Chicago Livestreaming Company Tag

How to Exceed Your Nonprofit Event’s Fundraising Goal

The evening was over and about 75% of the guests had already left. Our team of six was packing up all of our equipment for the night. An ecstatic employee of the nonprofit walked up to me and said, “This was the most amount of money we have ever raised. Thank you!”

Nonprofits around the world spend so much time and money every year trying to figure out the holy grail to fundraising…how do we get people to donate? After producing hundreds of nonprofit videos and attending many events (too many to count), we know what works. We have our formula and we’re here to share it with you today.

This list is by no means exhaustive and doesn’t guarantee results but if you incorporate some of these tips into your next nonprofit event, you just might see some success!

Impact Film
Donors want to know the impact their money will have in furthering your nonprofit’s mission. Pictures, text, and speeches can only go so far. But when you see someone in their own words saying how a nonprofit organization impacted their lives and seeing what that impact looks like, that’s pretty powerful.

Let’s say you frequent a local coffee shop. Week after week, day after day, you go there. Everyday, you say hi to Sara who is always at the cash register. You ask how Sara’s morning is going, what she’s doing for the day…it’s usually a very cordial conversation. Sara responds to your questions, returns your change, and gives you your coffee.

But after doing this routine for three months, you realize that Sara has never thanked you for buying their coffee. In fact, Sara doesn’t even know your name. Think about that for a moment. How sad is that?

Perhaps you have identified a list of the most qualified donors; people you know who will come back year after year and donate to your cause. But have you thanked them? Have you shown them how their impact has helped your nonprofit? Have an impact film produced that shows the work your nonprofit is doing. It will make a world of difference and you may even see a few tears in the room.

Live Entertainment

Speeches and slideshows are great but donors nowadays want to be entertained. Consider providing some sort of live entertainment to wow your crowd. For this particular nonprofit event, it was called “Dancing With The Barrington Stars”, which was held at Avante Banquets in Fox River Grove, IL. Local “celebrities” were chosen to dance with well-trained dancers. The pair would practice for several weeks leading up to the event, choreographing a dance to music with the help of a local dance school.

Prior to the event, people could donate money to their favorite team. The team who raised the most money would receive the “People’s Choice Award”. During each of their dances, we displayed a live total on large projection screens that would update as people donated more money to them. The projection screens we provided also showed a live video feed of the dancers so everyone was sure to see the action up close.

On the night of the event, we provided a top-tier lighting system, which changed colors and moved to the music. Each of the dances had a color theme so we used those colors in the lighting scheme. Attendees were on their feet, clapping and dancing to the music. The night was a blast.


At the end of the night, awards were handed out to the People’s Choice Award winner, Judge’s winner, etc.

Live Donation Amounts

Throughout the night, the nonprofit organization held various appeals to increase the overall donation amount. On the projection screens we had, we displayed live totals, showing real-time donation amounts coming in. People loved to see their donation impact the overall goal and it was a fun, interactive way for everyone in attendance to collectively help the nonprofit reach (and in this case exceed) their fundraising goal.

Livestreaming

If the pandemic has proven anything, it’s that people will watch events online. We still have many clients concerned that offering a live online component to your event will impact in-person ticket sales. We are here to tell you that every event we have livestreamed, the number of people watching the event online was 2-4X the number of people in attendance.

Think of that for a moment. If you have 200-400 people in person, what kind of impact could your nonprofit make if you were able to 2-4X that audience with an online component? By offering a livestream of your nonprofit event, now people who weren’t able to be at your event at the exact date/time/location, can now tune in from all over the world. Offer digital tickets, sponsorships, and interact with your online audience.

Our nonprofit client went into the event with a $300,000 goal. They ended up raising over $354,000. It was their most successful fundraiser to date!

If you are looking to take your nonprofit event fundraising to the next level, reach out to us today to start discussing your next event!

Event Photos: Courtesy Bacoa

Read More

Holy Name Cathedral Christmas Eve Midnight Mass Broadcast

Delack Media Group is honored to have produced the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass live television broadcast at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. Seven months of planning for the production came together in a beautiful evening for viewers across the globe who watched the live mass on WGN-TV, which was also livestreamed online.

This marked the first live broadcast of the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at Holy Name Cathedral since the pandemic began, which captured local news media interest.

On the first day of setup, our crew of 15 braved -8 temps and -30 windchills to string cable from our mobile production studio into the cathedral. Over 1,000 feet of fiber and copper cable ran through the sanctuary to connect 10 cameras, including a 25′ jib. A separate audio booth was created for Fr. Greg’s commentary, complete with a mix minus feed and confidence monitor.

Tech Specs:
4 Blackmagic Ursa Broadcast cameras plus 6 PTZ cameras were sub switched into the ATEM 2 M/E. Program out was sent via two separate cellular bonded signals for redundancy to WGN-TV for transmission. Another feed was sent via VMix for simulcast on YouTube. Production was flawless.

The broadcast received local Chicago news media coverage:
ABC7 Chicago

WGN-TV:

Have an event that you need broadcast or livestreamed to an international audience? Contact us today to get the conversation started!

Read More
New York Stock Exchange Livestreaming

Ryerson Investor Day Hybrid Virtual Event

For us, there’s a lot of satisfaction to see how we can take a client’s concept and create it into an amazing hybrid event. A hybrid event is an event where people attend in person and online. We’re producing a lot of hybrid events nowadays. In a post-pandemic event world, people now almost expect that while you may offer a typical in-person event, you should also have some sort of online livestreaming component as an option.

Offering an online experience for your attendees is crucial for people who can’t attend the event in person for whatever reason. You may be fearful that having an online component will reduce the number of in-person attendees. While in-person attendance post COVID has definitely gone down, online viewership has increased exponentially. And that was exactly the case for this hybrid event we produced in New York.

This investor day event was held at the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) Siebert Hall for Ryerson. Siebert Hall is dedicated to Muriel Siebert, the first woman to buy a seat on the NYSE, which happened before the exchange was member owned.

Website Development
In one week, we built a fully functional, fully responsive website for the event where people could view the agenda, speakers, event info, and register to either attend in person or watch the event virtually. All registrants needed to be approved prior to either watch online or attend in person. You may view the event website by clicking here.

Media Training
A few weeks before the event, we flew to Minneapolis to record all of the speakers giving their presentations. Each speaker received a USB thumb drive with their presentation video on it. That way, the presenters could review the video and see how their presentation went.

Site Survey
We always think that checking out a venue prior to any event is a great idea. We’re able to advise on locations, timeline, and ways to improve the event through video. A few weeks before the event, we were able to tour the space. While doing that, we learned about two portable vertical video displays that we could use at the venue. We decided to create one moving graphic that would be seen on a vertical video display as guests walked in. That motion graphic had a similar branding aesthetic to the event website we developed. The second vertical video display had a looping video that showed the company’s locations and capabilities.

Content Creation
Before the event, we also produced 7 videos, a countdown, show open, lower third name/title graphics, and a break countdown that were all shown during the investor event.

Livestreaming
While the event was held in person, a larger online audience also watched the event live through the website we developed. Online attendees were also able to submit questions to the presenters, which were answered in real time.

If you have an in-person, hybrid or virtual event you’d like to produce, we’d welcome the opportunity to provide ideas on how we can make it amazing for you!

Read More