There's a moment most nonprofit event planners know well. You've spent months planning a gala, a 5K, or a community fundraiser. The venue is booked, the program is set, and the emails are going out — and yet the registrations are trickling in slower than you hoped. The people who would love this event just don't know it exists.
That's the gap digital advertising is designed to close. And in a recent episode of the 501(c) Drop, BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons sat down with Ryan Woroniecki, Senior Partnership Manager at Feathr, to walk through exactly how nonprofits can start using digital ads to fill seats, grow revenue, and extend the impact of every event they run.
Most nonprofits default to two channels when promoting events: email blasts to their existing list and organic posts on social media. Ryan was direct about the limitations of both.
Email engagement rates have dropped significantly in recent years, particularly since changes to Apple's mail privacy settings disrupted open-rate tracking and inbox delivery. Organic social content from organizational accounts tends to have limited reach without paid amplification behind it.
"As a sector, we've been lagging behind for a long time. Marketing technology and standard processes are one of those ways." Ryan Woroniecki, Senior Partnership Manager at Feathr
Both channels share a fundamental ceiling. They're largely confined to the people already in your ecosystem. Digital advertising breaks through that ceiling by putting your event in front of people who don't already follow you but who are highly likely to care.
One of the most powerful things digital advertising can do for nonprofit events is reach high-intent audiences who have never interacted with your organization before. Feathr is purpose-built for nonprofits and gives organizations access to the same paid digital tools that Fortune 500 companies use, including audience targeting, cross-platform tracking, and AI-assisted campaign optimization.
Rather than hoping the right people stumble across your Facebook post, digital ads put your event directly in front of people based on their behavior, interests, and demographics. Ryan described the difference plainly: a general social post is like shouting into a crowd. A well-targeted digital ad is like tapping the right person on the shoulder.
Retargeting is one of the most underused strategies in nonprofit event marketing and one of the most effective. When someone visits your event registration page but doesn't complete their sign-up, retargeting allows you to follow up with them across the internet through ads that keep your event visible and relevant.
Leya made the point from personal experience. She recently discovered a supplement through a web search, saw it resurface in an Instagram ad days later, and ended up subscribing. The same psychology applies to nonprofit events. People often need multiple touchpoints before they commit, especially when registration requires more than a credit card. It requires a block of time on their calendar.
The conversation also touched on registration abandonment rates, which Ryan noted can be surprisingly high. Retargeting directly addresses that drop-off by bringing warm prospects back to the page after they've already expressed interest.
Your previous attendees are your highest-value audience for any future event. They've already experienced what you do. They've made the commitment once. They're far more likely to come back than a cold audience is to convert for the first time.
Ryan walked through how digital ads can re-engage past attendees well before your next event launches, keeping your organization top of mind and building anticipation rather than scrambling for registrations at the last minute. Combined with Feathr's tracking and automation tools, this kind of targeted outreach becomes scalable without requiring a large marketing team.
Leya has a near-obsession with two things in nonprofit events: fast check-in and what organizations do after the event ends. The post-event window is where she sees the biggest gap in the sector, and Ryan's strategies speak directly to it.
Most organizations treat the event itself as the finish line. The real opportunity is what happens after attendees walk out the door. Digital ads can play a significant role in post-event cultivation: re-engaging attendees with follow-up content, converting one-time ticket buyers into recurring donors, and guiding people along a thoughtful path toward deeper involvement with your organization.
Ryan's framing was straightforward. Every event is an experience and every experience is an entry point. The organizations that build on that entry point with intentional follow-through are the ones that see compounding returns from their events over time.
Ryan shared what actually separates ads that convert from ads that don't.
Lead with the experience. Nonprofit events often lead with mission, but attendees, especially younger generations, are increasingly drawn to the experience itself: the community, the atmosphere, the feeling of being part of something. Ads that reflect what it actually feels like to attend tend to outperform those built purely on cause language.
Use a dedicated landing page. Driving ad traffic to your general homepage is a missed opportunity. A registration-specific landing page that matches the message of the ad creates a cleaner conversion path and makes it much easier to track results.
Show real results. Ryan shared examples of organizations that have used Feathr's platform to document actual ad performance, which helps build the internal case for continued investment in digital advertising.
Digital advertising is no longer optional for nonprofit events. It is increasingly the difference between events that grow year over year and those that plateau. The tools are accessible, the strategies are proven, and the ROI is real.
If your organization is still relying primarily on email and organic social to fill seats, this episode is a practical place to start.
Transcript Recording:
Leya Simmons (00:00)
Hi everyone, welcome to the 501c drop. I'm Leah Simmons. am CEO and co-founder of Better Unite and I am your host as always for our 501c drop webinar and now podcast. It is available to you. These are all available to you to listen to on Spotify. I'm joined today by a good friend of mine and of Better Unite, Ryan Waraneky. I have known Ryan for actually, what is it now?
four or five years, I guess, Ryan? Isn't that right?
Ryan Woroniecki (00:33)
don't even know if we met during the pandemic or right after. It was a good time.
Leya Simmons (00:36)
I'm pretty sure it was right after. But anyway,
I've known Ryan for a while. He has worked in and among in around nonprofit software industry for about a decade. Is that right? Am I right about that, Ryan? Even longer? Yeah.
Ryan Woroniecki (00:50)
Yeah, unfortunately even longer. Yes.
Leya Simmons (00:53)
Well, fortunately
for us, maybe unfortunately for you. Yeah, no. So, and Ryan is an incredible guy. One of the best networkers I have ever in my life experienced. I'm going to stop sharing that. And so just talk to you. And Ryan comes to us today with Feathr. Feathr, and I'm going to actually kick it over to you, Ryan. You all are digital ads. Like in my brain, that's the word that when I think of Feathr, that's what comes to me. So why don't you introduce yourself in Feathr, please?
Ryan Woroniecki (01:22)
Thanks, Leah. I'm grateful for the opportunity. ⁓ Really happy to be here. Happy to talk to everybody here. ⁓ Nonprofit tech and specifically how organizations can modernize the way they operate.
Leya Simmons (01:28)
Happy to have you.
Ryan Woroniecki (01:41)
is it sounds goofy, but that's actually a passion of mine, right? Like as a sector, you look historically, we've been lagging behind for a long time. One of the ways that typically comes up when people talk about it now is AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, right? But marketing technology and standard processes are one of those ways. And that's what we do here at Feathr. So.
We're a digital marketing platform that is purpose-built for nonprofits. ⁓ We basically empower organizations to use the same tools that Fortune 500 companies use that otherwise aren't really affordable. So when you think of that, think like paid digital advertising, know how ads might follow you all over the internet. That's a big component of what we do. We're an email marketing platform as well.
We have really cool tracking software. If you're not working with us and you're running ads, there's a good chance that you might be running ads directly through Meta and then directly through Google and directly in a bunch of other places. And it's really difficult to kind of wrangle all of that audience. So we have tracking software that basically allows you to see what's going on across all of those platforms. And then based on that, some really cool automations and of course,
Leya Simmons (02:53)
Yeah.
Ryan Woroniecki (03:05)
AI, AI, AI to help with like audience selection and other elements of the campaign. ⁓ So those are the things.
Leya Simmons (03:14)
So we were super thrilled to
integrate with Feathr earlier. it this year or maybe late last year? But so within Better Unite, it's now very easy to, you know, utilize the incredible tech that Feathr offers and have that with your Better Unite account. But that's not really what we're here to talk about today, Ryan. I really wanted to give you kind of free rein to discuss, show us, talk to us about all of the magic that Feathr has to offer.
Ryan Woroniecki (03:45)
Well, thanks. I'm going to try to keep it as ⁓ feather free as possible, if you will. I got a deck. It's branded Feathr. The things I'm going to talk about, you can do on Feathr, but you could also do many of them directly without us. And thought is, these are the best practices. Folks should be doing them. There's technical stuff I'm not going to talk about, which is related to the tracking code, among other things, or how do you set up a campaign.
We'll keep it all high level about what organizations can do to grow revenue, attendees, sponsors, all of the things ⁓ as it pertains to events. And so we're going to test this out. We're going to see if I can share my screen.
Leya Simmons (04:23)
I love that.
Let's
Ryan Woroniecki (04:33)
And are we popped up? Alright. So, we're gonna... Alright. So... ⁓
Leya Simmons (05:06)
We are live. Patty, let me, I will, we'll troubleshoot as you go, Ryan. And then we'll make sure that Patty gets the, and Susan Rhodes says she's okay. So, okay. Well, we've got some, but Patty, we'll get you a recording if we aren't able to get you, but I will, as Ryan starts presenting, I'll work on this.
Ooh, I like that. Never heard that said before. That's a good one.
Yeah.
I that's true. every, even the ones that do, like eventually you hit some sort of roadblock, something happens.
There you go.
Mm.
Yeah, I do think that ⁓ I think there is definitely a growth in digital ads among nonprofits that we're starting to see, which I'm so happy to see just because I mean, I know from Better Unite and our marketing efforts that
Email engagement rates are so down. Apple kind of messed all of that up for us when they segmented everything. so I, while this is not my area of expertise by any means, as you can tell what I'm saying, I do gather that it is just really difficult. then you're kind of limited to the people that you've already got in your ecosystem when you're sending out emails. So ⁓ I am seeing more and more organizations. Now I do see a lot of like organic.
attempts at organic social, which I think is hard. ⁓ Or it just seems to me as though those accounts don't do as well, the business account or the organization account. ⁓ But yeah, I think it's a kind of a wild west where people don't really know where to turn or what to do. I mean, guess there's also a lot of, sorry, just thinking it through as I'm saying it, I think there is also a lot ⁓ of hope, kind of fingers crossed in getting it out there.
of word of mouth, right? Like for an event, trying to identify ambassadors for the event early on and get them to go out and talk to their friends about the event. But again, these are all very, very small compared to what you're describing.
⁓
Right?
So.
That's good.
I think that's great guidance, right? Because I, you know, absent, I think every event is some form of experience. I mean, there is some way that it can be framed as such. And the vast majority of the people that are attending these events are attending for the experience, whether or not, even if they're saying to themselves they're doing it because they're, you know, good hearted and they support the organization and they support their mission.
They're still there for the community to talk to each other, to do these things. I really love the guidance of having people, you know, or of in your advertisements and in your communications talking about the experience of it.
Good job.
Mm.
Yeah.
sure.
I mean, there's also the, there's so much opportunity post event as well to encourage people to, you know, make a recurring donor to turn, convert them into a different type of engaged donor for the organization. So that's, that's incredible guidance for getting data on those people. Hopefully your event software is also capturing a lot of that, but I mean, keep seeing, you know, getting them from a different way, aside from the email that you might send is, is really, ⁓ with useful tactic.
100 %
Because you'll also see a lot of times too, where, mean, with BetterUnite, you can do like a combined registration when you have, you know, a husband and wife or a partner that are together on a register. But a lot of the time, only one pair of the, one partner in the pair, I guess I'm saying that right, comes up to the registration table and gives you all of their information. And maybe you get the name of the other person. Well, that person's a whole human person that you can engage separately. And so I, there's just a lot of.
A lot of use cases for what you're saying, Ryan.
.
Other content, yep.
That's a great one.
Maybe kind of like zooming out as opposed to being too close in.
Okay.
The people that you already know that are already in your ecosystem.
alumni.
This is that part where people think their phones are listening to them or something like that.
I I think actually I believe that some of it is the same because like you just don't, you didn't realize that you actually like paused on that ad or that you, you know, maybe you did click through something and then you kept going and then it surfaces back like just happens to be when you were talking about this thing that was in your brain. Anyway, I think this is true.
Me? Me. Okay. I, hmm, well, there's probably quite a few examples of this. I recently, I recently ordered some saffron that you consume, like not, not the, not the spice for food, but that you take as a supplement. And I, I looked at it because I was curious about it.
because actually my doctor talked to me about this, that it's like a mood booster. I don't know, know, some hippie stuff. And then I was like, you know, curious about it. And then I did, I saw it like come back to me. I don't remember where, on Instagram or something like that. And then, and admittedly, I did buy it. I even subscribed, so. All in.
Exactly. I'm literally a recurring donor to a for-profit company selling brain boosting herbal supplementation.
Okay, I will. I will. I'm curious. Yeah, right?
I totally agree too. also Ryan, see, and I get both sides of it, but I, you know, I would encourage organizations to ask for as little information on an event registration form as possible. But to your point, sometimes I need to know a t-shirt size. There is an ask for a peer to peer fundraising page that you could create or.
you know, if I'm asking you to buy a table, then you know, you can give me all of your guest information. And so there ends up being a lot to do. And frankly, I mean, aside from just, I don't know the information, sometimes it's like, it's too much. I'm not going to do it right now, you know?
Exactly. Now I'm going to go ask, then I forget to come back, and then yeah, exactly.
Little bit. Little bit.
Mm-hmm.
Is that the number? Whoa, I didn't realize it was that high.
How was what? I was not one of the three. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And I would bet you higher for events, honestly.
Because there's more information that we're trying to gather as we're asking them. And in some ways it's kind of a, it's a different type of commitment. Like I'm saying, I'm actually going to go to a thing, committing my time as opposed to I'm making a gift to this donation, you know, to this nonprofit, et cetera. I don't know. just, I would think I could be wrong. I can actually make the other argument now that I'm thinking about it, but I would, I would wager that it's at least very close to that number.
Yeah. I'm actually going for a thing that doesn't, you know, is time bound, but I don't know. I think you could, I think it would probably be about the same.
That's, yeah, it's just a reminder to me. Like, and I personally need reminders. Like, yeah.
I like the lists, yeah.
So great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I said.
What?
That's so great.
Get it out of the way early. Let it happen. Be done.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, meetings and I would say meetings and that sort of thing. Yeah.
I talk about this all the time. I'm a little, will admit, I'm obsessed with two things about events with the nonprofits. I'm obsessed with very fast check-in and I am obsessed with what organizations do after the event ends. I'm convinced that this is a place that we as an industry, we as a sector can move forward and take much more advantage of the opportunity.
that's right there is really like guiding our attendees to whatever type of event we're doing through a curated, cultivated ⁓ path or funnel or whatever word you want to use for it so that we can really help them along the way and get them to not just attend next year, but do another thing, right? Volunteer, become a recurring donor. Anyway, I'm on my soapbox. So you're going to speak to it, which I'm excited about.
I like that so much.
Exactly.
Yes.
moment.
Yeah. So it's so a specific landing page that they go to from that ad. Got it.
The registration page, exactly.
That's what I think is so revelatory as well, Ryan, is that it does, like I mentioned earlier, it feels like the Wild West. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do first. And I don't even know what step to take. It was programmed in me to send the emails, to do the, in my experience, small bit of stewardship that people will see people do throughout the year with their event attendees. But the...
taking another step beyond just a social post, an organic social post, feels like, you know, a lot of times I know that organizations feel that they don't know how to do it at all. So, you know, I love that there's this kind of one space you all feather that they can go to and get that guidance.
And that was the other thing that was coming to me. Yeah, as you're speaking to, I just think we talk a lot about generational giving and that there's such differences in the ways that, and this is part of what I also think with the event scene as, you know, both a cultivation event, a cultivation experience, so a full campaign and as an experience of its own, because I do think younger generations
when they're attending events, are often, they're less driven by mission, just like they're less driven by loyalty to a nonprofit when they donate, they're much more driven by fidelity to a cause. They go to the events.
to experience a thing or to be with friends or to whatever. And they kind of expect a return of some sort. And so when you serve that up and you're at, look at you. I just saw your photo. What are you with?
Yeah.
anymore.
You're brutally candid. I love it. It's one of my favorite parts about you.
But yeah.
I mean, and I think from the data that I read too, it's really like starting at Gen X and to millennials, which at this point is the bulk of people donating and this great wealth transfer coming. These are the people that we need to be focusing on over the next 20 years. And this is the way to get to them.
Maybe not in the same way, one of those.
Exactly. Well, I can't thank you enough, Ryan, for this presentation. It was incredible and I hope very eye opening for a lot of our nonprofits that these
things, I mean, in your, again, your brutal candid comments, which is that it will take some time. It is going to take some sort of investment, but the ROI is very obviously there to the extent that I can think of two days ago when I bought Saffron following exactly the same path. So we've all experienced that, you know, the retargeting that happens.
Of course!
Ryan and I will be at the Virtuous Respond, is that right? Is that the Virtuous Summit? Respond, I think that's right, in Dallas next week, starting Wednesday, which is, I think, the 27th, 28th, and 29th. So if you're in Dallas or you're a Virtuous user, or you're thinking about going to the Respond Summit, you should. And you should come say hi to both Ryan and I, who will be there. And I'm so excited to finally get to see you in real life, IRL.
Really soon. All right, Ryan, I'm going to take over your share and show, here we go, that you can contact Ryan if you have questions here, ryan.woronaki at feather.co. And if you've got other questions, you can always send them to me, Leah at betterunite.com or support at betterunite.com. I know we've got lots of people that will watch the recording. So if you've got questions or are interested in what Feathr offers and if you're a Better Unite user,
The integration is right there. You can easily get there. I also want to talk about next week. So we are going to have a 501 C drop on Tuesday, May 26, which is the day after Memorial Day. But I will be joined by Megan Draper, a nonprofit consultant with Philanthrope Reimagined. And she's going to talk to us about the hidden cost of doing good things, compassion fatigue and the capacity gap in the nonprofit sector. There's a QR code there if you'd like to scan that and register.
⁓ I think Ryan and I both know very well that that is definitely an issue that does plague our sector, has maybe for as long as the sector has been a thing. ⁓ But I'm really looking forward to hearing Megan talk about that. And then if you've got questions about BetterUnite, always scan that QR code as well for a demo or email us as support at betterunite.com. You can also go email Ryan for the same thing at Feathr or we can connect to everybody.
all at the same time, all things that are possible. Ryan, thank you again. I so appreciate you joining me today. I really, I hope this ⁓ message and idea gets out and among, you know, really gets through to a lot of the nonprofits that we work with and specifically pointing to your events that you're spending money on, that you're really like using as a launch pad for.
for your fundraising microcosm of your fundraising plan, this is a really great way, I think, to engage and extend the reach of the events.
Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks, Ryan. I'll see you next week. And for the rest of you, I hope I will see you next Tuesday on the 501 C drop. Otherwise, ⁓ let us know if there's anything else that we can help you with. Goodbye, everybody. Let's all go do some good.