The art of the live ask

Ann Fellman: Okay. It’s two o’clock Eastern, one o’clock Central, so on and so forth. It’s time wherever you might be. So welcome everybody to our Fundraiser Focus Week. I’m Ann Fellman, I'm your host for today. I’m the chief marketing officer at Bloomerang. And as you’re joining, I love this community. It’s so much fun. Tell us what city you’re in, what’s the weather. Yesterday I was in Minneapolis. Today I’m in Boston, and it’s 42 and kinda sunny. But I’m inside all day, so I guess it doesn’t really matter. So where is everybody? Tell us. Throw it in the chat. Oh, Astoria. Elliot says it’s sunny. Okay. Great. Sometimes we just need a little dose of sunshine. Cincinnati. Seventy. Where is it seventy?

Samantha Swaim: I wanna go where it’s seventy. That sounds lovely.

Ann Fellman: That sounds great. Okay. I’m gonna share my screen really quick. We’re gonna do a couple opening slides, and you’ll just bear with me. Not my ideal setup with multiple monitors, but we’ll jump into slideshow. So today, we are gonna talk about the art of the live ask with Samantha Swaim here from Swaim Strategies. Thank you, Samantha, for joining us.

Samantha Swaim: Thank you.

Ann Fellman: Okay, everybody. Before we get started, this is only thirty minutes, so we’re gonna go fast. We’re recording this. You can get the slides afterwards.

Okay. So this is how the Q&A piece works. Make sure you ask your questions. Put them in the Q&A section in your little console down at the bottom, and we’ll answer those. We’re not actually gonna answer those at the end of the presentation. We’re gonna answer them on Thursday in our discussion. So we had Lynn Wester yesterday, we have Samantha today, and Rachel and Susan tomorrow, and then Rachel Muir will join us, and we’re gonna have an awesome conversation.

So before we get started, if you’re not familiar with Bloomerang, we create technology, CRM and fundraising technologies, to help you raise more. And part of this is also creating great content and resources, and that’s why we’re here. How can we help you as a nonprofit professional deliver your mission and raise more support for your organization? That’s what we’re all about at Bloomerang. And if you love to get together in person, come join us in May in St. Louis for GiveCon, our annual conference. It is more than just Bloomerang. It’s actually people like Sam, who you’re gonna be there. People like Sam that are teaching and educating fundraisers like yourself on how we can be better at what we’re tasked to do for our organizations.

So, Sam, thank you so much for joining us. She’s the founder of Swaim Strategies, and there’s some contact info here if you’re curious. At the end of the session today, I’m gonna stop sharing, and I’ll launch a poll. If you have questions, or more things you want follow-up on from Sam or from Bloomerang, or you just wanna learn more, make sure you answer that poll at the end. So with that, Sam, welcome, and thanks for joining us today.

Samantha Swaim: Amazing. Thank you so much, Ann. It’s so nice to be here. I love collaborating with Bloomerang. You always have just the best speakers, so much amazing content. So to be able to share space with Rachel Muir and with Rachel D’Souza and with Lynn Wester, amazing thought leaders. Thank you for bringing us all together. I’m going to share my screen, make sure that I have my slides up and running. Hopefully, everyone can see those.

We are here today to talk about the paddle raise, and the paddle raise is that moment in the event that is my favorite moment. There’s a lot of reasons why it’s my favorite moment. So I want to start first with a little bit of context about why a paddle raise is so impactful, and then we’re gonna talk about how to dive into a paddle raise.

The moment of a paddle raise is always that moment where all of our superheroes in the nonprofit sector, all of our friends that do such incredible work, get to see their supporters and their audience say yes. I’m in. I see you. I support this mission. I value this work. And there is so much value in that for us to understand that we have an entire network of community that we’re a part of. But in that moment, there is a ton going on in the brain and the body when we’re taking that collective action together.

So our team has partnered with Next Day Animations to develop a little animated video that explains that, so that we’re all starting from an understanding of what’s actually happening and why a paddle raise makes such a big impact. So let’s see if we can get this. Hopefully, everyone can hear it. Here we go.

Narrator: Gathering in person is not just about raising money. It’s a way to tap into our hardwired need for connection and to build trust and meaningful investment.

Samantha Swaim: It’s neuroscience. Here’s how it works.

Narrator: Mirror neurons are brain cells that activate both when we do something and when we see someone else do it. We don’t just hear someone’s story, we feel it alongside them. And we don’t just watch someone give, we join the giving.

Samantha Swaim: Then there’s the hormone oxytocin. Scientists call it the bonding hormone, and it rises when we share space, make eye contact, or break bread together.

Narrator: But oxytocin doesn’t just make us feel nice. It ups our willingness to trust and to invest in the people and causes we bonded with.

Samantha Swaim: The vagus nerve runs from your brain to your heart. And when that nerve is activated in a space of safety, people are more vulnerable, generous, and creative.

Narrator: When we gather with intention, people feel a sense of belonging.

Samantha Swaim: And when we invite them to participate, donate, or volunteer, we empower them to become a part of the story, not just a passive consumer.

Narrator: And at the best gatherings, there’s something that a sociologist named collective effervescence. Heart rates synchronize, brainwave patterns align, joy floods through nervous systems, people have an intense feeling of “we” instead of just “me.”

Samantha Swaim: In a world increasingly digital, the most powerful thing your organization can do is gather. We’re reminding people what it feels like to be a part of something larger than themselves, and that changes everything.

So for so long, we have been very big advocates in understanding that the event was a tool, but it was not the easiest way to raise money. And in this time where we have been impacted by a connection recession, by technology, by the evolution out of COVID, we are seeing the need to be in person as a really powerful tool to rebuild our safety nets.

There is a work of a thought leader named Paul Zak, in his book Immersion, that I wanted to tap into for a moment. So often we hear organizations put so much work into events and then they say, “But we’re not gonna ask for money, or we’re not gonna ask for support. We’re simply going to use this as a friend raiser.” I want to advocate that we think differently about that moment, and that we see that a moment of an ask moves people into a sense of release, relief.

So imagine for a second, if you will, that you have someone telling you, “Are you ready? Are you ready?” And they say, “Ready, set,” and they never say go. They say it again, “Ready, set,” and they never say go. Or perhaps they set a birthday cake and a birthday candle in front of you and they sing you happy birthday but they tell you not to blow out the candle, or not to make the wish. Or you see runners at the gate and they never go, they never run. That is what we’re doing when we gather people, we share our story, we connect them to mission, we get them to have a sense of belief in our mission, we get them to have a sense of “I can see myself wanting to make impact in this,” but we never invite them in. We never invite them to be a part of it. And a paddle raise is that action that allows them to be a part of it.

In Paul Zak’s research, what he found is that if you don’t have that sense of action, we’re not actually creating that relief in the brain. The candle blowing out, the runner starting, the “go” coming. Right? We leave people wanting more and we leave them feeling a sense of distress. So the most important part of our event is that call to action. Now, the call to action could be fundraising, but it could be other things. Today, I wanna talk about fundraising, but I also wanna give you that understanding that it could be a call to action to volunteer, to get involved, to share with a friend. You definitely need to make sure that all of your gatherings have that moment of a call to action so that the brain feels a sense of relief and people feel invited to be a part of your mission.

So what is a paddle raise? I often define the paddle raise as this moment where people actually get to show their support, get to say, “I’m a part of this.” Technically, it’s a moment where people are directly donating cash. It is a direct ask for support. But more than that, it is also a collective action that confirms for us that we are all a part of this mission, that we are all a part of this community. So it is collective confirmation, which is a really powerful tool to think about when we’ve gathered people together, because it creates a sense of belonging. It creates a sense of “I am a part of this organization.”

When we look at our events, we typically find that we have different buckets of revenue we can pull from. On the left of this graph, you’ll see that a lot of our revenue is pre-event revenue. Things like sponsorship, table sales, ticket sales, or even cash contributions in lieu of attendance. And then on the right side of this graph, you’ll see a lot of our contributions day of event. Typically, about half of our revenue comes in through a paddle raise, a live auction, a silent auction, a raffle, a game. All of the revenue on this list, with the exception of two, is very transactionally based. Everything below the line is very transactional and everything above the line is very relationship-centered. We find that when you focus above the line, you’re building your relationships with your donors, you’re cultivating and stewarding additional gifts, and you are moving your donors through that donor continuum of feeling more invested. When we keep folks below the line in the transaction world, we find that they often will buy once and never come again. They are looking for the deal, and oftentimes that is where we spend a lot of time and see very little revenue. So for me, that special appeal or the paddle raise, which has lots of names, is the moment where we get to actually have the most impact and steward our donors, as well as see their capacity and their potential and investment level.

A little bit about why people choose to give. I think we all assume that people choose to give because they believe in the mission, because it’s the right thing to do, because it feels good to be a part of. But Susan Howlett is a researcher at the University of Washington, and she found that in all of her research, there were three key motivators for people choosing to make a donation. Making a difference was a key element. That was a big piece of the puzzle. But equally important to people were the idea that they were a part of something, that they were taking that collective act of being in community, and also that they were getting recognized, or known as a part of this community, or a good person giving.

It is an opportunity for you to raise unrestricted funds, to be able to understand what the capacity of your donors is, to really have that opportunity for collective action and an opportunity to be recognized. And ultimately, in that moment, when you raise your paddle, you’re able to achieve all three of those things that Susan Howlett identifies as why people give. As the paddle goes up, you’re getting recognized, you’re getting seen, people are applauding, there’s a lot of positive energy, it feels good to be a part of, and you’re directly impacting that mission.

So the paddle raise is this really superpower moment, and it’s a moment that sometimes we go into and don’t think a lot about. So I wanna give you a couple of the key strategies to apply, and some of the planning to apply, in how to do a paddle raise effectively.

First, when do you do a paddle raise? The most important part is that we have everyone seated and paying attention. I want to really highlight seated and paying attention. It’s very hard to do a paddle raise in a standing cocktail hour reception. But when you have a seated program and you start your program, we have a couple of key elements that we always recommend that you include.

First, there is a group dynamic at play and you cannot help it. It is happening in today’s webinar. It is happening in every meeting you’re in. It is happening at every event you’re in. That group or audience dynamic is that they come in not knowing what to expect. They’re invested to be here, but they start to understand how to participate and their engagement level naturally increases. And then there’s a moment where they’re thinking about their next meeting, their next appointment, their next day. They’re thinking about getting home and getting comfortable and getting into soft pants, and their energy naturally decreases.

So you are constantly looking at the fact that there is this group dynamic at play, and if you build your program to match that group dynamic, you can actually maximize your fundraising moment. Now, a lot of people wait till the end of their program, and you’ll see in this that the group dynamic is checked out. They’re already thinking about their next thing. They’re ready to head home. But if we move our fundraising to the middle of that arc, into the middle of the event, we like to think of it as five chapters.

The first thing we’re always doing is welcoming people and giving them some direction about how to be a part of this community, giving them clarity about what we’re here to support. Chapter two, we wanna make sure everyone in the room knows about the work of the organization. So chapter two is really our show-and-tell about our mission. We love to do this with a video that shows our work and a speaker who can tell about the vision or the impact.

Then chapter three is the fundraising. That’s where we focus our audience on how to be a part of it, because we’ve said “ready, set, go.” Ready is chapter one, set is chapter two, go is chapter three. We don’t wanna waste chapter three on the “go” being about honorees or keynote speakers or entertainment. We want that go moment to be about supporting your organization. So that’s where we put the fundraising. If we have a live auction, it can go there. Paddle raise definitely goes there.

Then everything else in your event can come after the fundraising. That’s where you can have your celebration, chapter four, which is often entertainment, keynote speakers, honorees, things that folks wanna stick around for, but are also sort of the big bow on top. And then you end with that gratitude, that big love bomb that thanks sponsors, you thank your board members, you thank all the donors that gave today. When you put your fundraising at the height of that arc, you have that arc actually supporting you and working toward that moment, and the paddle raise feels so good. When you wait till the end of the night and the energy has already dropped and people are already heading out the door and you make an ask, it just never feels good. It always feels like, “Wait, I’m already thinking about soft pants. I am not ready to raise my paddle.” So the paddle raise always needs to happen at the height of that arc, when the energy is at its highest. After we’ve explained to folks who we are and what we do, what we’re all here to support, we make that ask and we ask folks to be a part of it.

Now, there are three key elements to the paddle raise that I wanna tap into, because you want all three of these pieces in place. The first thing is your story. The second thing is that ask, a call to action. Folks have been eating dinner or they’ve been socializing. You need that call to action to invite people to be a part of it. And then there is the collection. So let’s talk about each of these three elements.

First, you want an impact story. We recommend that you have an impact story that shares the work of your organization, the impact of your organization, through one narrative, one person. If you tell the story of all of your programs, you’re watering down your impact. We learn through personal narrative, and we have found through lots of research that when you tell single stories, people feel more connected, and when you tell the story of many, people feel less connected.

Paul Slovic did a study in which he was trying to understand why, when there’s big news and big things going on, people don’t take action, but when there’s the everyday smaller story of one individual, people take lots of action. What he found was that when he made the big case and asked for support, he got very little, almost nothing. And when he told the single story and asked for support, he got an overwhelming amount of response. When they asked people why, people said, “Well, I can’t solve world hunger, or I can’t solve this issue, because I don’t have the funds to make an impact.” But when they heard the individual story, they thought, “If my one dollar could have an impact, my ten dollars could have a bigger impact, and my hundred dollars could have an even bigger impact.” So with the single story, people are more motivated to give more.

Interestingly enough, we found that when we enter a statistic and combine them, for example, “this is one of 14,000 children impacted by our food initiatives,” that simple statistic addition of going from single to many drops giving by more than fifty percent. So that single impact story, one person who has a story of before they met you, what the change was when they met you, and how their life is after, is the key critical story you need to set up your fundraising.

Then you need that call to action, an invitation that says, “This is for you to participate in. You’ve been observing, and now we’re going to ask you to participate.”

A key element of that ask, though, is if we think about that arc and that momentum leading up to our fundraising: if we have told the single story of an individual, we have now released dopamine and oxytocin, which is the moral molecule, the connection molecule. As soon as we are done telling that story, and we love to tell that story via video, the lights come up and we introduce that they are a real person in the room with us today. We introduce Kristen to the stage. As soon as we do that, there’s another little burst of oxytocin. Then Kristen has her Price Is Right “come on down” moment where she makes her way to the stage, and we have another burst of dopamine that hits the audience, and oxytocin, two amazing hormones that have huge impact on giving. Then she turns around and she has a very real moment, a surprise, a cheer, a tear, nervous energy, whatever it is, and the audience supports her and you have another burst of oxytocin. And then she steps up and asks everyone to participate, and there’s a round of applause, and you get another burst of oxytocin. Now you ask people to raise the paddle and you move in the collection. That simple action can get everyone in the room on board and feeling excited about that paddle raise.

Now, we never walk into a room guessing what we’re gonna raise. We always have a strategy in play, and I wanna talk about a couple of those strategic elements for planning going into the paddle raise. First of all, you can do an active ask or a passive ask. An active ask is a paddle raise. A passive ask is something like there’s an envelope on the table. The active will always raise more because, if we go back to Susan Howlett’s research, people want to feel a part of something and also be recognized for their support. An envelope doesn’t allow them to do that, but a paddle does. So in this moment, as soon as that paddle goes up, Carmen here in this photo has the opportunity to be seen as a supporter, to be in community with everyone else in the room raising their paddle, and to directly impact mission.

Now, we always want to have some pledges or pre-commits in advance. I’ll tell you the secret number: you need at least three gifts at your top two levels. The key thing is you’re trying to show a sense of trust. You’re trying to teach your audience that people give, and give generously. You’re also trying to show people how it’s done. All you have to do is raise that paddle. And you’re trying to show that other people are joining in, so don’t miss out. We find that if you have at least a paddle go up at a big level and then two more go up at the next level, you start to hit a tipping point. By the time you get that fourth, you now have momentum, and now you have that tipping point where everyone is jumping in. So having a key strategy in place where you know what your pre-commits are so you can get the momentum going also allows you to know your starting level.

You never want to ask for giving, after you’ve told this beautiful story and built this energy in the room, with all the oxytocin and dopamine going, at a giving level that someone can’t raise their paddle at. So if your highest pre-commit is $1,000, you start at $1,000. If you start at $5,000 and no one raises their paddle, all of that energy literally falls off a cliff and it’s like a record-scratch moment. It also instantly teaches your audience distrust. It says, “No one’s giving. I’m gonna wait.” But the second you say, “Our first giving level is $1,000,” and a paddle shoots up, you now teach people, “Okay, this is something to trust. People can be a part of this.” So you always want to know that you have a couple of gifts at the beginning that start the energy, but also you want to know what your starting level is. Who is your top donor? I’ve had some organizations start at $100. I’ve had other organizations start at $100,000.

As long as you know where your top giving is and your energy is, then as you move through your fundraising, you can also leverage a matching gift challenge. In this case, we always look for where we can move critical mass of a gift. Where can we identify the opportunity where a match motivates other people to become socially a part of winning that matching gift? So something like, “I need ten gifts at this level and we will unlock a matching challenge.” That allows your fundraiser on stage to work toward those ten paddles in the air. And then at the end of every paddle raise, we always remind folks that if their company matches, we would love for them to raise their paddle and show that they have the opportunity for corporate match, and we record or collect all of those so that we can follow up on the corporate matching gift.

So let me show you how this plays out real quick. Here’s an example of an organization where last year their top level of giving was $1,000. They had two donors at $500, four at $250, three at $100, and their critical mass was at $50. Coming into the event this year, we challenged them with going back to their $1,000 and $500 donors and asking them if they would pledge in advance to give. They secured that pledge, but then we also challenged them to go to a family foundation that supports them and ask if they could secure a matching gift. They secured a $10,000 matching gift challenge. Now, it didn’t make a lot of sense for them to start at the $10,000 level, because they had no one else that would match at $10,000. They didn’t even have two that would match at $5,000 or four that would match at $2,500.

So going into the event, we scripted their paddle raise first with the $1,000 gift and said, “Our board member, Joanne, is kicking us off with this $1,000 gift in hopes that one other donor can match her.” That was a hero moment we threw into the room, and they got two. Someone matched her giving. Then at the $500 level, we had a pledge pre-committed raising their paddle, and when they raised their paddle, we now had three. You can see that that turned into four gifts really happening quickly. Then at the $250 level, we just asked for gifts and secured six of them. So now we’re already ahead of where we were last year.

When we got to the $100 level, our goal was to move the critical mass up, so we identified that tonight, $100 was going to be our last level of giving. We had a matching gift challenge that we needed 100 paddles in the air at $100, and it would unlock another $10,000. We got 124 paddles that went up that night. All of the people that raised at the higher levels raised again at $100. Looking back at their donor list from the year before, they only had one donor that did not participate in the $100 gift, and she still made a $50 donation on her way out the door at checkout.

So with a little strategy, with a clear story, with a compelling call to action, this can be the moment that feels like a superhero moment that everyone gets to be a part of.

As we close out today, I wanna make sure folks drop their questions in the chat. And to close this out, I have this short video that demonstrates what it feels like when you see the paddle all come together.

Emcee: You fired up to raise some money for North by Northeast tonight? Folks, we’ve come to a very special part of our program, and what I’d like to do is ask everyone to get really quiet at this moment. So if we can get everyone real quiet right here, right now.

Co-host: We have the opportunity now to share the story of a fantastic partnership with one of our North by Northeast family members. Please turn your attention to the screens to learn more.

Abigail Lawrence: My mother and my father are civil rights workers. They very much instilled in us the importance of standing up for each other. When I first got diagnosed with high blood pressure, [I] was in here every three weeks. That’s the day they saved my life. I knew I was gonna be okay because you trusted this place.

Video Participant: They really helped save people’s lives,

Abigail Lawrence: and I think there’s a lot more lives we can save and reach.

Emcee: Community,

Co-host: it is my honor to introduce a North by Northeast patient, friend, family member, and a member of our Patient Wellness Council, Abigail Lawrence.

Abigail Lawrence: Thank you, Jamal. Thank you very much, and thank you all for being part of my family. Being cared for by North by Northeast feels so good. And because of North by Northeast, I feel like Black health matters in this community. I want our important work together to continue and thrive. You make all of that possible. You make all of that possible with your generosity, and I ask that you give all that you can, and thank you for saving my life.

Emcee: This is the moment where we all get to come together and give generously. So here we go. We’re gonna start off at the $5,000 level. We have levels of giving for everyone in the room tonight. So first level is at $5,000. Who out there would like to make a gift at the $5,000 level? Bidder number 198 at $5,000. Bidder number 105, that’s the Frank Foundation. Bidder number 102, Dr. Johnson, thank you very much. I wanna hear a roaring round of applause for all of our donors at the $5,000 level.

The Collins Foundation wants to ignite some generosity. They will match the first four new gifts at $2,500. Your gift will be doubled. We’d love to have your support. Bidder number 207. Bidder number 191. Bidder number 161. Bidder number 332. For anyone that gives at $500 tonight, you’ll [clip ends]

Samantha Swaim: Thank you all for joining us today for the paddle raise, and I will make sure that the slides and the video demo are available. And I look forward to answering all the questions on Thursday.

Ann Fellman: Great. Sam, thank you so much. Gosh. I felt like I was really there. That was awesome. So just let us know. Do you wanna connect with Sam? Do you wanna talk to Bloomerang? Do you just wanna learn more? Go ahead and answer that poll, and we can loop you in. So, again, we’re just wrapping up here. It’s time to finish out today, so put your questions in the Q&A. Or if they’re in the chat, don’t worry about it. We’ll grab them from both spots. We’re gonna talk about all your questions and more on Thursday, same time and place.

And with that, everyone have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you tomorrow, when we’ll hear from Rachel D’Souza at the same time, 2 p.m. Eastern. So have an awesome day. I’m gonna end the poll, and thanks for joining us.

Samantha Swaim: Thank you, Ann. Thank you. Have a great day, everybody.

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