Filling Your Development Toolbox - A Petrus Development Show Episode on Fundraising Events

It's time for another change!  We continue our Petrus Development Show Q+A series on important development topics, but this week's episode features a new voice from the Petrus family.  Join us as Rhen interviews Matt Bond, Petrus consultant and executive director of the Santa Fe Family Life Center in Oklahoma City.  Matt and Rhen discuss a variety of potential donor events, and they share their thoughts on which events are most worth the time and effort.  

Show Notes: 

Rhen and Matt are very clear about the challenges of beginning large fundraising events such as galas and golf tournaments.  Instead, they share ideas about events that are smaller, more manageable, and potentially even more successful in the long run.  

Specifically, Matt answers the following questions: 

As Rhen mentions at the end of the episode, Petrus created a free resource with a sample fundraising event task list.  If you'd like to receive this resource to assist with your upcoming events, please click here for more information.    

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

00:30.46
aggierobison
Well howdy, everybody and welcome to the Petrus Development show. My name is Rhen Hoehn with Petrus Development and joining me today as promised is Matt Bond. He is the executive director of the Santa Fe Family Life Center which hosts a big gala and some other events throughout the year. He is the former development director at the St. John the Evangelist Catholic Student Center at Oklahoma State University where he helped lead a $27 million campaign a few years ago to build a new church, and during which they did a whole bunch of fundraising events and different activities to raise that big money for the campaign. He's a consultant with Petrus Development. He is also a co-host of the Holy Donors podcast and a good friend of mine who I met at a Petrus conference back in 2017 or 2018 in San Antonio. Welcome to the Petrus Development show, Matt Bond!

01:25.15
Matt
Hey Rhen, how's it going? I'm happy to be here and we were just chatting about that San Antonio conference, and that was both of our first ones, I believe. It was a great time, a great opportunity. I was a brand new development director at that point in time. I didn't know what I was getting myself into and I came back from that with my eyes open, my mind fresh, and ready to hit the ground running.

01:42.30
aggierobison
It was, yep.

01:52.82
Matt
Brand new development director at that point in time, I didn't know what I was getting myself into and I came I came back from that with my my eyes open, my mind fresh and ready to hit the ground running.

02:42.31
Matt
Yeah, absolutely. So the Santa Fe Family Life Center - it's got a big name. But the best way for me to explain it is think of a giant YMCA. So we've got basketball courts, tennis courts, workout facilities - the whole nine yards. We've got a ton of pickleball going on there but the reality is it's a nonprofit organization whose mission is to give back to the community. And the stakeholders and the board of directors have set an executive vision of really focusing and specializing in adaptive sports. So when it comes to the Oklahoma City metro area, we are the go-to facility for adaptive sports or the home of the professional wheelchair basketball team. We have a wheelchair football team. We do numerous clinic events to teach different sports from wheelchair tennis to wheelchair badminton, adaptive pickleball as well. So we do all of that stuff and then we also have a great community of veterans that we feel honored to give back to, and so we help that group. In many cases, it fits with our adaptive mission, but at times it's just a great time for them to have fellowship and time together. So those are two of the big areas of our mission, and then our third area is the underprivileged youth programs that works with kids who may not have the same opportunities that other young people have growing up in sport and what have you. So, gosh, there is so much activity and going on year-round. It's crazy to think about it. We have, any given weekend, we could have 8,000 people coming in and out of our doors for a basketball tournament, and roughly 52 weekends of the year we're running 48 tournaments a year, so it's a big thing. So my job is to lead the team that does the majority of the work and kind of help execute the board's vision from that. That's really where I'm at and as everybody knows who's ever been an executive director, one of your main jobs is to fundraise. I do have an amazing development director and she does great work, and my job is to support her for one, and then two is also to go along with her and help fundraise for the mission of the organization too.

10:14.85
Matt
Yeah, absolutely. You know, they come down to three areas. You've got your cultivation events, also called friend-raisers. Then you've got your solicitation events, which is a fundraising event. And then your stewardship events, which is really your opportunity to thank your donors and give back. So your friend-raisers or cultivation events - it could be a golf tournament, it could be a tailgate at your student center, it could be an event where you invite people. A great development director in Oklahoma City does this where he invites some of his great friends to a local parish for a Christmas caroling, Catholic Christmas caroling event. And that's a great one. He uses that as both a cultivation event but also a stewardship event for his donors.

11:00.84
aggierobison
Oh.

11:09.51
Matt
You know, your solicitation events could be big or small. That could also be a golf tournament. Your galas would fall under that - any event where you're asking for a specific gift or support from individuals. And stewardship again is your thank you event.

11:29.17
Matt
A great one for a stewardship event, to kind of think of what one might be, is at the end of a capital campaign. You have the dedication of the church and that's a great stewardship event for your donors who gave to the capital campaign that made it happen.

11:41.36
aggierobison
Great. So a cultivation event, let's park there for just a minute, differs from say a fundraising event because you're not necessarily making an ask or a direct ask at least at those events, right? You're gathering together people who are interested in your organization, building relationships with them and getting to know them, but not necessarily making an ask.

11:51.69
Matt
Correct.

12:00.84
aggierobison
I've done an abundance, I think 62 is the count, the number of different cultivation events I did over 7 years at a campus ministry, bringing together people and just getting to know them. And those types of events, they might, like you said, be picnics, they might be different kinds of outings. Maybe you're going to an event together. Maybe you're going to have scotch and cigars. Maybe it's like a lecture series depending on the type of organization you have. Anything you'd add to what those events should look like or what they should or shouldn't include?

12:34.51
Matt
Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, I wouldn't look at it as what they look like and what they shouldn't include. I'd look at it as what's my end goal - what do I want to accomplish at this event - and then build back from that. So the cultivation event, your main job is to create a relationship with individuals from that or an opportunity to have a follow up. That's really your end goal for it to lead to see if what you're doing in your mission is a match with the donor's individual mission of giving. So that's how I would kind of back-track from that. You're absolutely right, it's not normally an event where you're making an invitation. But as I always say in this line of work, especially when I'm consulting, always be prepared to make a solicitation no matter what, no matter where you're going, what event you're at, always be prepared in case a donor gets to it. I had a great cultivation visit at the end of it, he looked over and said "Alright, what do you want?" So we were prepared at that point in time to share what the next visit was, which would be a solicitation.

14:01.20
aggierobison
Yeah, it's a great way. You want to get people in the door and build connections with them, right? I had several donors that I tried to get one-on-one visits with, would never respond to my calls, never answer my messages, they would never respond to my emails. But we did events in their area and made them pretty welcoming things that they were interested in, and several of them would come to these events. We met them there and it gave us a good chance to follow up after the event - "Hey, it was great to meet you here. I'd love to hear more of your story, could we have coffee or lunch sometime?" And then got follow-up meetings with them coming out of those events. And that was just a great way to start those relationships with people who were maybe a little bit nervous about meeting one-on-one. It felt like a big step for them to do that, right? The key is to find...oh, sorry, go ahead.

14:39.98
Matt
Yeah, hey, I was going to add in here, Ren, just something that a lot of people don't think about but is very important at the cultivation events - make sure to have a sign-in sheet. I know it sounds lame or whatnot, but you've got to gather their information so you can have that follow up, right? You've got to have, if you don't have a cell phone number, you don't have a telephone number. Email addresses are great if they'll give you one, a home address so that you can send a thank you for coming to the event. Those three things are great, but your number one is a cell phone number above everything else.

15:18.70
aggierobison
Exactly. I encourage people to bring their friends who might be interested, right? And I think a key to those types of events is to create an event that your particular audience is interested in and would want to go to, right? I was working at a campus ministry for a university that's hundreds of miles away from any other city. It's in the forest on the shores of Lake Superior. It's a very casual, outdoorsy culture, so we did a lot of cultivation events that were picnics in a park, brought out the grill, just very casual feel. For some organizations that would be way too casual. They may have a more formal culture. It might be more of like a wine and cheese event for the alumni we were working with. Wine and cheese would have felt pretentious and you know, you have to kind of meet them where they are and design an event that appeals to them specifically. So what those events look like can change from one organization to the next.

16:06.41
Matt
Yep, absolutely. You know, in Oklahoma, Ren, you can have your wine and cheese and your brats at the same time.

16:15.52
aggierobison
I'll have to visit and find out. That sounds like a nice way to do it! Excellent. So you mentioned stewardship events, donor recognition - it's always important to say thank you, right? Let's move into fundraising events and I think we're going to spend most of our time there today. You talk about what some of the different types of fundraising events are. I know you mentioned them a little bit but let's kind of break them down a little bit more. What are some different types of fundraising events that you might host for your organization?

16:43.33
Matt
You know, the big ones and the obvious ones are your galas and your golf tournaments. You know, those are the ones that when you think "fundraising event", at least I do, that's kind of where I automatically go to. But you also have these smaller ones that I'm a great fan of. I've seen a lot of great success personally from them and then with some of the clients I've been working with, and that is what I call the "greatest friends events". It's an event where you have a very homely feel. It's usually done in a home, sometimes people will do it at a restaurant or in a small room at a parish. But it's a quaint event of anywhere from 6 couples, maybe as high as 12 couples that come together, usually over a meal, with an opportunity for us to get up and speak about our mission and what we're doing, and then have an invitation to join in that mission through a gift. So that's a great one. We can go into more detail on that as we get closer.

17:58.97
aggierobison
Yeah, let me ask you - why would you do a smaller event for 6 people when you could just do one big event for hundreds of people and raise all the money in one day? And then you can kind of break down what makes these smaller events an ideal fit for most people. How does that sound?

18:15.29
aggierobison
So these "greatest friends events" sound nice. But why would you host a bunch of maybe smaller events with 6 couples when you could just do one big event one night with hundreds of people and raise a bunch of money all at once?

18:28.76
Matt
You know Ren, it's a great question. I mean, the obvious thought is why not be as efficient as you can and do that big event. But the truth is, the big events aren't as personal. You don't have the opportunity to talk to each person at an individual level and create that relationship. That's one piece. But on the other side, if you look at the way that they're kind of done, and this is the way that I feel is the best way to do it, you have from the name "A Greatest Friend". It could be a board member or a committee member. It could be a parishioner that's been around a long time. You know, it could be a local priest if it's not a church that you're raising for, it could be your bishop - but individuals who are great friends of yours host you at their home. And again, this is, I'm giving a playbook of the best way to do it. They host you at their home. They invite their friends, and those individuals that they know would love to be a part of that, they feel would love to be a part of your mission in the form of giving, and invite them over to the home. And then you have this quaint meal. You know there's something special about having an opportunity to fellowship and to break bread in a small group together over like-minded things. Think about the Last Supper we just went through Easter a little while ago, right? And you've got the Last Supper. There's a reason why that is a powerful moment to have.

20:01.66
Matt
And people can grow together in friendship quite quickly and whatnot, and so you've got that all going for you. So the host invites you, you have this event, you have an opportunity to do the night, which would look like, you know, kind of a small talk. And then you'd have dinner and then you'd talk about your mission. You make an invitation to the mission and then my favorite part is kind of that social proof where the host, if they're a supporter, would say "This is a great organization. I hope everybody here would prayerfully consider giving to their organization." And then the organization, you know, shares how you can give. I mean that's huge, that's taking a big event and really scrunching it down to make it simple. And the great thing about these events is you can systematize it in a way. It can be the same talk, it can be the same format. It can be very easy for the host - the host that's going to bring you in knows how to do a dinner party so they know how to cook, they know how to set up all of that stuff. So that's easy for you guys - say "Hey, this is how the format will go. We'll say a few words, we'll make an invitation, if you'll just say a few words of support for us because you support us, and then we'll go from there." And so you follow this format. You can do a hundred of these events in a year - maybe not a hundred, maybe too many - but you could easily do...

21:30.54
aggierobison
Ah.

21:32.77
Matt
We did 2 or 3 in a week. You could easily do that. It's a big thing. It takes much less effort than a banquet for a hundred people, much, much, much less effort to set up and to do the pre-work prior to it. So it can be done, and the reality is if you're doing 2 or 3 a month, we'll say you can reach 100 people quite quickly in that year's time, whereas if you're doing a hundred person event, you have all the expenses that go into it, all of the personnel and time capital that goes into it to put it on. It makes it much more difficult and you're putting all your eggs in one basket. So if you have, in Oklahoma if you have tornadoes that night, you've got to cancel your event. In Michigan where you're at, Ren, you might get twelve feet of snow and then you've got to cancel your event. So that's another reason why a bunch of smaller events work a lot better. But then you also create these quality relationships with donors that will last the lifetime of the organization.

22:40.10
aggierobison
Great, and because you've done both, could you talk a little bit about what that prep looks like for a gala, that time investment, and what all goes into that?

22:49.17
Matt
Oh yeah, it sucks everything up! No, no, a gala - it's not starting two months prior to the gala and going to the gala date. If the gala, let's just to keep it simple, is on September 1st, you're starting for the next year's gala on September 3rd. You get one day off before you have to start it again. And so the reality is you're looking at okay, who are we going to invite in for - usually you give away some kind of an award, so who's that going to be? You've got to find out who they are, you've got to invite them in and you've got to prep all of them. You've got to get your sponsors again. You've got to get your tables filled. You've got to find your caterers, your servers, your sound, your stage, your location, all of these - your alcohol provider if you have that at your event. You've got to prepare all of that coming in. I went over the finding sponsors and table people to fill tables - those take the majority of your time. And in the organization that I work with, our development director, she spends a good six months of her twelve months working on this gala alone, putting it all together. And that's her portion of it. We have other people and staff who take chunks of it and do it as well, and then I take a huge portion of it too. You know, I personally - if you don't have a gala, I wouldn't bring it in.

24:20.20
aggierobison
Wow.

24:38.25
aggierobison
Yeah, if you don't have like a history of it, right?

24:38.42
Matt
Right, if you have a gala, I would continue doing that work because they are good fundraising tools. They're just a behemoth to get started and to continue running, but there is so much expense going into it. It's tough to start it out and if you're a one-man show, don't even look twice at a gala. You just don't have the capacity to run one well.

25:08.48
aggierobison
Gotcha, excellent. So let's go back to those "greatest friends events". You kind of gave us a summary of what it looks like and how you plan it. Who do you decide to invite to these events and what's the ideal size of them? You mentioned maybe six to eight couples?

25:27.16
Matt
Yeah, 6 to 8 is a good number. You could grow a little bigger than that. If you get it too big, if you're at 20 couples, you've outgrown it to where you can't have a meaningful conversation with everybody that's there. That 6 to 8 is really a good sweet spot to have a great fellowship event. The who to invite though is one of the great aspects of this. And I mentioned it a little bit earlier but I want to say it again - encourage the host to invite those who they know in their circles that you may not know, who would find, let me start that over - encourage your host to find individuals within their circle who would have a love for your ministry too, who either want to hear about it and have a capacity to give, or that you know that's a great avenue to go. One thing we did is we had a couple in our campaign, they loved to host parties at their home and they hosted quite a few for us. So if I remember right, he invited a group of his group for one event, and then we had another event where she invited her kind of her circle of friends. And then we had a third event at the same home, same ordeal, where we invited some of ours. And so in the instance where we did the inviting, we were looking for again, individuals who are in the area who we're trying to get in front of, trying to share what we're doing. And again, in the area that it was a no-brainer for them to come have a free meal, hear what you're doing, and it was a simple way to reach 3 or 4 of those at the same time. So that's how we did the ones, so I would look for individuals that live in the area that you want to share your mission with, and this is kind of a low barrier to entry event.

27:25.92
aggierobison
I love that. Yeah, and you don't have to have a big listing in your database to host an event like that, right? Like there's a campus ministry in Canada that I've done some work with that they were just starting out, had no list at all whatsoever.

Here is the transcript edited for spelling and grammar:

27:40.27
aggierobison
Had a local couple who was super pumped about them getting their campus ministry built up and doing a lot more, and they hosted events, invited a bunch of friends, and fundraised a whole bunch of money to get this campus ministry started before they were doing any mailings or anything else in the fundraising program, right? It's just a great way to kickstart things.

27:54.10
Matt
Yeah.

28:00.90
aggierobison
It gets you some new people involved. So I love that.

28:03.20
Matt
Absolutely, you know, and just to go a little further on that too, and to manage expectations - you put on one of these events, yes, you could raise a good amount of money at the event, but the event is really a catalyst for a follow-up. It's on the follow-up.

28:16.63
aggierobison
Yeah.

28:19.62
Matt
It's the next meeting that you have with them that can do what I would refer to as needle-moving in your ministry. It's that follow-up, so you get to know them, you meet them. So in a way, this is almost like a friend-raiser. Yes, it can raise funds at the event or at the dinner, but it's that follow-up, and that follow-up then leads to a continued relationship with your ministry as the years move forward. And maybe one of them who you met the year before at a dinner would host a dinner for you the next year.

28:49.53
aggierobison
Yeah, that's a great point exactly. So you mentioned that you have kind of a standard agenda or way you go through these greatest friends events, and you laid a little bit of it out earlier. Can you kind of break down step-by-step how that evening goes?

29:08.42
Matt
Sure. First off, be the first ones there, help the host prepare for dinner, get the plates out and you know, a glass of wine.

29:15.46
aggierobison
Right.

29:22.47
Matt
Give them some one-on-one time with you without their friends, so be there early to help with that. The next step is as individuals come in, shake their hands, say hello and start conversations. So it's really a small talk time with everybody. And if there's more than one staff, so say it's an executive director and a development director, or a priest and a development director, don't stand next to each other - separate and talk to different couples at the same time. Try to maximize that way, so every individual that's there has a conversation with someone from your organization. So we had that small talk time. That's usually the wine and cheese time if we're talking one of those fancy events you were referring to there, Ren, or the beer and standing around the grill time for the other style event you were referring to. So that okay, small talk time as the meal is being prepared, and then you sit down, almost in a family-style dinner, and you would eat, again continuing with small talk. Most of the time the host is controlling this conversation. They're just kind of bringing everybody in, they know everybody, so they're kind of pulling in a great, fruitful conversation, and then after that point...

30:51.74
Matt
Dinner's over, you kind of lay back. You get another glass of wine, so to speak, or beer, and the host will then lead into and say "Hey, I invited this organization in to talk to us about this. It's somebody that I love and I want you guys to hear more about." And so...

31:10.67
Matt
...it gives you an opportunity, this is where you can share some of the materials you brought. But really, you want to share your testimonials, the stories of your organization, of how it's making a lasting impact in the world, and why it's important and why it's important now, you know, just kind of your elevator pitch that you have. And then go on to say, so if you're trying to fundraise for your annual fund or operations, you know, share about that and how they can make a gift. Ask them to prayerfully consider a gift from that. And if it's a capital campaign, you probably want to go a little bit into the specifics of what you're building and what you're doing and why it's important, and then ask them to prayerfully consider a gift to your organization. But the next part is what I refer to as the social proof part, and that's where the host, and hopefully they are, if they're a great friend of yours, they should be a supporter of yours. They'll say something to the effect of "You know, this is a ministry I believe in, they're doing great work changing the world. My husband and I," or "My wife and I, whoever is speaking, would say that we fully support them and I would like to ask you guys to consider a gift to this organization as well." And what that does, from them saying it, is that you're not a fly-by-night organization. You are a real organization, somebody that they love and respect supports you guys and has had a great interaction, so it gives you the credibility that you are a great organization. And then from that, you make it easy, so you have QR codes and envelopes and everything where you have pens ready at the table if they want to write a check, you have it already and easy for them to give. And then after that's over, it usually goes into small talk and fellowship longer, and sometimes that last bit can last an hour or two of just, you know, like-minded individuals sharing about life and asking about it. And then at the end, you're the last to leave so you see everybody out and say "Thank you for your time." And from that, if they gave a gift, you better get a handwritten thank you card out the next day or the next day to them just to thank them for coming. You should send everybody who came a thank you card, but especially those who gave a gift that night. And those who didn't give a gift that night that you feel a follow-up would be good, call them up and say "Hey, it's great to talk to you. I'm going to be back up there on next Tuesday, are you free for a cup of coffee?" And follow up from that, and at that meeting, make an individual ask to them.

34:11.00
aggierobison
That's great, so you didn't make a specific ask amount out loud at your meetings, is what I gather, right? You kind of made a general ask for support, knowing that everybody's probably in a little bit different place in their capacity to give. Gotcha.

34:20.22
Matt
Absolutely, that's correct. Yep.

34:29.20
aggierobison
I had another question, sorry Eddy, what was it going to be? I lost it. Let's see, we talked about how to make a gift... We can talk about the attendees, anything else you want to add on with these?

34:56.65
Matt
Yeah, you know one thing, Ren, to say again here is, and to point out and to bring light to, is these events should be fun. You should enjoy doing them.

35:11.48
aggierobison
Right, yeah.

35:13.53
Matt
Everything about the night should be a great time. I mean, you should look forward to this as a development director. If you're not, you're doing something wrong. It gives you an opportunity to share the mission that you love over great food, great people. You should love doing these. You know, I personally found it - I love doing it, I got energized by doing them, I looked forward to doing them. And that's one thing to think about with this. You know, not everything that we do in development is a lot of fun. We've just got to do it because we've got to do it. But this is an event, and an item that you can put in your toolbox, that's a lot of fun, a lot of fun to put together and to do. And you want to set me up with a toolbox question?

36:01.29
aggierobison
Right.

36:10.15
aggierobison
How do you want me to do that?

36:11.94
Matt
Say something like "Matt, you mentioned an item in your toolbox. Can this be your whole toolbox?"

36:20.33
aggierobison
Ah, got you. Okay, so you mentioned an item in your toolbox. Can this be your whole toolbox, your main source of fundraising revenue, do you think? Or does it have to be more along with it?

36:33.92
Matt
You know, I am a relationship fundraiser. I think one-on-one visits and individual relationships, that is a way to raise funds for an organization. So I said "toolbox" because it's one thing that you can do. You can't focus on this and expect it to float your entire ministry. It should be something that you have that you can use and that you want to use, but don't have it be your sole focus. It's the same as an organization who puts all their eggs into one gala - if something happens to that gala, your ministry could die because that's everything to it. The same goes with a golf tournament or if all you do is grants. The same thing could happen. But if you did a "greatest friends event", if you had, let's say, a golf tournament, and then you had the relationship ministry or the relational fundraising piece of what I'm talking about where you're continually making phone calls, setting up appointments, setting up visits, going on visits, making invitations to individuals as another piece, you'd have a full toolbox to be able to continue. So if one fell short, the others could pick up and make sure that your ministry thrives.

37:56.62
aggierobison
Right? That's a perfect point. I have one question that just came to mind actually. I wanted to go back to you with these events. Is there a best day of the week that you found to hold events? Should they be on weekends or weeknights? What are your thoughts on that?

38:17.35
Matt
You know, that's a great question. The majority of events that we had were on a Monday through Thursday evening. We found Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday nights are tough to get groups together. You're really looking at a date night.

38:25.23
aggierobison
Right.

38:34.47
Matt
For those nights of the week, I mean yes, it is a date night, but the other nights of the week it's easier and simpler to do. So I would focus on those. You're going to find people are very busy, and if you move forward and stay off their busiest nights, which are Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, there is a higher opportunity and chance that they'll be able to attend.

38:54.91
aggierobison
Yeah, that was my experience too. Like I said, in doing a bunch of cultivation events, you know, whatever it was, five or six dozen of them, we found Tuesday and Thursday nights were always our best nights year after year across the board for whatever reason. We would, you know, hit 6:30 PM, give people time to get home from work and get through traffic to our events, and it was early enough if they had kids. The kids weren't quite going to bed yet on Tuesday and Thursday nights. And we did every different night of the week, we tried everything. Really what you have to do is test and kind of see what your particular audience responds to, what works for them.

39:18.30
Matt
Right.

39:27.42
aggierobison
But that does seem to be some of the best nights, especially before the K through 12 school year ends, actually, is what we found. If it's in the summertime when the kids are out of school, people are traveling, and it's all, good luck. Yeah, you'll never know what you'll get on a given evening. So...

39:41.53
Matt
Yeah, yeah, but you know with the hosts, you know, and only looking at 6 to 8 couples, there is a great opportunity that they may want these 4 couples to come but they're busy, but...

39:48.14
aggierobison
Right.

39:58.36
Matt
They keep going through their circle of influence and they fill the rest of those spots with great individuals.

40:03.26
aggierobison
Right, good point. Excellent! Well, any other last thoughts? You kind of mentioned that - build your toolbox, have some redundancy within your fundraising program. Don't rely on just one tool. Any last thoughts on events?

40:19.40
Matt
Oh, that's a great one. I think to reiterate, be cautious of big events, be very, very cautious of big events. Don't fall into a trap of everybody on your staff fully focused on that for months. You know, there are certain best practices, and that I'm sure the podcast has gone into, of fundraising. There are certain things you can't forget, you can't stop or you'll have lasting implications from that. For any event, even these, the style of event, continue making your phone calls, continue your visits, add this as an additional piece and you'll be successful, but just don't put all your eggs in one basket either.

41:08.75
aggierobison
Good advice. Excellent! Well, I think that's what we've got for today talking about donor events. Just one quick announcement before we wrap up for today - Raise 2024, the Catholic fundraising conference, is happening in San Antonio again, the same place that we met, coming up June 24th through 26th, and registration closes June 7th. So you're running out of time if you'd like to join us in San Antonio and meet lots of other Catholic fundraisers from a variety of different types of organizations. It'll give you some motivation, some inspiration, some best practices and ideas, things to try, and also let you network with lots of other Catholic fundraisers and build a little bit of a team around yourself of people you can call up when you have a question. That's what Matt and I did for years, and we were both doing campaigns at the same time. We did, you and me and Frank Shannon, would do monthly calls and share ideas of what's working in our campaigns, what's not, and vent frustrations and kind of have some accountability partners there. And so that's one of the great things you can get out of a conference like this. So I hope you'll join us, go to petrusdevelopment.com/raise24 to check that out.

42:01.36
Matt
Yep, yeah.

42:15.94
aggierobison
To check that out.

42:15.98
Matt
Hey Ren, if they come, I'll be there and one of the nights a couple days before the conference starts will be my birthday, and so who knows, I might get a birthday cake and share a piece of cake with everybody who's there.

42:24.65
aggierobison
Hey yeah, there we go! Maybe a cigar and a walk down the River Walk is the way to celebrate, I think it's what we did years ago.

42:30.67
aggierobison
Excellent! If you have a question that you would like to have us answer on the podcast, you can send it to [email protected] and we may feature it on one of our future episodes. And then right here is where Eddy will cut in. I don't have the lead magnet set up for donor events yet, so I'll come up with that and I'll record this for later, Eddy. Sorry. And anything else you want to add for this episode, Matt?

43:05.42
Matt
I think we're good. You don't do jokes on it? Can I tell you a joke? How do you make an egg roll? You push it.

43:05.85
aggierobison
We'll wrap it up and you can tell me a joke.

43:20.12
aggierobison
Ah, we may have to save that for a Holy Donors episode! Excellent. Thank you everybody for joining us. We hope you have a great day and God bless.