Leading The Way: Jenny O'Bryan
In the end, we achieved both goals. The gala raised $1.2 million, and we had 80% of the funds committed before the night of the event. And, because it costs less to produce a virtual event, we netted $100,000 more than we did last year …
When Jenny O’Bryan at the Children’s Cancer Association (CCA) had to cancel three events in New York, Texas and Oregon in April, she knew that she and her team were going to have to approach fundraising very differently for the foreseeable future …
Tell me about Children's Cancer Association.
Children’s Cancer Association (CCA) started 25 years ago around the kitchen table of a family from Portland, Oregon who lost their daughter to cancer. They knew children needed more than medicine; they also needed joy. CCA brings joy as a standard of care to seriously ill children, teens and their families across the country. We leverage the healing power of music, friendship and nature to enhance the mental and emotional well-being of 12,000 pediatric patients in the Northwest and at ten partner hospitals across the country.
In a normal year, what does CCA's fundraising look like?
At CCA, we raise every dollar through the generosity of our community, from individuals, private and corporate foundations and corporate donations. We receive no federal or state government funding. A significant category of fundraising for CCA has been events. Internal events we produce ourselves, and external events others in the community put on for us. Events make up half of our budget, so they are critically important to us. But we know events can be a lot of work and expensive to put on. So we’ve been working hard to diversify our revenue stream through private and corporate foundation grants and corporate partnerships. Those corporate partners sponsor our events, organize employee giving campaigns, grant stock and donate funds through cause marketing where, for example, they’ll give CCA a dollar from every product sold.
How much does CCA usually generate from its biggest events?
Our three biggest events all happen during the summer months and consist of a large annual gala which normally raises about $1.2 million and two golf tournaments that each raise about a half a million dollars. From June to September, we raise a little over $2 million from those three events alone so that’s a critical time for us.
When you think back to the March timeframe, at what point did you know CCA was going to have pivot its approach to fundraising?
Early 2020 was such an exhilarating time for CCA. We were on the precipice of expanding nationally and were just about to produce some incredible events – our annual Get Inspired breakfast for 500 people in Portland, Oregon; an event in Austin, Texas called Live From The Heart and a small, private event in New York City for 80-100 people. We had lined up several famous musicians to play for the Austin event and had already sold corporate sponsorships and 250 tickets. The event in New York City was a cultivation, get-to-know-you event for about 80-100 people. We’d been planning that event for months. The team knew it was audacious, but we were so excited about it.
The New York event was the first to get cancelled after one of our partners called and said, “This is not going to happen. People aren’t even riding the subway here.” Then, South By Southwest in Austin was cancelled, but since Live From The Heart was much smaller, we continued to hope we could still have it, but by mid-March, we realized that the responsible thing to do was to cancel both the Austin event and the Get Inspired breakfast.
For two weeks, we were reeling, mourning the loss of these events that meant so much to our team and the organization. We wondered what we should be doing. Should we be calling our donors right now? Should we not be calling them? Do they want to hear from us? During that time, our entire staff had to leave our office and start working from home. We spent these two weeks figuring out how to cancel our events, whether to postpone them or offer refunds, how to communicate the cancellations to people, etc. It was a wild time.
What did you decide with respect to contacting your donors?
We’ve been working with a consultant named Miranda Wellman who’s been helping us think through some strategic planning we were doing. Miranda looked back at other historic events like 9/11 and the 2008 recession to see how people responded, what happened in the nonprofit landscape with giving in the weeks and months after those events. Based on what she learned, she told us what’s most important is to continue communicating with your donors. That doesn’t mean you’re making an ask. Instead, you continue to demonstrate impact and you share what you’re doing as an organization. How are you dealing with the crisis? How are you pivoting? As investors, donors and stakeholders in CCA, they have a right to understand and care about us. So we reached out. In those early weeks, we didn’t do any soliciting. Instead, it was about listening, about opening lines of communication, finding out how the pandemic was affecting them. Some of our donors are of a certain age or demographic where the pandemic wasn’t affecting them all that much. On the other hand, we have very loyal donors in the hospitality and food and beverage industry that were being decimated. One thing Miranda stressed is that those who can’t give right now will come back if you keep talking to them. If you keep the lines of communication open, if you keep showing your impact, they will come return when they can.
We created a segmented list and started with what we called our top 100 and branched out from there. We called, we sent emails, we texted, we wrote blog posts, we shared reports on our website about continuing to deliver our programs virtually. To create the list, we looked at dollars donated but also at lifetime giving. We prioritized the people in our leadership circles, those who have been by our side for a long time. We divided the names up among our small but mighty team and just making phone calls.
What did you do next?
By April, we started to get our feet under us and began focusing on our summer events. In consultation with our board, we quickly realized that virtual and digital would have to be the approach for our gala. But golf was still happening. People were golfing every day here in Oregon. It’s so busy, you can’t get a tee time. Luckily two of our three events are golf-related so we tried some innovative stuff right away. We created a Golf For Joy marathon and asked individuals to golf a marathon in one day. They got to decide what that looked like – 100 holes of golf, five rounds of golf, some sort of athletic feat. We asked them to raise funds for CCA through peer-to-peer fundraising pages. We were hoping to raise $100,000 by getting 20 golfers to commit to raise $5,000 apiece. We put the event together quickly in about four weeks and reached out to friends and donors all over the country. We ended up with ten golfers and raised about $60,000. So we didn’t hit that initial target, but we learned a lot, and more importantly, we started bringing dollars in the door.
Next, we reached out to some of our corporate partners, like Gibson Guitar, and asked them to help us. Gibson put together a really cool guitar giveaway, leveraging their network, customers and fans and raised $35,000 for us. We held our annual car raffle but lowered the price of the tickets from $40 to $25. The raffle sold out faster than it ever has.
We postponed one of the golf tournaments from June to August because half the participants would be coming from out of state. By delaying, we were hoping that things might improve slightly. We ended up pulling off the tournament at the end of August. People came from all over. We made a lot of adjustments and modifications, but our supporters showed up for us.
Tell me about CCA's September gala. How much did you wind up raising?
We made the decision in early May that our September gala would have to be virtual. It was an easy decision but also a sobering one. Our team loves our gala. It brings everyone together. It’s much more than a fundraiser to us, and it was heartbreaking to think about not being able to hold it in person.
In June, we shared the decision with our board of directors and asked for their support. They immediately got on board and wanted us to shoot for the stars.
We set a goal of raising $1.2 million, the same amount we raised last year, and having 80% of those dollars committed before the night of the event. We charged our board with helping us fundraise by hosting either virtual or small in-person viewing parties and setting a goal of how much they wanted to raise.
In the end, we achieved both goals. The gala raised $1.2 million, and we had 80% of the funds committed before the event. And, because it costs less to produce a virtual event, we netted $100,000 more than we did last year.
Wow .. What enabled you to be so successful?
It goes back to Miranda’s advice about continuing to talk to our donors. Bringing them along the entire time, so that by the time we asked for a donation, they were ready to make a gift if they could. We also had the luxury of watching other nonprofits’ virtual events in the spring and learning what worked and what didn’t from them.
Miranda told us that we needed to be on a donor’s top three list in order to solicit them successfully. If you’re not in the top three, you probably aren’t going to get anything from them this year. You still talk to all of your donors and keep reaching out to them, but the bulk of your team’s energy should be directed at the folks who value you most.
As a team, we focused on every donor, every conversation. We reminded ourselves that despite everything happening in the world – the pandemic, the fires, the business closings – we had every right to be having these conversations. The kids and families we serve depend on us, and they are even more isolated now. We had trainings, we did role-playing, we practiced, we supported each other. We focused on holding respectful conversations with our donors and supporters and offering them the opportunity to give. And if they couldn’t, we were respectful of that, knowing they will give again when they can. We focused on how we were going to answer one key question – Why should I give to CCA right now instead of another organization? It all came down to the urgency around helping our kids and families who are feeling more isolated, more anxious, more stressed than ever, more alone in the hospital and needing us more than ever.
We asked our long-time donors to consider making a larger gift this year, and every one one of them did. We gave people a range of options on how to give. Did they want to make a one-time gift or sign up to make monthly donations? Would they prefer to give by participating in our online auction or donate during the live appeal during the gala? Did they want to buy a raffle ticket for one of eight "The Future is Joy” Commemorative Epiphone Gibson Guitars or donate to one of our board member’s fundraising pages?
What surprised you?
The generosity of our supporters. Their willingness to trust us. We produce a live, in-person music experience every year called the Supper Club. At the gala, tickets for two people for three concerts go for upwards of $3500. It’s a popular auction item, and we raise $100,000 every year from the tickets. We wrestled with what to do with the Supper Club this year. I wanted to do a virtual series, reduce the price and sell something we could be confident of producing. But after Chris Funk, one of our board members and a member of the band The Decemberists did some research and vetted the idea with his musician friends, he told us that people are tired of virtual. They want live, in-person music. They’re willing to pay for it, and they’re willing to wait. He recommended that we promise folks we’ll do a concert series as soon as the restrictions lift. We tell them we don’t know when that will be or who the bands will be but it’s going to be amazing. We reduced the price to $2500 per couple, sold out the tickets and raised $100,000.
What lessons have you learned?
Continue that dialogue with your donors
Show the impact of your organization in a variety of ways – impact reports, emails, social media posts, phone calls.
Make a plan. When I think back to the early months of the pandemic, we were just spinning. At some point, you just have to make a plan and stick with it. Try something. If it doesn’t work, adjust and try something else. We’ve gotten much better at saying, “Let’s make a decision. Let’s try it. If it fails, it fails. That’s okay; we’ll try something else.” Early on, we were more afraid of failing, of making a wrong move, but we’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with that.
What's next?
Getting ahead of everything. Not having to be so reactive. Being strategic and planful, which is how we normally operate at CCA. Now that we’re done with our summer fundraisers, we’re starting to plan for the rest of our fiscal year which ends on April 30, 2021. We’re even looking a year or two ahead instead of being forced to focus on operating day by day or week by week.
Once the world opens back up, what will you take forward from this time?
In all areas of CCA, not just fundraising, we’re going to become a digital first organization. We’re always going to be thinking about things with a digital lens. What does that look like for the future? For our programming? We’re doing these amazing virtual appointments with hospitals in New York, Boston and Texas. How will we continue to leverage digital capabilities? In person will always be an important part of who we are, but using digital technologies to progress and scale is something we’ll take with us for sure.
Jenny O'Bryan joined the Children's Cancer Association (CCA) in 2009 and currently serves as the Vice President of Revenue & Development. She leads a sophisticated fundraising team that creates and executes against annual revenue goals. Prior to CCA, Jenny led world class events for the Portland Rose Festival Foundation, including award-winning parades, art festivals and fundraising events.