How Making Memories Created Engaging Event Experiences with the OneCause Fundraising Platform

Background

Background

Making Memories Playschool provides a secure and educational environment for children from the ages of six weeks to five years old.

Founded in 2014 as a part of Adventure Christian Academy in central Indiana, Making Memories has provided children the care and opportunity to grow physically, socially, and educationally. Their main mission is to make learning fun and provide parents with the peace of mind of a safe and trusting childcare experience.

After many years in the same facility, Making Memories decided to move to a new building that allowed them to leverage outdoor classrooms – and they looked to their fundraising initiatives to help support the cost of the new space.

Making Memories decided to host a gala event to bring together their supporters for an auction and night of fun. The team was committed to creating a seamless and engaging experience for their in-person attendees and supporters.

Challenge

Challenge

This being their first large-scale fundraising event, the team began to look for a fundraising software solution that would make their planning, execution, and event wrap-up seamless and easy.

Their event coordinators, Melissa Irish, Erin Maurer, and Allison Dant had never leveraged fundraising technology before – but they knew the traditional pen-and-paper approach, which they had used in past auction events, made event planning long and tedious.

As their event date approached, the team knew they needed to find a fundraising partner who would not only support their event goals but make executing their event easy, from start to finish.

Making Memories was looking for a software provider that would:

  1. Help them reach and connect with their donors.
  2. Rally the community around an impactful mission.
  3. Engage donors and families in new and unique ways.
  4. Provide an easy, consistent giving experience.

Solution

Solution

The Making Memories team decided to partner with OneCause after seeing the value and functionality that the OneCause Fundraising Platform provided.

“We didn’t know software like the Platform existed. The software did everything that we were looking for in our event while making the whole fundraising process easier and user-friendly,” explained Maurer.

With the support of the OneCause Fundraising Platform, the Making Memories team was ready to host their Fun the Future gala. Through the planning and execution of their event, Making Memories effectively reached its supporters by creating engaging event experiences and leveraging top-rated support.

Engaging Event Experiences

Making Memories was ready to transform the Fun the Future gala from an idea into reality with the OneCause Fundraising Platform. The team leveraged training resources to get their event off the ground and began creating engaging fundraising experiences for their guests.

“Once we got into the software, it was so easy to learn and make the event site our own. Through the trainings, we really became comfortable in the system and got our event ready,” stated Irish.

With their event site published, Making Memories was ready for event night! They provided attendees with a one-of-a-kind event experience by leveraging:

  • Seamless check-in
  • Giving moments and a live appeal
  • Efficient check-out

Seamless Check-in

Making Memories was expecting more than 400 attendees at its event. With that many people, it can be daunting to ensure every guest gets into your event with ease.

Backed by the power of the platform’s Express Check-in functionality, Making Memories’ supporters were able to manage their own registration and check-in experience from start to finish.

This saved the Making Memories team countless hours that would have been spent gathering guest information. Attendees were notified before the event that they could “skip the line,” check themselves in, and complete any missing profile or payment information.

“Our attendees praised how easy it was to use the platform. From purchasing tickets to entering the event, attendees had limited questions and really took control of their own experience with ease,” said Maurer.

Making Memories checked all 400 guests into their event in record speed – giving guests more time to engage with other attendees, browse auction items, and learn more about the mission.

Live Appeal

Making Memories wanted a software solution that would help them make an impact and quickly achieve their fundraising goal. The team leveraged the live appeal functionality within the platform to create a splash at their event and keep attendees engaged.

All at once, Making Memories was able to show off its mission-focused video, display its giving thermometer, and allow guests to donate and see their impact in real time.

“Having the ability to show the impact of donations in real time during the live appeal was amazing. It was so great to see the thermometer climb and have our attendees watch how their donations have an effect in the moment,” stated Maurer.

Making Memories also leveraged the donation commitment functionality within the platform. This functionality allows nonprofits to track larger commitments from donors prior to their event and recognize them at the perfect moment during the event to achieve the greatest possible impact.

“We had about $15,000 worth of donation commitments that we kept hidden from our donation total until our live appeal. When it came time, we were able to display them during our giving moment and spur additional donor generosity,” said Irish.

Efficient Check-out

At the end of the night, the Making Memories team utilized the tools within the OneCause Fundraising Platform to quickly process payments and close out their event.

With the platform, the team was able to:

  • Quickly close their event site, raffle, and fixed-price item sales.
  • Ensure all payments were processed.
  • Analyze all proceeds in one place.

“Our event ran so smoothly because of the support of the platform. It took so much off our already busy plates and made sure we didn’t miss anything, from the start of the event until the very end,” stated Maurer.

Leverage Top-Rated Event Support

With any fundraising event, having the necessary support throughout the process can drastically improve your event execution and results.

Knowing that their event had a lot of moving parts, the Making Memories team leveraged the OneCause support team to ensure that nothing was missed on or prior to event day!

During their fundraising planning and execution, the team leveraged:

  • Phone Support
  • Event Consulting
  • Onsite Event Management
  • A vast knowledge base of resources

“The support throughout our entire fundraising experience was fantastic. There was always someone to reach out to when we needed help,” said Irish.

In addition to support in the planning process, Making Memories used OneCause onsite event management to ensure their day-of execution went according to plan.

“Our team was getting pulled in so many directions on event day. It was so nice to have support there to answer any attendee questions,” said Irish.

With such support provided by OneCause throughout their fundraising experience, Making Memories was able to focus more on interacting with their donors and sharing their mission!

Results

Results

With the help of powerful and flexible software, Making Memories experienced never before seen results:

  • $90,000 total proceeds
  • 180% of the initial fundraising goal
  • 400+ in-person attendees

Connect with a Cause

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Wrapping Up!

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