Nonprofit events remain a crucial means to fundraise and raise revenue for nonprofits. Organizations have had to update their event pages and ticketing forms to stand out in the crowd and to encourage more participation. If you’re holding a new event or trying to increase attendance at your current event, you may ask, what’s the…
Nonprofit events remain a crucial means to fundraise and raise revenue for nonprofits. Organizations have had to update their event pages and ticketing forms to stand out in the crowd and to encourage more participation.
If you’re holding a new event or trying to increase attendance at your current event, you may ask, what’s the best way to sell tickets to an event?
This article shares 6 of the best qualities of a nonprofit ticket sale campaign and the 10 best examples of nonprofit ticket sale campaigns that stand out.
Bonus Resource – The 6 Best Qualities of a Nonprofit Ticket Sale Campaign [With More Examples]
Televerde Foundation is a nonprofit that works to educate, train, and support women to find work after being released from prison. Once Upon a Second Chance is their primary fundraiser. This event is in an old art studio and includes entertainment, food, and beverages. Tickets start at $75, and Televerde does an excellent job sharing precisely what people get with their tickets.
They’ve also included exciting upsells like extra raffle tickets to encourage people to buy the pricier tickets. They’ve also highlighted how much of the ticket price is tax-deductible. Purchasers will appreciate the transparency. This feature comes with Donorbox Events that automatically calculates the tax-deductible value of tickets when you input the fair market value and tax rate.
If you’re about to host a big annual event for your nonprofit with food, seating arrangements, additional games, attractions, etc., you must check out this event’s ticket tiers and pricing strategy for inspiration.
Driven Brands Charitable Foundation works directly with franchise owners, vendors, employees, and customers to support children’s hospitals nationwide. The Ultimate Driving Experience was started to raise funds for the Maaco HEART fund. This fund helps those experiencing financial hardship because of emergencies.
The Ultimate Driving Experience at Spring Ops takes place in Las Vegas and gives attendees the chance to drive a supercar, experience drifting with a pro drifter, race go-karts, and try out a BATAK to test your reaction, hand-eye coordination, and stamina.
This creative event is sure to excite adventurers. Driven Brands does an excellent job selling the experience and showing how this fun event can also support the organization and community.
We love how they’ve used the early-bird ticketing strategy and the associated discount to sell more tickets to their event. It’s a much simpler ticketing form with fewer options and can very well be used in case you don’t have a lot of different experiences to offer.
Pongo Poetry Project’s mission to engage youth in writing poetry to inspire healing and growth is a unique way to address rising depression and suicide rates in the younger population. Their Speaking Volumes online event hosts a best-selling author and includes a ticketed and free public event.
Tickets to the reception cost $50, and $45 of that ticket price is tax-deductible. Pongo Poetry Project stands out because of the quality of information they provide on its event page, including times and how funds from the event affect the organization.
They also offer a $0 ticket for people who will just join in for the celebration and not the author interaction part of the event.
If your intention is to encourage more and more people to join and engage in your event with no pressure of buying tickets, this can be a great example for you.
Quality Services for the Autism Community (QSAQ) is based in New York City and Long Island and supports children and adults with autism. Their goal is to provide these individuals with training and support to help them find more independence and realize their potential.
ABANYC is their annual conference that brings together professionals from across the industry. They’ve done a great job showing what attendees can expect and how their participation can help them in their careers. Tickets are split into student, professional, and parents or caregivers, with the price fitting each type’s need and ability to pay.
The organization also utilized a general registration ticket tier that is discounted up to a specific date and time to create a sense of urgency and encourage more participation in the event.
The war in Ukraine started with several events meant to support those displaced by the war. New York and New Jersey house the largest population of Ukrainian refugees.
UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY ON THE BOAT around Manhattan is a charity event that targets those of Ukrainian descent, but with a limit of 600, there is plenty of room for anyone to join. The organization’s event page also provides compelling images of the entertainers and Circle Line Sightseeing cruises, and since it’s posted on Eventbrite, new audiences can easily find it.
Who doesn’t love Justin Bieber? If you do, the Stratford Perth Museum has an exhibit attributed entirely to the musician’s career. If you’re not a Bieber fan, you can also check out the museum’s several other exhibits.
Yapsody allows nonprofits like the Stratford Perth Museum to create urgency with their event page. Each ticket includes a time limit to show when sales stop.
The Sarala Bathena Foundation’s Charity Golf Outing is another event page that shares where funds go and what attendees get for their money.
The tagline “Good food, good drinks, good people, and good times on a beautiful course” also promotes a friendly and comfortable theme from the start.
People can purchase individual tickets for $150 or sign up as a sponsor and get a free foursome along with various marketing opportunities during the game.
Charity Water is another well-known organization that excels in marketing its organization and events. Event funds from the Fargo Gala provide clean water to thousands worldwide.
Charity Water inspires people to buy tickets to hear a featured speaker, enjoy a delicious dinner by Chef’s Table, listen to music by Jon Walters, and give to support an important cause.
The details provided on this event page make it stand out from the crowd and will ensure many sign up without feeling buyer’s remorse.
Boys & Girls Club Monmouth County offers after-school and summer camps, mentoring, life skills classes, sports, and more. Their Swing for the Kids golf outing includes golf, lunch, dinner, and a roaming beverage cart.
The prices for tickets may seem high at $1,000 for an individual or $4,000 for a foursome, but the venue, the Hollywood Golf Club, and a limited number of tickets encourage people to sign up quickly.
This organization has also included sponsorship packages on the event page and added respective tiers on the ticketing form to promote and allow companies to sign up for a sponsorship and bring attendees to enjoy a day of golf.
Children 1st Community Development Services provides resources to low-income families, foster children, and adolescents affected with learning disabilities. Their Plant a Seed event is the organization’s third annual gala, including music, entertainment, and food.
Sponsors can sign up to receive marketing opportunities and VIP reserved tickets at this event. Children 1st does an excellent job sharing exactly how sponsorship funds support their foster care, coding, and youth empowerment programs.
If you’re seeking sponsorships for your annual gala or any fundraising event, an event page or ticketing form like this can be a sure winner. You can share the link in your sponsorship letters to make it easy for your potential sponsors to get a ticket.
Now that you’ve seen some of the best examples of nonprofit ticket sale campaigns, let us give you the best qualities that can help make a ticket sale campaign successful.
The Covid pandemic changed the nonprofit world, especially when it comes to events. Many nonprofits were forced to move their events online and found that it opened even more fundraising options.
Today, hybrid events are the norm, so the best events include online as well as in-person options to engage both types of audiences.
You need to price the tickets accordingly. Usually, online event entries are charged less as food and seating arrangements are not included. However, if you’re holding a virtual raffle or online trivial night or a virtual walk-a-thon, etc., ticket sales can help you raise significant revenue.
Here’s an excellent example of a hybrid event that includes both in-person as well as virtual event options.
Before you send out an event invitation, you must decide what to write. The best way to entice people to buy a ticket is to share what they’ll receive in exchange for their money.
Some nonprofits do this with exceptional speakers or entertainment. Other events include activities like trivia games, carnivals, or marathons. When sharing the event details, you must share why your audience should care about your entertainment or activity.
For example, “Join us and be the first to see Pink Martini in person this year. Pink Martini’s 2022 tour is already sold out, but you can see them in person for half the price at our annual fundraising gala.”
Nonprofits can also promote their events with popular news stories. Does your organization address an issue that’s found new resonance in the news? Or, has your speaker recently shown up in a well-respected publication? Use these stories and publications to market your event to a new audience.
This school event page does an excellent job of highlighting the benefits of the event with images and descriptions to entice more people to attend the event.
Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is another way you can drive more people to purchase your event tickets. Scarcity and urgency will almost always cause people to act.
In your next social media post, be sure to say you only have a specific number of tickets or give a deadline to purchase tickets before they’re gone.
You can also highlight on the ticketing form or the event page which ticket tiers are selling fast and how many you’re left with. That often makes people take a fast decision as to which ticket to buy and do it right away.
This workshop event below highlights the fact that only 8 writers can participate in it and that just a few slots are left.
Another way to sell more on your event ticket page is with ticketing tiers. There are a few different ways you can upsell tickets. The first way is with discounts. Offer the second ticket for half-off or discount ticket prices the more they buy. You can also sell tables or batches of tickets for a discounted price.
Another option to upsell is through VIP options. Let people buy tickets and one-on-one time with your speaker or include products with certain ticket sales. These additional ways to make attendees feel special help donors remember your event and share their experience online.
The below annual gala event ticketing form includes discounted couple tickets as well as various levels of VIP dinner tables to make it an easy decision for a wide range of potential attendees.
Finally, you must always make it easy to buy tickets. Technological changes have offered more than just new choices; they’ve also created an unwillingness to wait too long to get what you want.
People have a much shorter attention span, so you can kiss that sale goodbye if it takes too long to purchase a ticket to your event. Once a person decides to buy a ticket, it should never take more than three clicks before they’re done.
Donorbox Events lets your potential attendees easily buy tickets to your event. They can select the tickets, fill out their information, make an additional donation (or not), and complete the payment. That’s all! They can also use Apple Pay to buy tickets.
Technology has also opened new marketing opportunities for nonprofits. Most marketers agree that sales should include seven to ten touch points. A touch point is the number of times your audience hears about the event.
Nonprofits should promote all upcoming events on their website, email, and social media accounts. They can also reach out to people with direct mail, in-person or by phone, send texts, print advertising, or other media choices. The more your donor base hears about the event, the more likely they will buy a ticket.
If you’re hoping to encourage more participation at your next event, we hope this article helps inspire you and gives you a few tips on what you can add. And if you’re looking for an event-ticketing platform to easily get started in a few minutes and manage your event page and ticket sale online, Donorbox Events is here to help!
Donorbox Events is a simple-to-use tool that nonprofits love to use for a hassle-free event-ticketing experience. It has an array of features, all meant to boost your ticket sales and give your purchasers a great ticket-buying experience. If you don’t want to use the Donorbox-hosted event page, you can also embed the event-ticketing form on your website event page. If need be, you can even fully refund the ticket amount.
Sign up for free and explore the Events feature on the Donorbox dashboard. There are no monthly contracts involved either!
Donorbox also helps nonprofits with their online fundraising needs through a plethora of effective features including Crowdfunding, Recurring Donations, customizable Fundraising Pages, Peer-to-Peer, Memberships, Donor Management, QuickDonate, and more. We also have a success package called Donorbox Premium specifically designed for nonprofits wanting to take their fundraising to the next level. You get access to expert fundraising coaches and technical help along with powerful tools that guarantee more donations and outreach for your organization.
Read insightful blogs and get free resources on the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and we’ll send a list of our best resources to your inbox to help improve your fundraising and donor management efforts.
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor