Crafting a Successful Event Stewardship Plan: 4 Steps

If you’ve ever planned a fundraising event for your non-profit, you know that a lot goes into the preparations. From finalizing the logistics to setting a budget to designing promotional materials, your team will likely have their hands full with the basics (not to mention figuring out how to level up your event to create an unforgettable experience for participants from start to finish)!

Part of pulling off an engaging, memorable event is strategically following up when it’s over: "Maintaining donor engagement starts with showing that you appreciate and value each supporter’s involvement with your mission, which is where donor stewardship comes into play,” Winspire says.

In this guide, we’ll walk through four steps for creating a concrete plan to effectively steward event participants and retain their support long-term. Let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

• Consider everyone you need to thank

• Choose and prepare appreciation methods

• Plan a social media strategy

• Set up data collection systems

4 Steps to an Event Stewardship Plan

1. Consider everyone you need to thank.

Your fundraising event’s success depends on many different people, all of whom deserve your gratitude afterward. Ensure your stewardship plan includes the following groups:

• Participants: Naturally, this group contributed the funds you needed to achieve your goal, so they should be first on your list to thank.

• Sponsors: Although you probably promoted the businesses who supported your event through your marketing and fundraising materials (e.g., adding their logos to event signage or the bid sheets for auction items they donated), you should also send them personalized appreciation messages after the fundraiser.

• Volunteers: Better Impact’s volunteer management guide explains that “a strong appreciation strategy is your first step in ensuring volunteers feel valued and inclined to stay,” meaning stewardship doesn’t just help with donor retention! Let your volunteers know that the tasks they performed to help your event run smoothly didn’t go unnoticed.
• Staff: Even though your employees will be compensated as usual after your event, many of them likely went above and beyond their normal duties to help it succeed, which you should recognize separately.

Create a chart listing all of these groups, how they helped your event succeed, and what type of information they’d like to hear from your non-profit in follow-ups. This will help you brainstorm the content of your messages and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

2. Choose and prepare appreciation methods.

Once you know who you need to thank and why, your next step is to decide how to show your appreciation for each group. The best methods will depend on your audience’s size and unique contributions. Here are some ideas for expressing gratitude to the audiences mentioned above:

💌 Write thank-you emails for participants.

Emails are easy to send in bulk, and while some content can be universal, it’s also simple (and important) to personalize the greeting of each email with the supporter’s name.

You could also mention the specific ways each participant contributed to your event (i.e., paying for admission, buying merchandise or auction items, entering raffles, participating in peer-to-peer fundraising, donating via text-to-give, etc.) to tailor your messages even more.

✍️ Give handwritten notes to sponsors:

You’ll likely have significantly fewer event sponsors than participants, so writing thank-you notes to them by hand won’t be as time-consuming but will still demonstrate an extra effort that shows you care.

Have a board member or executive team member from your non-profit sign each note to boost its authority, and use stationery with your organization’s logo to keep your brand top of mind for sponsors.

🎁 Surprise volunteers with branded merchandise.

Design a t-shirt, water bottle, sticker, or other custom branded gift especially for your event volunteers and mail it to them along with a personalized note.

They’ll probably love getting a free, tangible gift (who doesn’t?), and they’ll feel like part of your organization’s community every time they wear or use the product.

🎉 Host a workplace celebration for staff members.

The week after the event, pick a day to cater lunch for your team, shout out employees’ specific contributions, and show a video or slideshow of pictures recapping the fundraiser’s success. Not only will your staff get to celebrate their achievements together, but it may also motivate them to work hard to make your next initiative even more successful!

Create preliminary versions of all of the materials you’ll need for these appreciation methods—email templates, talking points to put in sponsor cards, designs and orders for volunteer merchandise, and plans for the staff celebration—before the event.

This way, you can send thank-you messages more promptly after the event and deal with less stress after you’ve already hosted an involved fundraiser.

3. Plan a social media strategy.

While it’s important to thank those who contributed to your event personally, you can also express your gratitude more generally on social media. Along with the rest of your stewardship plan, create a calendar of social media follow-up posts to celebrate your event’s success with your whole community.

Your social media content might consist of the following:

1. Short Videos or Photo Compilations: Show participants having a good time at the event!
2. Infographics: Provide post-event analysisof key success metrics(more on this later).
3. Spotlight Posts: Show off event volunteers or participants who contributed in significant ways (e.g., being your top peer-to-peer fundraiser or winning one of your raffle games).
4. Imagery: Show what your non-profit accomplishes with the funds raised during the event, such as a completed project or beneficiaries receiving services.

In addition to celebrating and showing appreciation for this event’s success, posting these types of social media content can encourage other community members to get involved with future fundraisers.

➡️ PRO TIP:Just make sure to obtain consent from the subjects of your photos and videos (or their guardians if they’re underage) before sharing them.

4. Set up data collection systems.

In both personalized and general thank-you messages, sharing concrete details about what your supporters and team helped you achieve makes your appreciation more impactful.

Before and during your event, collect data that will help you evaluate your achievements, including the following data points:

• Total funds raised
• Revenue generated from each giving touchpoint at your event
• Total attendance
• New donor acquisition rate
• Event-to-event donor retention rate (for annual events)
• Signups from each marketing channel
• Total sponsorship revenue
• Sponsor acquisition and retention rates
• Volunteer acquisition and retention rates

Ensure your event technology is set up to track this information as soon as you open registration so you can easily review these metrics after the event and draw conclusions to share in follow-up messages. Plus, you’ll have the data ready to go the next time you plan an event to inform your approach.

Once you’ve put together your stewardship plan using the strategies above, review it with your whole event team to make sure everyone is on the same page and ready to execute it after your event.

After sending out your initial recognition messages, collect feedback from participants, sponsors, and volunteers on the entire event experience—from signup to stewardship—so you can also refer back to that data as you plan future fundraisers.