COVID disrupted fundraising in nearly every way imaginable the last two years. Every single sector has been impacted but particularly those that work in event fundraising. In the last two years we have cancelled, changed, pivoted, and adjusted event after event. This has understandably put a lot of strain on fundraising income.
During this time, we got creative in reaching and engaging our donors, as well as raising income, when we couldn’t physically host an event. Now that social distancing restrictions are beginning to lift, some fundraisers are ready to dive headfirst back into in person all the time. But our experiences with COVID taught us a lot of lessons: not all events are best suited to in person. Virtual events often have a high ROI and require less work on your part. And some of the creative work that you did in the last year can continue to be useful as you plan your events into the future.
There are quite a few benefits to running a virtual event, even if you have the option to do it in person:
- Lower costs, which leads to higher return on investment.
- Fewer administrative tasks, since there are less things to manage than in-person events.
- Wider range of participants/supporters: supporters can attend from anywhere
- Easy and engaging participation: event participants can buy a ticket, donate, fundraise for you, and watch a livestream on one page, right on their phone.
- Virtual events tend to raise funds over a 30-60 day period leading up to the event, helping you raise more ahead of time.
Tip: See how non-profits can navigate the coronavirus here.
Download your Virtual Fundraising Planning Guide and Template:
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If you’re interested in incorporating virtual events into your planning, you’ve come to the right place. Here are our top 23 ideas for virtual fundraising ideas.
1. Virtual Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
One of the great things about peer to peer fundraising is that it’s inherently built for virtual fundraising. With CauseVox it’s easy to turn your current campaigns and appeals into peer to peer fundraisers by encouraging your donors to set up their own online fundraising pages.
Get your staff, board members, most dedicated donors, and active members of your community involved by asking them to kick off the first peer to peer fundraisers.
You could use the virtual event ideas below as inspiration for peer to peer challenges, or you can simply engage your donors to reach out to their friends on behalf of your organization.
We typically see organizations that do peer to peer fundraising not only help create a sense of community, but they also raise about 2x as much in comparison to other digital fundraising initiatives.
2. Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is another form of fundraising that has an existing built-in online component. You can also easily set up a crowdfunding appeal via CauseVox!
With the slowing down of things such as mail, this might be a good opportunity to push more of your supporters online to donate and a crowdfunding appeal can help do that.
Crowdfunding is all about target-based fundraising so we suggest creating a crowdfunding page to raise $x amount of dollars to fund an x outcome. As this is all online you can track your progress towards that target and continue to communicate with your donors about it accordingly.
3. Virtual Fundraising Livestream
Throughout the last year, many nonprofits have had the chance to explore livestreaming as we worked to share with people social distancing. That experience helped many of us realize some exciting things about livestreaming:
- It’s actually pretty easy
- It’s less expensive than an in-person event
- You can reach a more geographically diverse audience
- Some people actually prefer it
Even if you’re back to a place where you can safely run in person events, it’s still worth considering livestreaming for your events. If you are conducting work on the ground, connect with your donors by livestreaming the event. You could also turn your planned fundraising event into a livestream virtual event – inviting everyone along participate in your event on Facebook Live, Zoom, Instagram Live, and more
This gives you the opportunity to ask questions and engage with one another as they normally would have at the event.
4. Webinars
Webinars are a great way to stay connected with your supporters throughout the year without having to find a costly venue or manage in person details.
This could be sessions with your CEO and board, interviews with your field workers/program staff and any initiatives where you have the potential to share information with your donors. It’s also a great place to share updates about your work, or let people know about exciting news.
5. UnGala or Virtual Fundraising Gala
An UnGala (sometimes referred to as “Gone with the Gala)” is run through an online fundraising campaign where you invite your top supporters to join and fundraise for you (aka peer to peer fundraising).
While you can simply run the virtual fundraising gala without any programming, you can consider suggesting a menu for everyone to cook, invite them to dress up, and join in for a virtual dinner party with a featured speaker!
This is a great opportunity for people to still feel connected to you and to each other – see more info here on how to run your own UnGala event!
6. Virtual Race or “No Run Run”
One of my favorite things about 5Ks or races is that they are so easy to run virtually. Even better, they’re one of the easiest events to move to a hybrid model. You’ll want people to sign up, potentially pay a registration fee, set an activity goal, and have a date and time where everyone runs at the same time on their own.
Have participants raise funds up through the race date, and track their race times the day of – and keep track of who crosses both their virtual fundraising ‘finish line’ goal, as well as their physical finish line. It’s a great way to have everyone engage with each other.
Afterward, have a livestream to celebrate your participants and give them the ability to connect with each other and hear from someone at your organization.
This is best done as a peer to peer fundraiser, with participants seeking donations for the number of miles they run or hours they train for.
Or, if you know your community isn’t very active, consider doing a “No Run Run” campaign, where you challenge your participants NOT to run, and just cross that virtual fundraising goal finish line.
If you want to offer a hybrid option, you can still host your in person event, but for those who prefer not to attend, allow the option to race on their own.
If you want more details on these last two ideas, check out this Panel Discussion on how AFFCF planned their walkathon and how Summit Assistance Dogs created a virtual gala:
7. Virtual Bikeathon
Similar to a virtual race, you can set a virtual bikeathon!
Set a date and time and encourage participants to bike outside for a certain amount of hours or miles. Have them keep track of their miles using this Activity Metric or Strava.
For those who have an exercise bike at home, you can also encourage them to, set up their laptop or mobile camera and cycle together.
This is best run as a peer to peer fundraiser as well, with participants seeking donations for the number of miles or hours they can cycle for. This can also be done in teams, so groups can fundraise together to increase the sense of community.
8. Virtual Awards Ceremony
If you’re struggling to think of content for a livestream fundraiser, a great option is to make it an awards ceremony. Awards ceremonies are a wonderful way to draw your community in by highlighting individuals who have made an impact. You can honor stellar volunteers, stand-out employees, or those doing work in the community.
This is a great way to tell the story of your organization: how have these honorees upheld your mission and supported the work that you’re doing? Combine this with an ungala for a stellar evening.
9. Virtual Climbathon/Hike
Similar to a virtual race, you can make nearly any activity into a virtual event. Climb Out of the Darkness hosted a hike/climb for participants to raise money.
A virtual hike is a great opportunity for individuals or families to get outside for a good cause.
Most people have a trail somewhere near where they live, so encourage your peer-to-peer fundraiser participants to do their hike locally and share their amazing pictures on social media. This is a great opportunity to share their personal fundraising page with their friends and family, and keep people connected.
Set a date and time to ask your participants to get out and do the activity. They can record what they’ve done on their personal fundraising page using the Activity Metric and raise money to support your cause. This works even better when you connect the activity to your cause, as Climb Out of the Darkness did with their climb.
This is best run as a peer to peer fundraiser as well, with participants seeking donations for how much they accomplish. This can also be done in teams, so groups can fundraise together to increase the sense of community.
10. Online Auction
Setting up an online auction can actually be easier than a physical auction. Set up a page where all of the items available can be reviewed, and ideally bid on – you may want to use an online auction platform for this.
Coordinate bids beforehand and then announce the winners via one of the other virtual events such as a live stream, webinar or UnGala. All of that being said, this year may not be the best time to take a shot at a virtual auction. With many businesses struggling, you’ll be hard-pressed to find quality auction items, and you’ll find better ROI putting your time into asking for straight donations.
11. Virtual Tours
If you fundraise for a physical space, consider turning your tours into virtual tours.
You can ask people to donate the price of a ticket, and take people through the space via video. This will help people still feel like they’re there, and connect them to your cause without needing to be there in person.
Here’s a look at the Faurschou Foundation’s Virtual Tour of their Museum in Brooklyn, NY:
12. Virtual Movie Night
One of my favorite approaches to virtual fundraising is to plan an activity that people want to do anyway, then just add a fundraising element. Movies are a great option. Set up a virtual movie night with Netflix Party! Encourage people to grab their favorite snack and join your Netflix party using a link.
This allows all your participants to watch a movie at the same time with a chat window for people to share thoughts, jokes, and more. This is the perfect way to create a community and drive people to your Donation Page or Crowdfunding page.
As a best practice, link to your donation page, and ask participants to donate the price of a “movie ticket” to your organization, using a link to your crowdfunding page or donation page.
13. Virtual Conference (aka UnConference)
Hosting a conference in person is a big undertaking: flying speakers to your location, renting out a venue, providing food…it adds up. If you want to share information with your community in an easier way, consider hosting a virtual conference event aka an unconference.
This could be a day-long series of talks and workshops all hosted online where people can dial into the different events.
Here are a few kinds of speakers to consider:
- Staff/Board: Have your Executive Director or Board Member talk about why the organization is so important to them.
- Beneficiaries: Ask those who have benefited from your organization to share their own personal story about how their lives have been impacted.
- Professionals: Have a popular professional (author, professor, psychologist, documentarian, etc) with expert knowledge about your cause give an informational talk.
- Youth: Give a younger member of your community the opportunity to talk to the issue and how they’re impacted/create impact (think Greta Thunberg).
- Unrelated speaker: Have a standup comedian, yoga instructor, mindfulness coach, etc join for a fun activity.
These kinds of events can easily be run on a tool like Zoom. Don’t forget to make scheduled asks throughout the conference.
14. UnConcert/UnFestival
Music is a great draw for all kinds of people. Use that to your advantage by hosting a virtual concert.
Similar to the unconference, you could bring musicians together to host a concert or mini-festival benefitting your organization.
These could all be streamed from home, and ask people to purchase a ticket to view. This is another great way of bringing people together who may be confined to their homes.
An additional bonus might be some behind the scenes or meet and greets with different band members – all online of course.
15. Virtual Happy Hour
One of the most important elements of virtual fundraising is relationship building. A good way to stay connected to your fundraisers is to host virtual happy hours throughout the year.
Ask your supporters to grab a glass of wine and join you to chat using Google Meet, Zoom, or Facetime. In a casual setting, you can check on how your donors are doing, give them updates on what you’re up to, and create a great space to unwind a bit.
Add a soft ask to donate monthly at the end of the session, and let them know the date of your next happy hour.
16. Virtual Bingo
Some virtual fundraising options are a bit more serious: an online webinar or conference may be an incredibly important part of your work, but your donors won’t walk away saying “dang that was fun.”
Virtual bingo is not one of those serious fundraisers.
Virtual bingo is a chance for your donors to feel like they’re getting out of the house and having a night of fun while everyone stays safely distanced at home.
Connected to Lead hosted a Bingo Extravaganza: people could buy up to 12 Bingo cards with the chance to win prizes.
Run your bingo night virtually with these free virtual bingo cards + Zoom
17. Virtual Sleep Out
Nicholas House took creativity to the next level by moving their annual sleep-out to a virtual event. Instead of bringing community members together to all sleep outside in one place, they asked supporters to sleep outside at home.
If you have an event you typically run in person, you can consider this as a template for how to make it virtual: can people do it on their own? Can you include Zoom content to keep them feeling connected?
Nicholas House even provided those who were participating with lawn signs to share what they were doing, helping to spread the message even further. Can you use virtual as an opportunity to make improvements?
18. Virtual Trivia Night
If Bingo isn’t your jam, trivia is another wonderful option for a fun virtual event. Invite your staff, donors, volunteers and even your board members to a fun trivia night! You can sell tickets as well as run some games throughout the night that require an additional donation.
Have participants set up a personal fundraising page to raise funds ahead of the trivia night, and offer teams that raise the most advantages the night of the event. As a bonus, try to secure some great prizes from your corporate and/or local partners for the winning team.
Now that everything’s virtual, here’s a step-by-step on how to host a virtual trivia night.
19. Live Gaming Fundraiser
Gaming is wildly popular right now, and with everyone stuck at home there are even more people entertaining themselves with virtual gaming. There are multiple ways you can capitalize on the trend to create a cool fundraiser.
Engage a popular gamer (or gamers) to livestream them playing a game (usually streamed on Twitch) and have them point viewers towards your online fundraising campaign.
If you want to bring your community together, invite teams to compete in a game tournament to raise money. You can go the board game tournament route, or ask people to pay admission for games like Among Us or Jackbox.
Ask local businesses or supports to donate prizes for tournament winners. And, you can give “bonus points” to board game participants/teams that fundraise on their own for your cause.
Here’s an example of a board game tournament run on CauseVox.
20. Virtual Cooking Class
CauseVox did a virtual cooking class ourselves to try it out, and it got great engagement! Here’s our virtual cooking class example:
Add a culinary twist to your fundraiser by hosting a cooking class. If this is around the holidays, try making your class a themed one!
Team up with a local chef or ask a talented volunteer to help lead the class. This can easily be held virtually using a tool like Zoom and sending out an ingredient list ahead of time.
We can speak from experience on this one: not only did we do a virtual cooking class, we also hosted a virtual mixology lesson at the Digital Fundraising Summit with our friends from Ninja Ramen. Check it out.
21. Virtual Paint and Sip Night
Paint and sip events are fantastic because they can be adapted for any type of organization and occasion. While traditionally you’d need to find a paint and sip store that could donate space or proceeds, the virtual version of the event is even easier.
Reach out to a talented volunteer or local artist to lead the class, and purchases the necessary supplies. Then ask your supporters to grab a glass of wine and join you to chat using Google Meet, Zoom, or Facetime. Have your lead artist jump on and run the class on Zoom. You can even send supplies to participants as part of the registration cost.
After painting, you can check on how your donors are doing, give them updates on your plans to navigate programming and fundraising during this time, and create a great space to unwind a bit.
To make the registration and payment process seamless, set up an online fundraising page on CauseVox to track who’s signed up and to rake in any additional donations.
22. Virtual Toy Drive
SOS Children’s Villages Illinois found that moving their annual holiday giving campaign virtual during COVID actually ended up being more effective than their typical in person approach.
They normally hold a toy drive during the winter months but last year they chose to create a campaign to raise money so the organization itself could safely purchase and distribute items.
You can do the same thing by setting up a fundraising page and asking donors to give and support gifts or toys for a specific family. This is another place where a hybrid option would work incredibly well. If supporters want to donate gifts or toys, you can offer a place to make that donation, but also set up a virtual fundraiser for those who want to fundraise or donate money directly.
23. Virtual Food Drive
Similar to the virtual food drive, you can host a virtual food drive too! One of the coolest parts of this is that you can still accept food items and disperse them to your community and request donations from those who don’t feel comfortable leaving the home. You can even create donation tiers that let people know how much food they’re donating, which gets people more excited to participate.
You can even build this as a peer to peer fundraiser and get groups excited to compete about who can bring in the most food.
Download your Virtual Fundraising Planning Guide and Template:
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Run Your Virtual Fundraising Idea On CauseVox
Need to get your virtual fundraising idea up and running with less stress?
CauseVox helps you raise more with less effort, making it easy for you to launch your nonprofit virtual fundraising event. With easy to use donation pages, crowdfunding campaigns, or peer to peer fundraising campaigns, you can get started with virtual fundraising in no time.
Book a demo to learn how CauseVox can help you raise more through your virtual fundraising event.
