Disengaged and chatty donors are a program problem and not a people problem. Hey, I'm Danny Darosa. I help nonprofit leaders crush their annual galas. This is part two of our two-part video series to understand how to get donors to pay more attention. The first video we discussed logistics because they are a lot easier to fix. And now we are getting into how to create a captivating program.

To start off, I want to talk about a client of mine. I did their gala a couple years ago, and this is how their program went. It started off with these two incredible MC's that were local radio talents going on and on and on about the organization and what they're doing and a little bit about themselves and how they're part of it. Then it moved on to one of their top sponsors getting about five minutes of airtime to talk about why they've sponsored, a little bit more about their company, and why they love the organization so much. After that, it moved to the CEO of the nonprofit who took 15 minutes to talk about all of the details of what they've done throughout the year, projects that they're planning on doing, partnerships that they had. And this entire 15 minutes, she was also just reading from a piece of paper, barely looking up at the audience. After that, there were a couple more speakers, and then the MC's came back on. They did their thing for a little while, then introduced me, the auctioneer, to do the live auction. After we did the live auction, which was close to seven packages, which, you know, took over 20 minutes, then we moved into the mission moment, which was the MC's coming back on and interviewing one of the people that they serve in the mission. A beautiful interview, but it lasted about 15 minutes. After that, we did the paddle raiser. When we were done with the paddle raiser, they gave out three to four awards and then the night was over. It was an incredibly long program. And in our debrief meeting, my client was absolutely shocked and couldn't believe the gall of the top donors sitting at the front table about 10 feet from the stage. She couldn't believe they had the audacity to talk while the CEO was presenting for 15 minutes at the beginning of the program.

If you thought that this was painful as I described this program, then imagine sitting in that audience. There are so many nonprofit events that I have been to that have programs similar to that and then they're shocked that their donors aren't engaged. But frankly, when we have a program like that, that is an org-centric program and not a donor-centric program. Org-centric programs are packed and painful. Donor-centric programs are targeted and impactful. So that is what we are going to get into today is how to create a donor-centric program.

Now first, let's break down the difference between the two.

An org-centric program:

• It speaks to everyone.
• It doesn't have a specific target individual in mind that it's curated the information for.
• It is cognitive overload. Similar to that example I had, there's so many things included in an org-centric program that overloads the donor because we don't have the capacity to take all of that in for many reasons, but one of them being that we're not with you the entire rest of the year. Those details make sense to you. They're exciting to you because you already have a lot of context. You already have a lot of understanding. Your donor is getting that all at the same time when you include every single detail. Now, it's understandable that you're excited about all these things. It's just the gala is not the right time to present every single detail.
• The other issue with an org-centric program is "doom and gloom" only. It's the ranting and the raving about the problem in the industry, the problems in the world, the problems that we're solving. Too much doom and gloom can bring everything down.
• The high-level jargon and poetic prose is another issue in org-centric programs. If we're making things sound really beautiful and high level, we're not really impacting anybody. We're not increasing understanding.
• Featuring a ton of thought leaders or talking heads is a major attribute of an org-centric program. So, back to my example with my client from two years ago, from the sponsors to the different speakers to the CEO, there were so many people that your donors really don't care that much to hear from. It's not that those people aren't important to the organization. It's just that for a donor, they don't create more impact for them that night.
• Another attribute is an ambiguous ask when we're not really clear about, you know, asking for money, what we need that night. That's another attribute of an org-centric program because we're not making it easy for the donor.
• The last one is that they don't close the loop. We don't do a good job of saying what we did with the money from the year before. We don't do a good job of saying how much we raised at the end of the night.

These are some attributes of an org-centric program. Now I want to say that, you know, many organizations who are starting their gala out for the first time or maybe they're, you know, leveling their gala up or they're redoing it after many years, a lot of times we start in an org-centric program because we're starting from what we know and what we think makes sense and we gradually learn how to move into a donor-centric program. But after seeing this video, I hope it encourages you to shift towards a donor-centric program right away.

So, let's get into the attributes of a donor-centric program:

In a donor-centric program:

• The message is focused for the target donor, for the ideal donor. We know who's in the room and we have really thought through what they need to think and hear and feel in order to really understand how important our mission is and how important their impact is that evening.
• It also has cognitive simplicity. We have trimmed down the program and trimmed down the message to the complete bare bones to make it really simple to understand. We've used a lot of visuals and whatever it takes to help increase an understanding without adding more words and more cognitive overload.
• We've shared a compelling vision. So, you know, we've talked a little bit about the problem we solve and the unique way in which we solve it, but we're also sharing a vision for what we want for the future and getting our donors excited to be part of that.
• We also share relevant stats and facts. So, not everything under the sun, but anything really relevant that would support the donor's understanding of the organization, the impact it makes, and the impact the donor can make that night. We share those relevant stats and facts.
• But we always have an emphasis on storytelling. Remembering that sharing stories is what people remember the most and it's what helps them learn the most about what we do.
• We also feature the celebrities in our organization. The celebrities being the people or animals that we serve and the staff members who directly serve them. Those are who your donors are most excited to hear from and see on the stage.
• We also leverage relevant impact anchors. So instead of being really ambiguous with our ask, we are very clear about what the money can impact and we're really clear about quantifying that for the donors.
• And the last is that we close the loop. We make sure they understand what their money in previous years have gone to and how much we've raised that night.

When it comes to this, remember you want to design for donors and not for staff.

The next thing to really understand is that donor attention is really limited. Especially, like, if they're coming on a week night. They might have gotten up at 5, 6, 7 in the morning, worked all day on, you know, really complex projects. Maybe they had terrible things happen throughout the day. Maybe they had to put out a bunch of fires. Maybe they're taking care of children, taking care of animals, taking care of, you know, family members that have different special needs. People are incredibly busy and by the time they get to your event, they still have things on their to-do list. They still have unfinished things from the day. They still have things they're anxious about for the next day. If we have them sit down at a program and they feel almost punished for going there, they feel like they've gone to a lunch and learn when they thought they were going to a gala or we've just talked at them non-stop, it's going to be really, really difficult for them to pay attention because their attention is already limited. You are competing with their grievances, their to-do's, their.

An important thing to remember is that your donors have limited attention. They love you and they love what you're doing. However, they have their own grievances, to-do lists, anxieties, people they're taking care of. Every person that comes in the door has, you know, a certain amount of things going on that you're competing with, especially if it's a week night. You know, maybe they've been up at 5, 6, 7 in the morning. They've worked an entire day. They've put out fires. They have used so much of their brain capacity. Maybe they're taking care of young children after that. Picking them up from school, taking them to soccer practice, walking, you know, their dogs after school, cleaning up from their cat's puke on the floor, taking care of some of their family members with special needs, you name it. The people coming to your gala are typically very busy with limited attention. So being mindful of that when you create your program is a huge key to helping them pay attention.

You want to respect their capacity. Shorter is almost always better. Shorter and clearer beats longer and louder every single time.

Now, let's get in how to exactly build a captivating program. We're going to look through this roller coaster diagram that teaches us how to thoughtfully build the emotional highs and lows throughout the program.

This is the roller coaster of profitable and impactful programs. Now, just like a roller coaster, I want you to picture that your donors are basically strapping in as soon as your program starts. And like a roller coaster, they're not just going to leave your program just like they can't just jump off a roller coaster. So, we need to be really mindful and thoughtful about the ride we're going to take them on.

Where we always start is with gratitude. Thanking sponsors and the people in the room for being there. You know, maybe some board members, some staff members, you still want to make it brief, but being heartfelt and expressing your gratitude really grounds everything in the room.

Then, as the roller coaster goes up, this is when we do the mind part. So, when you're on a roller coaster and you're starting to go up, you can still think at that point. Maybe you're starting to get worried about the drops and the twists and the turns, but you can still think. This is the same thing in your gala. So this is the part of the program where we put all of the stats and facts. We share our vision. We talk about the problem we solve. We put up a nice high-level infographic that shows them what our organization does as a whole so that we don't have to actually say every single piece. This is where we fill the mind. Not too much with some cognitive simplicity, but this is where we do the mental part.

Then as we move up the roller coaster and we're at the top, this is by far the most important part of the program. This is the mission moment and we move from the head down to the heart. At this point in time, we want to put them in the heart. Now, this happens by storytelling. So this is when you would have your, you know, nicely produced mission moment video that tells one specific story about a person, a family or an animal that you serve. It starts, you know, with the lows of where they were at before they discovered your mission, your organization, and the highs of after they've had a transformation because of what you do. This part is, like I said, it's the most important part of the program. We have to have a completely captive audience in the room at this point in time. And it's important that we don't fill the mind at this part. We want to go down to the heart. We don't want this to be a section of the program where we're talking more about the organization as a whole. We don't want too many stats and facts. A few relevant stats and facts that move the story along really help. But at this point in time, it's all about them getting the feels so they can identify their why and why it's so important that they're there that night. And it should be a brief thing about 3 to 5 minutes.

Now, after we've done this, now we're going down the roller coaster where all the action happens. So, the hand is the hands are on the same plane of the heart. And this is where your auctioneer takes over and really helps get activity going. Now, you'll see in this system that I put the paddle raiser before the live auction. I will get into that in another video why I prefer it that way, but that's how this roller coaster right here is designed. So, you start off with your paddle raiser. And at this point in time, it's just action, just like you're going down a roller coaster. Cards going up, you know, tons of money being raised, your auctioneer getting a ton of action and activity happening. Then the live auction happens as the roller coaster is kind of like lulling down to an end. Your paddle raiser allows for the highest level of participation. So we do that first. It's really exciting. And then the the journey is over on that part when the live auction has ended. You'll see the time range between 15 and 45 is pretty big for that part of the program. And that's because it depends on how many live auction items you have or if you have a live auction at all.

Now, the last lull of the roller coaster is celebration and entertainment. Speakers, awards, entertainment, you name it. It happens in the last lull of the the roller coaster. It's important that goes towards the end and you frontload the program with fundraising. Because again, your donor attention is limited and you want to make sure that you have helped them be, you know, their most generous where they're feeling their best physically, mentally, and emotionally before you ask for money. And the longer you push the fundraising in the program, the more you're at risk that they're not going to be feeling their best or they're going to have to leave or they're going to be getting text messages saying that the babysitter needs them to come home. You name it, things are going to happen. So, you want to frontload the fundraising.

So, again, the roller coaster helps you thoughtfully build the emotional highs and lows.

Now remember, attention doesn't happen naturally. It's designed. It's rehearsed. It's very intentional.

All right, let's recap here. You want to create a program that's designed for donors and not for staffs. Okay, let's recap here. You want to create a program that's designed for your donors and not for your staff. So, you want to make sure it's a donor-centric program and not an org-centric program.

Remember that your donors have limited attention and shorter and clearer beats longer and louder every single time.

You want to thoughtfully build the emotional highs and lows. And remember that engagement is intentional.

If you want more help focusing on what really matters, go ahead and download our PDF below that helps you 10X your fundraiser and understand, you know, what are the most important priorities to focus on to ensure that happens. Also, please subscribe to our newsletter if you want more videos like this sent right to your inbox. As always, we hope this is your most profitable gala yet.