When the Lights Go Down: How to Follow Up After an Event for Lasting Impact

Nothing quite compares to the moment when the final guest waves goodbye and the lights dim at the end of an event. It’s the culmination of months–sometimes years–filled with careful planning, ambitious dreaming, intricate negotiations, and relentless communication, all topped with a healthy dose of stress. And now that everything has fallen into place for success, it's time to kick off those (uncomfortable) shoes and relax.

Or so it would seem.

In today’s fundraising world, the finish line has moved. No longer is the event itself the sole pinnacle of achievement. Instead, it’s the journey that’s claiming center stage. While a flawlessly organized nonprofit event continues to be a venue for connection, celebration, and essential messaging about the impact of generosity, it now serves more as a springboard than the climax of our endeavors. A strategically planned event marks not the end but the beginning of an opportunity to deepen relationships and enhance how donors engage with our organization.

So, slip those shoes back on—or maybe grab a more comfy pair—because we have meaningful work to do.

For a strategic donor engagement program, crafting a thoughtful follow-up plan for events is essential, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming. It also should never be an afterthought. Stephen Covey’s sage advice in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"—Begin with the End in Mind—is the perfect guiding principle for planning your event follow up. Start by contemplating the ultimate aim: What do you hope attendees will think, feel, or do differently after the event? Then, consider how success will be assessed. Your follow-up plan emerges from these reflections.

With the clarity of your event’s purpose in mind, design a thoughtful follow up plan that not only measures success of the experience itself, but also provides opportunities to reinforce the outcomes you seek. As you plan, consider incorporating both proven tactics and a new approach may be just the right fit for a particular event. Some of my favorites include:

• Surveying Donors. As we say often at DRG, if you want to know what donors think, ask them! Direct feedback from donors is the best way to know if you’ve met the mark, yet too often nonprofit event planners skip this step. It doesn’t have to be a chore. Keep the survey concise (5 questions or less), and focus on elements you can control that link to the event’s goals. Utilizing tools like the Net Promoter Score helps gauge success effectively. Through thoughtfully designed questions, seek to understand whether the event enhanced donors' connection to the organization, if they learned something or met someone new, or whether they experienced gratitude—whichever ties back to the event’s initial purpose. Regardless of your organization’s tech capabilities, survey tools are easy to find and easy to use. Asking for feedback—and implementing it—also demonstrates to your donors that you care about their experience. Make surveying a habit, and it will change the way you engage with donors through event experiences. 
  

• Saying Thank You. Think about this: by attending our organization’s event, donors give us their most valuable resource—their time. Imagine what might happen if we dedicated an equal amount of effort to express personalized gratitude after each event as we do in response to a gift. And it’s not just about the thank you message that accompanies your survey—the possibilities here are endless. Send a handwritten note. Follow up with a phone call. Share a personalized ThankView video. Or all of the above! Consider upping your game by organizing these expressions of gratitude to come not only from your team or leadership, but also those involved with the program. How cool would it be for a donor to receive a message of thanks from the beneficiary who shared their story at the event?
  

• Extending the Experience. We pour so much time, creativity, and money into events, that it’s really a missed opportunity when we let it end once the lights go down. So, extend the energy of the experience—and your message—by sharing videos, photos, highlights and testimonials with attendees, on social media and with internal partners who weren’t there. This allows your guests to relive cherished moments and pulls back the curtain for others to create a different type of shared experience. Make the extended experience part of your other follow up plans by including these efforts in surveys and thank you messages, as well.
  

• Remembering Non-Attendees. If they are important enough to land on your invitation list, they are important enough to hear from you after the event—even when they couldn’t attend. Remember that for most events, 80% or more of those we invite will not join us. This is an important—and sizable—audience to include in your follow up plans. Design a non-attendee survey to gather insight into factors that prevented their attendance. Share highlights from the experience that ensure they, too, feel connected and receive the event’s intended message. Not only does this help you improve planning efforts for future event experiences, it also provides a meaningful touchpoint that demonstrates you care more about your relationship with them than just this one event—and it offers another prime opportunity to express gratitude for their involvement with your organization’s mission. 
  

• Involving the Entire Team. While the design of a thoughtful follow-up plan should be led by the same team organizing the event, its implementation offers a wonderful opportunity for partnership in action. Enlist development officers and leadership in the effort with specific follow-up tasks connected to donors and prospects. This can include providing additional information about programs or initiatives featured at the event, sharing moments of gratitude, scheduling the next interaction, or inviting them to future events. Keys to success here include upfront communication and collaboration about what’s possible, setting clear timelines for action, and providing tools to execute tasks and track responses. When possible, get creative about it—share behind-the-scenes moments from the event that make the follow-up more interesting, and if the event has its own branding, use that for materials to help it stand out from other communications.
  

• Recording and Sharing Is Caring. If it isn’t recorded in your database, did it even happen? Be sure to reflect the team’s efforts and your donors’ actions by capturing all this activity comprehensively in your CRM system (even if that’s a spreadsheet!). Interactions surrounding an event experience are insightful to a donor’s overall engagement with our organization, and it’s essential that we track everything from email opens to attendance to survey responses and follow up communications. Use data to inform decisions about future event experiences. Have you noticed a certain segment of your invitation list never responds to OR attends your events? What might happen if you excluded them next time and instead designed a survey to solicit their input on what type of engagement would be the most meaningful to them? Tracking and revisiting behaviors related to event experiences can help us better design meaningful engagement for our donors. 

  
  

  But don’t just capture it—share it with others in your organization. Demonstrate your team’s strategic value by highlighting successes and opportunities for improvement based on the feedback you collect and the behaviors you track. This helps open the door for nonprofit event professionals to be more than order takers, but rather advocates for experiences that purposefully connect donors to their impact.
  

Events are no longer a static endpoint—they are a powerful milestone in a donor’s ongoing journey with our organization. As such, we have an opportunity to design not only a dynamic and perspective-shifting live experience, but also a thoughtful set of next steps that form a pathway to lasting impact and meaningful engagement. Remember that true success lies not in the event’s spectacle, but in the strength of the relationships it fosters.

So, give it a try. What’s one new follow-up step you can weave into your next event plan? And what’s one we didn’t mention that you’ve found successful? We’d love to hear from you. 

And then take a little time to rest those weary event feet—go ahead, you’ve earned it!

Written by Matthew Helmer

Matthew S. Helmer is a consultant, speaker and trainer with the Donor Relations Group. As a Certified Event Designer, Matthew understands the power of purposefully crafted experiences in strengthening donor engagement and regularly guides nonprofit organizations in reimagining their events to drive desired outcomes. And as the resident DRG Unicorn, he always has a pair of dancing shoes at the ready!