Let’s Learn
- Creating Your Peer-to-Peer Event
- Setting the Theme
- Customizing Your Pages
- Creating a Custom Email Layout
- Publishing Your Event
- Promoting Your Event
- Familiarize Yourself with the Participant Experience
To host a successful event, preparation is key! The following resources will ensure to set you up for success.
Creating Your Peer-to-Peer Event
The easy-to-use setup wizard will capture important event details such as:
- Event name
- Project URL
- Important Note! Your Project URL will be generated automatically based on the event name you choose but you can select a new URL, as long as it is not being used by another event. The system will automatically check for this. Once you have selected a Project URL, it cannot be changed.
- Description
- Helpful Tip! This is a great area to include one or two sentences about your event. This will display when a user shares the event and on search engine results.
- Event start and end dates
- Event location
- Event contact information
- Fundraising goal
- Donation deadline
- Helpful Tip! This is the date that your event page and all the pages associated with it will stop accepting donations.
- Additional fundraising features: you can enable or disable the following features:
- Include registration fees in fundraising totals (displays on the personal fundraising page thermometer)
- Allow event direct donations
- Allow participants to enter offline cash and check donations
- Team fundraising settings
- Important Information! This is where you can enable team fundraising, require participants to join a team, allow participants to create new teams, and allow donors to donate directly to a team.
- Participant types
- Helpful Hint! By selecting the gear icon next to a participant type you will have the ability to add a participant type description and discount codes for that specific participant type.
- Registration open and close dates
- Additional registration options: you can enable or disable the following options:
- Allow participants to register others for the event
- Require participants to agree to a waiver to register for the event
Please note that if you need to update any of the information captured during the initial set up you can manage your event details from your project dashboard at any time.
Setting the Theme
Use the Event Builder to customize the look and feel of the different landing pages associated with your event.
We suggest customizing the text styles, colors, buttons, and form elements to make the various pages associated with your event look their best.
Helpful Tips!
- Once you establish the theme it is applied across all event pages.
- You can copy and paste the RGB codes from one area to another to make it a bit easier when establishing your colors.
- Be sure to save your changes often.
Customizing Your Pages
Navigate to each of the event pages to add and edit content. After customizing your pages, it is best practice to view the Live View of the page by selecting Live View from the toolbar in the Event Builder. This will show you what your participants and supporters will see once you’ve published your event.
We suggest focusing on the following pages:
Event Home page: This is the first page your participants and supporters will see.
- This is where you will want to outline your fundraising initiative and house all your important event details.
- Upload a hero image or customize the hero background color.
- Add content elements such as individual and team scoreboards, images and video, donor listing and sponsors, progress bar, and event details.
- Customize your event page layout by dragging and dropping content sections in the order of your choice.
Participant and Team pages: You will want to customize your participant pages with your event messaging and branding. If your event has team fundraising enabled, you will also want to customize your team pages. This is a great way to get your fundraisers off to a great start. They will have the ability to edit and update the content on their participant and team pages, but for the majority who choose not to customize their page, it is already done for them.
- Set the Fundraising settings and specify if you want to include unverified donations (cash/offline donations) in the total amount raised and enable the fundraising goal to display a thermometer
- Set the Message Board settings
- Add images and video
- Click directly on the text area to add custom messaging
- You can add additional sections if you want to add more text, video, sponsors, or an image gallery.
Registration Contact Information page: Update this page to ensure you are capturing all the participant information you need.
- Click directly on the page to make real-time edits to the verbiage
- Choose what contact information you want to collect from your participants
- Helpful Hint! This is where you can require participants to provide a phone number and also opt into collecting emergency contact information from your participants.
- Add custom questions for any additional pieces of information the form does not cover
- Enable the fundraising goal to prompt participants to set their own fundraising goal
- Enable or disable the search and leaderboard permissions
- Important Tip! By enabling the search and leaderboard permissions your participants will be opted in by default to having their name appear in search results and leaderboards. For their name not to appear they will need to opt-out during registration.
Donation Form pages: You will want to update the direct donation, solicited to an individual and solicited to a team (if applicable) donation pages to ensure you are capturing all the donor information you need.
- Click directly on the form to make real-time edits to the section headers
- Implement a minimum donation amount and ask donors to cover the processing fee
- We suggest implementing a minimum donation amount of $1 to $5
- Enable suggested donation amounts and add a description next to each donation amount if you would like
- Helpful Tip! Descriptions of suggested donation amounts encourage your supporters to give more. For example, if you are a pet rescue organization, your description might say your donation of $20 ensures 5 shelter animals can eat for a month, or $200 pays for an animal to be spayed or neutered. Research shows that donors are encouraged to give more when they know how donations are specifically benefiting your cause.
- Customize the donor contact fields
- Add custom questions for any additional pieces of information the form does not cover
- Increase your revenue by enabling matching gifts
- This gives the donor the ability to search for the employer and indicate that their donation is eligible for a company match. They will be provided with instructions on how to get their donation matched by their employer and you will be able to see which donors indicated their gift is eligible for a match in your event donations report to be able to follow up with your donors.
Creating a Custom Email Layout
Further the branding of your event by creating a custom email layout that you can apply to your event’s automatic emails in addition to any emails you send using our engagement tools. Using the toolbar, upload your event banner, organization logo, or text to the header and footer.
Helpful Hint! Be specific in what you name your email layout so that when you pull into your event’s automatic emails you know which layout to choose.
Publishing Your Event
Now that your event is built out, it is time to publish it!
There are two ways to publish your event:
- From the Event Dashboard select the drop-down next to Open Builder and select Publish.
- If you are already in the Event Builder select the Publish button located in the top toolbar next to the Save button.
Promoting Your Event
Now that your event is published, it is time to promote it!
- Add the Event URL to your website – Add a link/button to your event home page on your organization's web page. If people forget the event URL, this is the place they will first check.
- Strategic Email Blasts – Create your email content ahead of time and schedule it to be sent on a specific day and time.
- Share on Social Media – Make sure that you have added a Social Share widget to your event home page to allow supporters to share your page via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. There are also Share buttons on all Participant and Team pages. Encourage your participants to share their pages via social media.
- Promote Your Event in Your Daily Routine
- Add to your email signature – Add the event URL with a note like "Check out our event!" in your email signature so that everyone you communicate with can learn about your fundraiser.
- Add an announcement to your phone's opening message – When people call your organization, they often hear a menu of different departments or people they can speak with. Before going into those options mention your event and the URL.
- Send text messages – Shoot your friends a text message with your event's URL. They can easily click on the URL from their phone and head directly to your event's homepage and register or donate.
- The Classics – Contact local media, make flyers to promote throughout your community, and post ads in newsletters and regular mailings.
Familiarize Yourself with the Participant Experience
The registration process is intuitive and easy for participants. It is best practice to familiarize yourself with the registration process and participant experience so that you are equipped to answer any questions that may arise during your event.
We recommend reviewing the following resources:
- How Participants and Teams Register for the Event
- How Participants Add and Edit Content in the Fundraising Hub
- How Participants Update Their Account Profile
- How Participants Add Offline Cash and Check Donations
- How Participants Send Emails
- How Participants Use Fundraising Coaching Tips
- How Participants Share Their Page on Social Media
We also suggest passing off the Fundraiser and Registrant FAQ Center to your potential supporters and participants. You can embed this link in your event email communications so that your supporters have it handy.
Know someone who would benefit from online fundraising tools?
When you help us bring them into the Help Good Happen family, we’ll make a donation to your cause!
Help good happen. Claim your referral bonus here.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.