Let's talk about getting your donors to pay attention and the four event planning fixes that help you do just that. Hey, I'm Danny Darosa. As a benefit auctioneer and gala fundraising consultant, I've helped over 400 nonprofits raise over $50 million. And I have learned that even the most polite audiences, even the most engaged donors, they will still struggle if you get any of these four event planning fixes wrong.

Okay, number one. The first one is your sound system. Now, I like to think of an annual gala like your Super Bowl. In the Super Bowl, you have offense and defense. Offense is your fundraising success. Defense is your event planning success. I think a sound system is so incredibly important that I put it on the offensive side.

Because at the end of the day, if your donors can't hear, they can't bid. If they can't engage with the mission moment video, it's not going to pull on their heartstrings as much. It's not going to help them connect with their why as much. It's not going to help you engage the new people at your event to be long-term donors. So, the sound system is incredible. Now, too many times I've heard my clients say, "Well, we plan on using the band speaker or it should be fine in the room. You know, we tested it when nobody was in there". But the fact of the matter is that a gala, especially during your auction and your paddle raiser, it's a unique type of circumstance. It's not like blasting music at an audience. It's not like a situation where, you know, you're in church and everybody's super quiet and so they can hear really well from the stage. A lot of times people are talking and socializing during an auction. So, it's incredibly important that your sound system overpowers them.

What we've seen happen is if your sound system is about right here and people are talking at about this level, they're going to compete and compete and compete with the sound system. But if people are talking at this level and your sound system is here, there is no possibility that they can compete with it because it's completely overpowering them. When we are in traditional venues like think a hotel ballroom that's a rectangle and it already has speakers wired in and an in-house AV team, typically the sound is going to be fine there. But if you find yourself in a non-traditional venue or maybe something that has been donated to you, it's really critical that you get a professional AV team to at least do a walkthrough for you. But there is a high probability you're going to have to invest in sound. But it's incredibly important because if people cannot hear, you will not raise as much money.

Remember this one thing: If they can't hear you, you've already lost them.

Now, on to number two. Number two, you have to feed them before you fund raise. Dinner service is one of the greatest interruptors of programs to keep them on time or to have us lose money or make it really difficult for donors to pay attention. So, it's really critical that you have figured out how to get them to eat first before you start your program and especially your live auction and your paddle raiser. Under no circumstances is it going to work to have dinner during a live auction and a paddle raiser. And it's also not going to work to clear plates during those times. Especially your mission video and your paddle raiser. That part of your program needs to be protected at all costs. So there can't be any extra movement or things happening during that. Your guests need time to eat and they need time to socialize.

So there's kind of two scenarios. You know, on the one side, if you do heavy apps in your cocktail hour, that works really well. Get them really well fed and then figure out how to get a captive audience after that and do your program at that point. However, if you're going to have a seated dinner, what tends to work best with that is to sit them down, do a very, very brief welcome, and tell them to get started eating. And in terms of the food layout, having a preset salad and a preset dessert ensures that the dinner is going to go by a lot more quickly and the servers can get in and out more quickly. So after you have welcomed them and you've told them to start eating, give them plenty of time to eat their salads and their entrée. As soon as majority of the room has been cleared, then you can start your program because the rest of the clearing will happen in the first, you know, 5?10 minutes or so of the program and it shouldn't interfere at all with the fundraising. So when it comes to number two, remember, feed them first, fundraise second.

Number three is one of the most unpopular suggestions I give, but hear me out and it'll make a lot of sense. You've got to close your bar during the program. You can maybe keep it open while people are still eating dinner, but as soon as the program is starting, and especially the live auction or the paddle raiser, the bar has to be closed. Now, this is because if you have a bar open, it doesn't matter how polite your guests are. It doesn't matter how engaged they are with their mission. If they think they need to get up and get a drink, they're going to go get a drink. And if they are standing by the bar and maybe they start chatting with somebody, they're going to be in their own side conversation. This creates some issues. First of all, it's a sound issue. If they're starting to chatter around there, then the people closest to them can't hear. And depending on how the room is laid out, it'll also affect, you know, hearing throughout the room and kind of interrupt what's happening on the stage.

The other thing, though, is they're not engaged anymore. They're not engaged with your videos, your speakers, or anything you're trying to show them or present to them about your mission. And when it comes time to raise their paddle, they're not available to raise their paddle. So, it's a huge issue. I have been at even small events on weeknights and even the executive director who has a ton of skin in the game for the gala has gotten up and gone to the bar during the paddle raiser. It's just a temptation and it's hard to resist and it's hard to realize you're not supposed to go do it. So, you want to keep the bar closed at all costs.

Now, one objection I hear to this is, you know, we like to get them nice and liquored up so that they're more generous and they raise their paddle. That's all that's all fun to discuss and talk about, but the fact is that "whiskey opens mouths and stories open wallets". There are so many people who don't even drink, as an example. And getting people more drunk isn't necessarily going to make them more generous. It might make them more unruly, and there's a really good chance of that, or it might make them check out. The reality is is you want people captivated and paying attention to your program and you really want to open their hearts and that's the best way to get them to raise their paddle.

Now the other objection I hear is, you know, usually my donor has somebody in mind, you know, X, Y, and Z big donor sitting at table two is going to be really frustrated if they can't get up and get a gin and tonic or a whiskey coke or whatever it is that they drink. Now, to that, I asked you, if that donor asked you to bring them a $10,000 whiskey on the rocks to their table, what would you say to that? Clearly, you would say no. And that donor would never ask you that anyway because they're there to support your mission. But the reality is that if you keep your bar open, you are losing thousands of dollars by keeping that open. So, it's like every drink cost you thousands of dollars to have those donors get up and get them. So, I know it's not popular, but you have to close your bar. And it's best to give people notice before you do. So, what that would look like is, you know, maybe we were going to start the program in about 5?10 minutes. The MC would get up there and say, "Hey everybody, we're getting started in about 5?10 minutes. We're going to be closing the bar during the program, so please get up and get another drink if you'd like one".

Remember this: Pause the bar. Protect the mission.

Number four is that you have to design a room and a layout that allows for a captive audience. When you need a captive audience, when we have a seated meal, assuming, you know, our bar is closed and dinner is done and everybody's sitting at a table, that tends to be a very captive audience. As long as the stage is front and center, our sound system works well, the lighting is good. However, if we have a different kind of an event, maybe where there were heavy apps, maybe it's a Top Chef event where people are going all around the perimeter of the room and they're sampling food, you know, maybe it's something more along those lines. It's important that we design the room so that when we need a captive audience during the program, and especially during the paddle raiser and the live auction, that we're able to get a captive audience.

So for one of these types of more standing events, that might look like rows of chairs sitting right in front of the stage and then high-top surrounding that so that, you know, the people sitting are still able to raise their paddle. And then anybody at the high top, they're able to put down a drink or something and raise their paddle. You know, a layout like that really works well. If you have to stanchion an area off in the room and filter everybody into it before the program, that's another thing that works. That works especially well at a Top Chef event. Otherwise, people are going to stand off in the perimeter. They're going to stand by the food stations and they're not going to be nearly as engaged.

So, it's incredibly important that you reverse engineer from the time that you need a captive audience and you figure out how to set up the room and get the people to move to those places. Having a good MC or even your auctioneer pulling people in to try to get them to sit usually works well. And then in some cases, you can have a lot of fun with it. You can incentivize, you know, anybody who sits in these front row seats. You're going to be entered in to win a bottle of wine or some tickets to a local sports game. And you could number each chair and you can pull it out of a bag. You know, you can make it fun and you can try to incentivize them to come sit. But that is number four, to make sure you have a captive audience when you need a captive audience based on the way you've done your layout. For this one, remember that great programs need captive rooms.

Okay, let's recap. If they can't hear you, you've already lost them. You need to have an amazing sound system. Number two, you want to feed them first and fundraise second. Make sure that your dinner service, serving, clearing plates, all of that stuff does not affect your program and especially the fundraising part of it. Number three is you want to pause the bar and protect the mission. There is no circumstance that I have ever found where having a bar open helps out the cause or the mission or works for the program at all. Just figure out how to close that bar and get it opened right away after that. And the last one is that great programs need captive rooms. So make sure that you have organized your layout and your seating and your entire plan to have a captive audience when you need a captive audience.

In part two of this video, we're going to go more into how to create a captivating program, which will also help your donors pay more attention. But in the meantime, if this video has been helpful, subscribe below and you will get more sent to your inbox. As always, we hope this is your most profitable gala yet.