of life.

And it can be an important part of boosting your campaign revenue.

Probably the most unexpected thing about donor webinars is this: A huge part of their positive influence comes from the fact that you invited people to the webinar. The invitation is often more important than the webinar contents.

So don’t be disappointed (or surprised) if attendance is lower than expected. When you invited people, you got a lot of the way toward improving your relationship with those people by showing them they are important to you. Even those who never show up!

That tells us a couple of things about how you invite your top people to a donor webinar. Just one email probably isn’t enough. Make it three or more. And make those emails as personal as you can – no fancy branding, and it should come from a person, not your organization. You may even want to invite some of them with a phone call.

To get the most from a donor webinar, here are the main things you need to know…

Do just one thing

We know from direct response fundraising that the quickest way to strangle response is to have multiple agendas. It’s the same with webinars. You must be crystal clear on your goal for the project and have a laser-like focus on that one goal. In this case, the webinar is aimed at securing donations. There are other agendas you can have for donor webinars, but don’t try to pack them into the same webinar.

It’s all about telling stories

If you try to make your point with statistics and facts, you go nowhere. The human brain is a story-based operating system. Webinars offer some great ways to enrich your story with visuals and human touch.

This can sometimes be a real challenge if you bring in your experts to tell the story. In their professional world, facts and stats and everything. That’s why it’s so important that we get experts to tell stories instead of the facts that drive their thinking.

Conversational

A donor webinar can do one thing a lot better than email direct mail can: Conversation. Take advantage of this by scheduling time for questions and comments. This is often where the magic really happens.

Call to action

Give your donors something specific and compelling to do. Put it in writing from the beginning and stay obsessively focused on what you want people to do. Even if it’s “just” a thank-you webinar.

We’re talking here about donor webinars that are meant to raise money. That’s why it’s so important to know what the call to action is. As with any piece of fundraising, everything should drive toward what the donor will accomplish by giving.

Emotional

Charitable giving is driven by the heart. That’s why fundraising is the way it is. And you must follow that truth when you create donor webinars. You aren’t educating people. You are emotionally connecting with them.

Repetitive

As with other forms of fundraising, a donor webinar should repeat the ask for funds more than once. Once early on, another one or two quick asks in the middle, and the main and most concentrated ask toward the end.

Your critical year-end fundraising is just around the corner. How’d you like to DOUBLE your income from that campaign? Find out how at our all-new webinar, Double Your Year-End Donations Without Spending More. Sean Triner will lay out the complete plan that can dramatically boost your income this year!

Please share your experience by leaving your reply below. We’d love to learn from your experience.

Related Blog Posts:

• How to Find and Cultivate Your “Hidden” Major Donors
• 7 Ways to Encourage Your Donors to Upgrade Their Giving
• The “Middle Siblings” of Fundraising, and How You Can Connect with Them