From Ballroom to Online Giving
How the Pandemic Changed Fundraising for Nonprofits
QUICK ANSWER: The pandemic didn’t invent digital fundraising. It made it unavoidable. Nonprofits that had built their year around one in-person event learned that giving can happen anywhere, anytime, for anybody. The organizations that keep both, live events to deepen the connection and digital campaigns to keep it flowing, are better placed to build a second stream of revenue.
What did nonprofit fundraising look like before the pandemic?
A donation looks one-sided. It isn’t. Donors give gifts, sponsorships, cash and in-kind support, and in return they receive gratitude, belonging and a certain standing among fellow supporters. The intangible product every nonprofit sells is a feeling: feeling good, feeling responsible, feeling worthwhile.
Before the pandemic, that feeling was mostly served live. A benefit concert, a charity gala, dinner and dancing. We are social creatures, and “feeling good” goes down best at a table full of friends. For most nonprofits the big event was the biggest day of the year: the most work, and the biggest slice of annual proceeds.
The strategy behind it was simple: engage influential people who naturally meet people of means through their social and professional circles. Selling the feeling of “feeling good” works best through a personal connection.
The model had three built-in limits. The venue, which meant a relatively exclusive group. The sphere of action, which meant mostly the local community. And the calendar, which meant once a year.
A gala is a lake.
Beautiful, deep, and filled once a year.
Digital was the supporting act. Websites processed donations, emails reminded guests to buy tickets, social media passed along the invitation. Asking a major donor for a big pledge through a screen would have been considered a terrible faux pas.
A few digital tools existed. GivingTuesday had been around since 2012. AmazonSmile gave 0.5% of eligible purchases to a charity of the shopper’s choice, which many nonprofits thought too little to bother promoting, and which shut down in February 2023.
The moral of that story: a platform can disappear overnight.
A relationship with a donor does not have to.
What happened when the ballrooms closed?
Overnight, the dinner tables were gone. Events were canceled or postponed, and nonprofits had to do something they had never planned to do: move everything to a screen. Virtual reality became our new reality.
The hardest part was the ad-hoc switch from live interaction to digital communication. And yet nonprofits and technology pivoted fast. Video platforms became familiar to everyone, so even the smallest nonprofit could host a virtual trivia night or a happy hour. Fitness apps let participants log their progress in virtual runs and A-thons.
Giving itself moved online in a big way. GivingTuesdayNow, created in response to the crisis, saw a preliminary estimate of more than $503 million in online donations in the U.S. on May 5, 2020.
Followers turned to Facebook birthday fundraisers. Supporters raised money among their own friends through peer-to-peer campaigns, which feels more personal and moves part of the work into the supporters’ own networks. Online auctions ran around the clock instead of for one evening. And new ideas popped up like mushrooms: restaurant partnerships, virtual quiz nights, even teaching children at the dinner table about microdonations.
The ballroom closed.
Giving didn’t.
What looked like a temporary workaround turned into a crash course. Teams learned new platforms, audiences showed up in new formats, and supporters found new ways to stay close to the causes they cared about.
Did virtual fundraising replace the gala?
No, and anyone who says so has never danced at a gala. Virtual reality can’t replicate cocktails, dancing and fireworks. Personal interaction is human nature, and “feeling good” simply feels better when it is shared in person.
Think of the lucky bidder who won dinner with a celebrity, an autographed guitar, or a one-on-one session with a pro. That person keeps feeling good long after the evening ends. A screen can sell the item. It struggles to sell the evening.
So when the doors reopened, many organizations swung straight back to classic fundraising. Understandable. People missed each other.
A gala is local.
Generosity has no boundaries.
But the pandemic had shown something that can’t be un-shown: giving doesn’t need a ballroom. The feeling travels. It just needs a new vehicle.
So what actually changed for good?
Going back to exactly how things were means squandering the momentum and missing a macro trend. The digital transformation happened, whether or not a nonprofit joined it.
Before the pandemic, asking a potential donor for a seven-figure gift through a computer screen would have been unthinkable. That barrier has moved. Digital pushes past the old limits: no single venue, no local-only circle, no once-a-year date, no carefully selected guest list. It makes the feeling of “feeling good” available to anybody, anywhere, anytime.
It may not bring in single high-digit gifts, though it might. What it does bring is a second revenue stream, built like a river: many drops, from many places, flowing all year.
A gala is the lake that fills once a year.
Digital creates a small creek flowing all year long.
The two don’t compete. They do different jobs. The lake gives you depth and drama. The river gives you reach and rhythm.
What does digital fundraising really take?
Here is the catch nobody puts in the invitation. Virtual activities typically cost significantly less than a live event, provided nonprofits overcome their natural hesitancy to invest in strategy, infrastructure and staff.
Live fundraising runs on personal connections and an influential circle. Digital fundraising runs on technology, research and data, and people who know what they are doing. Different fuel, different engine.
Many drops make a river.
But only if there is a riverbed.
That is why “let’s try a Facebook thing” doesn’t build a river. A river needs a riverbed: a database that remembers donors, a story told the same way everywhere, a website that makes giving easy, and somebody responsible for all of it. Without that, a drop is just a puddle.
Where does that leave a nonprofit leader?
With a two-pronged strategy: classic and digital, side by side. Live events deepen the connection. Digital keeps it warm for the other 364 days of the year.
Organizations that understand the shift to digital isn’t going away tend to stay ahead of the curve in their field. The ones that treat it as a pandemic phase tend to find themselves starting over.
Keep the lake.
Build the river.
So ask yourself one question: what is my organization doing on the other 364 days? If the honest answer is “working for the next gala,” you have a lake. A very good one. But no river.
If you lead a nonprofit and wonder how to build that constant flowing river without losing the lake, the Booster Program page shows how I work and what is on offer.
The gala will always have its place, and so will the screen. Keep the lake. Build the river. Your donors will find you either way.
