Constant Crudités: Conducting a Review of Events to Avoid Overload

Ann Dingman
Senior Advancement Operations Officer
University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development

It was the evening I ate the Golden Beet with Apple, Goat Cheese, and Candied Walnut hors d’oeuvre for the third time in a month that it hit me. I realized we need to do something about how many events we have.

I came to the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development almost three years ago from another university, where I worked for a large unit that was event-averse. I was surprised at the time and money my new office was spending on a variety of development (not fundraising) events throughout the year – awards, guest lectures, campaign dinners, scholarship recognitions, tailgates, faculty presentations. Our donors enjoyed them and some programs had existed for many years, so they continued.

We had a leadership change in fall 2017, and our incoming director charged me with leading a review (“audit” was too scary) of our events. I was excited to take a critical look and worked with a colleague to carry it out. In addition to finding ways to maximize resources, we also wanted to make a case for a part- or full-time event manager position in our office.

Our information gathering included:

• Interviews with other units on campus, to learn about their best practices and staffing structures.
• ADRP and Google, which led me to event evaluation forms and articles.
• Data analysis of guests at our key recurring events to determine how their giving patterns change, if at all, over time.
• Focus groups with our campaign cabinet and dean’s advisory board.
• An internal survey of development officers and the alumni relations director.
• The great webinar by Adrienne Seitz and Nicole Simmons at Gettysburg College, “Maximizing Campaign Events.” We embraced their mantra, “We are NOT just planning a party…We are choreographing MOVES!!!”

What we learned:

• There was very poor tracking of expenses for individual events. Our office assistant and I spent a long time finding catering orders and receipts from the last year to find out how much we spent, and we had no accounting method in place to identify events as a budget line item.
• There was inconsistent tracking of event attendance, and that process needed better oversight and follow-up.
• Many events had an unclear goal. Sometimes the guest list grew out of control with add-ons from different stakeholders and lack of understanding of the purpose of the event (e.g. alumni engagement, stewardship, cultivation, or campaign-level prospecting).
• Overall, event guests did increase giving over time, and many had high scores for likelihood of an estate gift.
• Like many development operations, we were doing a lot with a little. But, we learned there are some offices on campus that have one or more people doing solely events, many of whom were hired in conjunction with the university’s campaign planning process.

What we accomplished:

• A new portable nametag printer. This was the best purchase I’ve ever made, including my long down winter coat when I moved to Minnesota.
• Increased awareness by leadership that we should set and adhere to a budget. We recommended cost savings such as drink tickets, permanent table decorations, and scaling down invitation lists.
• A clear – and shared – understanding of the goal and audience of every single event we do, and how that impacts the budget and guest list. That process led to reconfiguring several events to make them more intimate, and discontinuation of three of them.

The challenges moving forward:

• My colleague and I presented our report to our team during our summer retreat, and I have done additional team updates as leadership decisions are made. One major hurdle has been that development officers are no longer able to invite as many people to events as in the past, and some D.O.s with less mature portfolios are concerned about losing cultivation opportunities.
• Additionally, as we move into the academic year, some donors who have been invited to things year after year may not be included for certain events anymore. Our staff has talking points to use in case of complaints, and there was also a short piece in our college magazine about the discontinuation of one of the alumni events due to limited resources.
• Unfortunately, due to the current budget climate, we were not approved for an additional staff member.

I’m happy to talk further about the details of this project. It was well worth it!