Some days I wish I could call an emergency meeting of all Agitator readers, if for no other reason than to get your immediate reaction to one or another of our most insane ideas—or at least Kevin’s insane ideas.

That was my wish exactly 11 years ago this week.  In a the post Meet With Your 27,000 Best Donors Tonight I urged readers to explore the easy, inexpensive and powerful use  of the Telephone Town Meeting to build donor engagement, loyalty and response.

That was the decade before Zoom, Teams, and YouTube streaming, Hovercast and the myriad  other platform that enable us to meet live with our donors and brief them on what they’re generosity makes possible and motivate them to further action.

The proven value and power these technologies made headlines within a few hours of Vice President Kamala Harris launching her bid for the White House.

Within a few hours of the announcement, 44,000 Black women went on line and raised $1.6 million dollars to fuel her campaign during a longstanding Sunday night Zoom meeting hosted by the organization Win With Black Women.

But that was only the start. In the days that followed women [you can always count on them to do the first of the heavy lifting] and men convened call after call. On Tuesday and Wednesday 7,500 Latinas, then more than 9,000 South Asian women, then on Thursday 200,000 + white women followed early the next week by ‘white dudes”, then the LGBTQ+ community, then Native American women, then Caribbean-Americans, Disabled Vets, Filipino-Americans and on and on.

All told, the old telephone town hall the Agitator was touting a decade ago had morphed into a cash haul of $200 million + small dollar donors—62% of them first-time givers.

Their goal: to raise money and harness the newfound energy surrounding the presidential election, one that many organizers and attendees said they had struggled to feel before Harris’ ascent.

We all know that in our world of fundraising and donor engagement, staying connected with is vital. Yet, I’m always amazed given the ease and iinexpense of virtual engagement how few organizations actually use it.

Whether for small groups –your sustainers or mid-level donors provided a briefing by a program specialist or testimonials and thank yous from beneficiaries – or an Emergency Briefing or Annual Meetings for your entire donor base, these virtual engagements provide both the organization and donors immense benefits.

You’ll no doubt be seeing more and more evidence of  the political application of virtual engagement on the nightly news as the 2024 Election Campaign advances.  But for those in the charitable or non-partisan advocacy sector here’s an excerpt of the benefits from our 11-year-old post, reported by Steve Kehrli of PETA on that organization’s experience:

• PETA holds telephone town meetings notfor fundraising per se, but to introduce donors to campaigns, to expose donors to PETA’s energetic and committed staff and to get donor questions and testimonials.
• Donors who make larger gifts love telephone town halls. These givers showed dramatic increases in subsequent giving from the mere fact they were invited, even if they didn’t attend.
• The meeting itself boosts response. Although the main purpose of PETA’s town halls isn’t fundraising, those who listened to some or all of the meeting gave 60% more than those who only heard about it. And those who stayed on the meeting call for over 15 minutes donated 3.5 times more than those who only heard about it.
• Steve believes, and is now running analysis to confirm his belief, that the mere invitation to these meetings is boosting overall retention rates — whether the invitee attends or not. [Ed. Note: This would be in keeping with what we’ve found in our studies involving the benefits of seeking donor feedback.]

Let your imagination on the possibilities for your organization range out and about like a hunting dog on the scent.  State-specific updates…reunions honoring volunteers on a campaign…a heart-to-heart with lapsed donors…introducing a new program…discussions   proposed programs.  You name it.  Better donor and supporter engagement is just a few mouse clicks away.

 What are your activities and plans around virtual engagement?  Please   share.

Roger

PS. If you want to keep track of all thise groups here’s a new online directory.