Charity Fundraising Communications

For the past months, a group of wonderful volunteers and staff from the Toronto School of Art, www.tsa-art.ca, have been planning and preparing Hidden Gems, the school's signature fundraising event, held every two years. This year it will be at Steam Whistle Brewing on October 26 from 7:00-11:00 p.m.

From the communications perspective, the difference between the first two editions in 2007 and 2009 is that now we have a Facebook page with 650 followers and an email list of 3,000 people. We have a much better reach through social media. I'm sure the Twitter and YouTube presence will develop over time, but for now, they are still in their infancy.

While we have greater reach, the struggle is for attention. I have met a number of my classmates in recent weeks at art shows and the school and it's clear that despite the ability to reach them, our audience is not paying full attention. At best, they usually only have a vague awareness of the event.

The reasons for this are many. We started promoting over the summer, everyone's attention is elsewhere. The reality of fundraising events is that Toronto has hundreds of them. I think the reason people attend them is because someone asks you personally, even if you are highly engaged with the charity. I don't know if my experience is the usual one, but the idea of going out and spending several hundred dollars to be with people I likely don't know does not appeal to me. I have to admit that I did not attend my school's earlier fundraisers because I did not think I would know anyone there, and looking at the photos after the event, I think I was right.

So the big question is how to break through to our key audiences and get them interested in attending. I believe the answer is a well balanced effort of personal invitations that leverage the power of social media. Given my greater commitment to Hidden Gems this year, I talk it up with my fellow students. While they usually have only a vague awareness of the event when I start the conversation, once I invite them personally, something changes. They now have a connection and are much more open to it.


I believe we are building a very successful event despite all the challenges on the way. The test will be how many tickets we sell, how many people attend and how much money we raise for the school. We need to use all our touchpoints to invite our students and friends, and ensure they will meet friends there, ideally because they are bringing them! It needs to start with personal invitations - either through another student who is a friend, presentations in classes, invitation post cards, as well as creating a buzz on our Facebook page and event information page. I am confident that if we focus enough attention on all our in-person and social media channels, we will create a wonderful event that will help the school and its students while building greater awareness in Toronto about its best art school!

Thanks for reading! I hope to see you there, if you mention that you read my blog, I'll buy you a drink. Full info about Hidden Gems, including ticket purchase, is available at www.tsa-art.org