How A Non-Profit Held Its Largest Fundraising Event EVER—Virtually.

Opportunity International Canada (OIC) is a non-profit that relies heavily on its donors and fundraising to help support its cause. With the pandemic looming in early March, Dan Murray—CEO of OIC—hopped on a call with his remote staff of 14, scattered across the Canadian landscape, and calmly advised it was time to “pivot”. 

Dan challenged his team to think outside the box. In doing so, his team adopted an innovative mindset, leveraging technology to continue their initiative. With this in mind, Dan’s team set out and several successful virtual events that exceeded the reach they would have regularly had with a live event.

3 Ways to Use Virtual Conferencing to Increase Your Reach:

1. Virtual Events: OIC held one of their most successful fundraising events ever—virtually! They had more attendees than they could have had physically and weren’t constrained with geography — you could attend from anywhere.
2. Virtual Meetings: arranging meetings with customers, prospects, donors and partners can be time consuming with a lot of back-and-forth to agree on day, time and location. Going virtual removes the friction of clearing a chunk of your schedule to meet with someone, as you can easily arrange a virtual chat and conduct it from anywhere. 
3. Virtual Tours : OIC takes their select donors on Insight Trips to connect with their various countries’ partners and see their impact. These trips are important, but also expensive and time-consuming. Now, OIC is offering a virtual experience of these Insight Trips, and can offer them to more donors and way more frequently.

How Can YOU Reduce The Potential Points of Friction in Your Business By Being Virtual?

Those were some examples of how Opportunity International Canada was able to leverage virtual conferencing. Now—think about how you can reduce the potential points of friction in your business by leveraging virtual communications and events. These examples will help to serve your customers, prospects and employees:

• Instead of cancelling your seminar, hold a webinar. 
• Have a virtual coffee with a customer or prospect.
• Present your sales pitch virtually instead of in a boardroom.
• Tradeshows are cancelled so create your own virtual tradeshow booth. 
• Conduct market research by sending out products and running a virtual focus group. 
• Hold a virtual staff event to build connectedness. 
• Conduct virtual interviews and virtual on-boarding. 
• Hold a virtual Lunch & Learn.

Virtual events will typically cost less, require less time and fewer obstacles, and have even broader reach. While virtual experiences may lack some of the immersive impact of a live event, OIC has proven there is still plenty of opportunity for success.  

Not sure how to go about conducting a virtual event for your business? 

Or do you have questions about how you can invest in technology for your business?

We can help. Reach out to us any time, we’d love to connect with you and set you up for success. 

Click below to hear the full conversation between Dan Murray—CEO of Opportunity International Canada—and Clearbridge Founder & CEO Ryan Kononoff.