I managed my first virtual gala. It was quite a bit of upfront work. We raised just over $515K, but only $30K the night of the event. We didn’t have an auction. It was free to attend, yet we promoted sponsorships. We had just over 250 households watching with most of those organically-grown watch parties, which we will encourage and promote next time. We had three honorees—a corporate partner, a donor, and the 2021 graduating class. We also had two memorial acknowledgment segment—another big hit. One family put us in their estate planning because of it. The other family and friends raised over $50K for their named scholarship.
We had a live VIP Lounge pre-event and live breakout rooms post event with moderate success because of a few logistical glitches. The crown jewel of the evening was a live Q&A session with Frank Luntz, board member and conservative pollster, and four current seniors and two alumni—people went nuts over it. We received compliments that ranged from it was the best virtual event people had seen to “You all tried to do too much.” To this day, I personally haven’t seen one as good as the Cristo Rey Network’s virtual event.
- Hire a production company–do NOT try to do this yourself
- Get started much sooner than you would for an in-person event because everything is so front-loaded—a month and a half to 2 months sooner
- Push the envelope—don’t play it too safe
- Include some live elements where your audience can participate—live Q&A where the audience can chat in questions, etc.
- Have a fully operational dress rehearsal—don’t pencil things in and say, “At this time, we’ll have this happen.” No, have that actually happen. Do whole rehearsal as though it were the night of—everything. If we had done that, we would have avoided the logistical glitches we ran into on the big night.
- We will do this again next year in some form