Webinars, or online seminars are the ideal method for non-profit organizations to organize, and convey information to a worldwide audience without having to incur the high costs associated with travel or educational materials. No matter how large the organization, webinars can be an ideal way to communicate with donors, volunteers and staff for both training, education, fundraising and various charitable program development.
High Quality Webinars:
- Demonstrate various complex topics and concepts in an easy to learn visual presentation.
- Provide transparency and full access to a nonprofit authority.
- Addresses a large targeted audience, facilitating ultimate reach on a global basis.
Table of Contents
Webinars For Staff And Volunteers
Staff at non-profit organizations can benefit in many ways from webinars. And, since any excellent webinar service, such as, ClickWebinar, provides recording of live webinars, they can be used over and over in archive status allowing staff access anytime they need it and to train new employees and volunteers as they come on board.
Ideas for Staff Webinars
- Donation software training.
- Contribution procedures.
- How to ask for donations.
- Fundraising 101.
- Best practices for online fundraising.
- How to engage constituents with a website.
- The ‘rewards of giving’ type of training that can help staff to understand the purpose of what they do.
- Interacting with high dollar donors.
- The mission statement of the organization.
- The goals the organization wishes to achieve.
- Dealing with typical problems that can arise with donors.
- Government regulations for non-profits and for donations.
- Donations and taxes.
Webinars For Donors
- Webinars can be used to detail the various charitable contributions the non-profit is seeking funds for on an on-going basis.
- Online fundraising webinars can be elaborate ‘online events’ and a great way to engage more contributors for a non-profit organization by using the power of the Internet and its traffic potential.
- They can be used to provide a detailed description and to showcase the organization, its history and its functions.
- Webinars can be presented on how the non-profit allocates its funds, this will provide trust for the donors, so, they know how their donations are being spent.
- Annual or any regular fundraising events can be detailed via webinars and how they benefit the organization and the donor.
- Emergency fundraising needs can be promoted through webinars.
- ìDonations and Taxes’ related topics as they relate to donors.
- Webinars can show the progress of the charity and how donation dollars are being spent.
- They can also be used to present staff, volunteers and all those that contribute to make the charity work to donors, which, can further engage them to remain committed.
- For those organizations that provide money to the needy, sick or the hungry, a webinar is ideal because the use of the video feature in a webinar can be used to go into the neighbourhoods, communities and hospitals where the dollars are put to use.
- And many more.
Key Elements To Conduct The Best Webinars For Non-Profits
The following elements can go a long way to creating a productive, functional and successful webinar.
The Organizer
First and foremost each webinar needs to have an organizer or facilitator assigned, which, will be the person responsible for the overall coordination of the event.
This includes, planning the time and day, organizing guest speakers, conferring with the presenter, promoting the webinar, coordinating registrations, communicating with registrants and implementing it the day it goes live.
Basically, this person will act as the webinar manager and coordinate all the angles involved.
Assistant
An assistant is an important consideration. They can aid the organizer in all the preparatory steps required and most important they can be there to assist when the webinar goes live.
An assistant can be invaluable to deal with technical issues that may arise, troubleshoot and to address tech questions from the audience without disturbing the webinar. They can also help to organize and triage the webinar Q & A questions that come from the audience while it is live and pass the chosen ones to the presenter.
The Presenter
The presenter will be the person actually conducting the presentation and so they will be the one to prepare all the webinar materials.
Webinar Platform Features:
- Powerpoint Slides
- Video
- Images and Graphics
- Charts and Graphs
- Social Media Integration
- Branding
- Chat Rooms
- Q & A Sessions
- And a lot more
The presenter needs to focus on the goals of each webinar and then choose the presentation mediums that will best facilitate those.
A carefully laid out content plan that focuses on all the important points within the allotted time frame is the best way to ensure success.
Considering the audience is important as well.
For example, the content and presentation may be different if the webinar is being created for the high end donors.
The amount of detail and the specific content presented will vary when the webinar is informational versus one that has fundraising goals.
Guest Speakers
For years Jerry Lewis led the fundraising Muscular Dystrophy telethons held each year, and the reason is that people knew him, he was a respected celebrity and the large amounts of donations raised reflected that.
For webinars that are created for a donor base, and especially those that are asking for contributions, one of the best approaches to take is to invite reputable guest speakers.
They don’t have to be celebrities, but, they should at least be experts in their fields, or trusted community leaders that can greatly increase confidence from the audience and facilitate more donations.
The guest speaker chosen will vary from one non-profit to another, but, it’s always a best practice to choose someone that is respected, can offer persuasive arguments to entice donations and someone who understands the topic that is being presented inside and out.
Final Thoughts
Webinars can benefit non-profit organizations just as they do for many for profit industries. When used to their full potential they can develop relationships with existing donors and also engage a variety of new ones.
In the office they help with staff training, lessening the workload on HR departments and other staff and mainstreaming the flow of pertinent information.
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