Most galas leave money on the table, and the run of show is usually why. Too many speakers, fund-a-needs shoved to the end of the night, live auction items in the wrong order, guests still at the bar 30 minutes past showtime. Every one of those is fixable, and every one of them is costing nonprofits real revenue.
On this week's 501(c) Drop, host Leya Simmons sat down with Matt Newsom, professional benefit auctioneer with Custom Benefit Auctions, to walk through the blueprint he's built over more than 350 events and $50 million raised for nonprofits nationwide. What follows is the most practical, tactical conversation on gala programming we've had on the show to date.
Matt traces his current run of show philosophy back to the pandemic, when virtual events forced auctioneers to cut everything that wasn't earning its place on screen. The result was a program that ran about an hour. When in-person events returned, he kept the shorter format, and audiences responded.
"The run of show that I'm recommending, we'll talk about today, is the only good thing that came out of the pandemic," he told Leya. "We realized we can't keep people's attention online for two, three hours. We really need to synthesize this. We need to boil it down to probably an hour."
The target: 60 minutes of program, with another 30 minutes added if dinner is involved. From the moment guests sit down to the moment the program ends, 90 minutes is the ceiling.
Matt's framework for building a run of show comes down to six pieces, in this order:
"Facts tell and stories sell. We're not selling yet. We're telling."
One of the most common mistakes Matt sees is nonprofits saving the fund-a-need for the end of the night. The logic sounds right: build toward a crescendo. In practice, it leaves money in guests' pockets.
Matt uses himself and his wife as the example. They arrive at an event with a budget in mind. If the live auction is after the fund-a-need, they'll hold back on giving in the paddle raise in case they win that beach trip. If the silent auction closes late, they'll hold back in case they win five items and blow through their number. Either way, the fund-a-need loses.
His solution: put the fund-a-need last in the fundraising sequence, but as early in the night as the program allows. That way it sweeps the remaining budget out of the room before guests start thinking about whether they need to hold money back.
Matt's ideal live auction has seven items. Here's where each one goes:
Three minutes per item is the rule of thumb. The auctioneer controls starting bid, increment, and when to close, which is why pace stays tight in professional hands.
If the live auction generates energy, the mission moment channels it. Matt's preference is a speaker who can say, "Let me tell you what this organization did for me," rather than an organization representative describing what it does for other people.
Three to four minutes is enough. Video works too, because the organization controls the link, the volume, and the message. And if the person in the video is actually in the room, Matt's favorite move is to surprise the audience: "And friends, Leya is here right now, she's at table six, let's give her a big round of applause." That tangible, in-person reveal hits harder than any polished documentary.
What kills a mission moment: going too long, too many speakers, or piling on after the fact.
"People won't remember what you told them, but they'll remember how you made them feel."
Matt has a short list of phrases that make the hair on his neck stand up when a speaker uses them in prep: off the cuff, off script, and wing it. "Anytime a speaker says one of those, I'm like, I'm getting the shepherd's crook," he said. "There's only one time that goes well. Never."
The word keynote gets the same treatment. "Keynote to me means two things. It means 30 minutes and it means boring. No keynotes. We want a mission speaker. We want a mission moment."
His coaching approach with nonprofit teams:
Cocktail hour runs late. Guests cluster at the bar. The program was supposed to start at 7:00 and it's now 7:20. Matt's foolproof approach:
Done well, this moves a large room in under 15 minutes.
Matt's kickoff question for every nonprofit client: of the four things you could do at this event (entertain, educate, honor and recognize, raise money), which one and a half are your real priority?
Nine times out of ten the answer is fundraising. Matt's follow-up is where it gets uncomfortable. "When you say, right, so we're going to sit down, we're going to have dinner, then we're going to show the new documentary, then the kids are going to do the play, then we're going to induct ten people into the Hall of Fame, then Matt we want you to come on and raise money and it's going to be great. Well, no, it's not. Because you've put fundraising last."
Once fundraising is named as the priority, every other decision is held against it. Speaker lineups shrink. Runtimes tighten. The education woven through the night gets crafty rather than front-loaded.
"If fundraising is our top priority, then we need to build everything around the fundraising."
Matt closed the conversation with a point BetterUnite's team has made to nonprofits for years: hiring a professional benefit auctioneer is one of the highest-ROI decisions an organization can make for a gala. He broke the alternatives into a few categories, including his favorite coinage for the volunteer auctioneer found through a chain of social connections: the fafanoch (friend of a friend of a neighbor of a cousin).
"Not all auctioneers are created equally," he said. "It's like doctors. If you break your arm, you don't go see an optometrist. They're both doctors."
The professional benefit auctioneer brings the full arc: consultation, sequencing, speaker coaching, timing, and the room-reading that only comes from calling dozens of events a year.
Visit thegalafundraisingguidebook.com, add The Gala Fundraising Guidebook to your cart, and use code BetterUnite at checkout. Book and shipping are both on Matt.
Transcript Recording:
Leya Simmons (00:00)
Hi, how are you? Welcome to our 501 C drop for today. My name is Leah Simmons. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Better Unite. We created the 501 C drop as a place where we can speak directly to you. And it's really for folks that are interested in real tools, real talk about fundraising and development and events and everything nonprofit. And it's frankly for
the folks who are in the trenches where I used to live as a development director and an executive director. I sat where you sit and I wanted to create a space where we could talk about all of the things and with all of the people that I wished that I could consult when I again sat where you sit and Matt Newsome who's joining us today. Hi Matt.
Matt Newsom (00:52)
Hello, good afternoon.
Leya Simmons (00:53)
Hi, he is exactly that kind of person. I'm going to read an amazing bio from Matt about Matt here in just a moment, but I'm so thrilled to have him joining us live today. He's a benefit auctioneer out of Charlotte. Is that right? Charlotte Charlotte. Exactly. All frankly from all over, but, ⁓ first let me actually cover a couple of housekeeping things. If you have any questions or
Matt Newsom (01:10)
Yes, Charlotte, North Carolina. We're traveling the country.
That's right.
Leya Simmons (01:23)
you'd like to pose a question for Matt. I can't promise that we're going to get to it today, but we're going to absolutely try. So post any of those into the chat that will flag it as a question for us. And if we don't get to any of those questions, we will follow up with you absolutely afterwards. And if you're watching the recording of today's session, please email us with any of your questions. We'll make sure that Matt gets to those. You can email those to support at betterunite.com.
I'll have a little bit more information about Better Unite if you're wondering where am I coming from and what am I talking about here at the end, but I really wanna dive into this conversation with Matt today. So let me read an amazing bio. Matt Newsome has helped high profile charities from the United States raise millions. And I mean that literally. Over 350 fundraising events. Matt, I bet we're trending above that number at this point.
Matt Newsom (02:16)
It's
out of date. gotta revise my site.
Leya Simmons (02:18)
Yeah, I know. And
over $50 million raised again, bet that number is much higher now. 30 plus years of event management and public speaking experience. That's what I'm super fascinated about. He's, as we said, based in Charlotte, North Carolina and serves nonprofits nationwide through custom benefit auctions, where he specializes in live auction, fund a need, silent auction, interactive fundraising games, and run of show consulting. That's what we're here to talk about.
Run the show that raises more dough. Maybe my favorite title for any of our webinars so far, by the way, Matt. Matt was also president of his class at Mendenhall School of Auctioneering, one of the most respected programs in the country. But what makes Matt really different and truly unique aside from really anybody else that you'll hear on this topic, is that he's not just a professional in this space. He's a recipient of it. Matt is a Harry Sell leukemia survivor.
Matt Newsom (02:49)
I'm
Leya Simmons (03:16)
And the first galas he ever supported benefited the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the organization whose research supported, sorry, whose research developed the treatment that put him into remission. That just gives me chill bumps all over. He watched benefit auctioneer Ben Farrell command a room and move people to give in ways he'd never seen before. And it changed the trajectory of his career. In 2022, Matt ran a personal fundraising campaign for LLS, the
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and he raised over five hundred and thirty thousand dollars in just ten weeks Which earned him the title of LLS national all-star man of the year He was also Charlotte's man of the year in 2016 raising over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and he served as chairman of the LLS That's right LLS Charlotte board of trustees
He brings event management chops from the director of logistics role at Charlotte Motor Speedway and general manager experience in professional baseball and hockey. He's a lifelong entrepreneur and he genuinely loves what he does, which if you've ever worked a gala and if you've ever worked a gala that felt flat, you'll understand how this is something that you simply cannot fake from the stage. I typically don't fully read bios, Matt.
But when I read yours, I was like, I need to share every word of this one. It's such an impressive category.
Matt Newsom (04:32)
Thank
I appreciate that. Thank you. Everything I do every day is very meaningful to me on a variety of levels. And so it took me until I was 50 years old to figure out what I'm supposed to do in this life. And now I'm doing it. love every minute.
Leya Simmons (04:49)
I and never too late to stumble onto exactly what the purpose is supposed to be. It's incredible all the way around. Well, welcome to the 501 C drop. We're so happy that you're here. And honestly, I'd really love to just dive right in. Do you mind if we go right away into the question? Let's go. You know what? I love that you said that in our very first consultation call about this, where you were just like, I'll talk about this all day long. And I just, that makes my heart sing. All right.
Matt Newsom (04:51)
Try it.
Thank you.
Let's go. I I talk this all day long, so let's go.
I'm sorry.
Leya Simmons (05:14)
What does, from your perspective, Matt, what does a high performing run of show look like on paper? And how is it different from what we see most nonprofits doing?
Matt Newsom (05:25)
But it's interesting because the run of show that I'm recommending that we'll talk about today is the only good thing that came out of the pandemic, however, many years ago. You know, that year I did 91 events or whatever, and we realized, I think before the pandemic, runs of show had gotten longer and longer and longer and longer. We realized we can't keep people's attention online for two, three hours. We really need to synthesize this. We need to boil it down to probably an hour.
⁓ And so we were able to do that by focusing on, we'll talk about these, the essential elements. And what I found is carrying that forward from the virtual environment back in person, people love it, people love it. They know why they're at events, they want to support the organization, but they also want to have some fun. They want to talk to their friends, they want to mix, they want to mingle. And so really the run of show for me on paper is boiled down to an hour, 60 minutes, and I've seen it done. I do it every week.
⁓ And there's some groups that still insist on going longer and longer, and it just doesn't work as well. So now the one caveat I'll say is if there's dinner, then I'll give you another 30 minutes for dinner. But from the time we sit down for the program and dinner, to the time we're done, it shouldn't be more than about 90 minutes.
Leya Simmons (06:37)
Yeah, I love that. You know what I do remember as well, Matt, going to those first events post pandemic. And it was just like, it's almost like people fell on each other. They were so happy to be getting together and to be, you know, seeing each other and like the net that and I I would, know, now today we would call it networking. But honestly, at the time, it was like the community aspect of the event was so highlighted for me. I, know, before you're right, I had
Matt Newsom (06:57)
to Jack for it.
Leya Simmons (07:02)
These events were functional, they served a purpose, and we had all kinds of other ways to get together, but after that, we began to really lean on them as a time to be together. And I just think that respecting that makes all the sense in the world.
Matt Newsom (07:18)
Absolutely. It's been amazing.
Leya Simmons (07:20)
Yeah. So when in the timeline, and I guess I should say in your event timeline, should the fund a need or paddle race happen? And like, what is it about that placement? Maybe highlighting the piece that the place, the placement that is wrong, the placement we don't want to see it and where should it go?
Matt Newsom (07:39)
Right, I think there tends to be the default thought for most people is, we need to do it at the end. We need to do it at the very end of the night. And I'm a big believer, my colleague Ben Farrell and I, talk about this a lot. We like to move fundraising earlier into the night, earlier in the night. So I believe the funding need itself, which is one of probably the most important, but one of many different fundraising components, should be the last part of the fundraising, but it should still be as early as we can get it.
Leya Simmons (08:06)
Hmm.
Matt Newsom (08:06)
There are some auctioneers that want to do the live auction after the paddle raise and there's there are reasons that they do that. I'm a big believer. My wife and I look at us as examples. We go to an event that I'm not working, which isn't very often, but we go to an event and we have a budget. We're going to spend X amount of money with this organization tonight. And so, yeah, we're going to participate in the silent auction. If we can win a couple of dinners out, hey, good for us. We might be in the live auction. We might not. And then at the end of the money.
At the of the night, we're giving the rest of our budgeted money to the organization through the paddle race. And so if the live auction is after, and I've got my eye on that beach trip, well, I may not give in the paddle race because I'm going to wait and see if I win. And if I win in the live auction, great, you got my money. But if I didn't win, am I going to seek my way to go back and give that money? Not going to get credit for raising my paddle with my peers. Not going to see my name up on the scoreboard. So maybe I will, maybe I won't. And same with silent auction.
A lot of groups will push the silent auction to the very end of the night. And there again, if I'm the high bidder on five or six items, the power race is coming, but I got to hold back in case I win all of these silent auction items can't go over my budget. I like to have the fund in need, sweep the rest of the money out of the room. So I like to have it be the last fundraising component. But that being said, I like to do it earlier in the night.
Leya Simmons (09:03)
Hmm.
Interesting. So I have a question for you about that one then. So, you know, we do see a lot of organizations and I've read the statistic that the silent auction being open past the fundraiser. So, you know, actually closing it the next day can really up the fundraising for that silent auction. But I wonder now in your experience, are you seeing that kind of cannibalize what happens in the other fundraising pieces in the event?
Matt Newsom (09:28)
Sure.
You know, not many, I think of maybe one or two that have their, that continue their silent auction into the next day or week. What I'm not a fan of is closing it later at night because once the program's over, people are dancing and they're mingling, they're not going to hear their phone go off, they're not going to get the message that they got outbid. It's out of sight, out of mind. And so I don't think you get that incremental. And it complicates checkout. The later you push silent auction and
Leya Simmons (10:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (10:18)
You know with great software like better unite we want to check out to be efficient because that's the last impression of the night and if the people have to wait in line then What are they gonna remember when they leave well, it was pretty good night, but we just didn't line for so long So I'm trying to keep again the the patrons best interests in mind now if someone wants to push it into the next day of the next week I I guess that could that could do all right at least people have a time to regroup live auction came and went
Leya Simmons (10:23)
super smooth, right?
Right.
Matt Newsom (10:44)
But there again, I still may be holding out some money if I'm the high bidder on some silent auction items, because I don't really want to go over my budget that my wife and I had set for them.
Leya Simmons (10:54)
That is such an interesting start. I honestly had not thought about that piece relative to the silent auction. Let's move over to the live auction then though. How would you sequence live auction items to build the momentum that you, you know you auctioneers are always and what frankly that you are so good at providing to an event. What's the like, what's a great closer so that you're gonna get those really big gifts?
Matt Newsom (11:00)
Okay.
Yeah, well, interesting because I love to look at this and I'll say that in my mind, the ideal number of live auction items is about seven. So let's use that. If you're using eight or nine, you can still kind of extrapolate where I'm going to say. But the first thing I do is I look at what's our very best, highest price item. ⁓ And lots of times people think they put that at the end thinking you build momentum. And I'm all about momentum. You said that word and that's my favorite word, ⁓ besides sold.
Leya Simmons (11:28)
Okay.
Love it.
Matt Newsom (11:47)
⁓ So momentum is important, but what I like to do is I like to a dead smack in the middle. So in our seven item example, I would put our very highest price item at number four. Reason being, we've got some time to build some momentum up to it, but think about it, people are gonna be bidding against each other. If it's the last item.
You've only got one winner. You've got a bunch of people that were maybe holding on, sandbagging to have money for that item. You got nothing for them. Nothing for them to win. Now we got a way for them to give, but we got nothing for them to win. So I like for them, the losers of a number four can still bet on five, six, and seven. So I put the best item number four. Then I like to take probably the lowest priced, but still probably most popular item and put it first. A bottle of bourbon. A bottle of bourbon does so well in this spot.
Leya Simmons (12:15)
Yeah.
Okay.
Matt Newsom (12:35)
I start the bidding really low. tell them I'm gonna start the bidding so low. I expect to see every paddle in the air. And you start a great bottle of bourbon at $50, every paddle goes up and people are like, wow, I'm bidding in the live auction. I just got an adrenaline rush. This is cool. And so you can get some people excited there. So we've got one and we've got four kind of pegged. Then I picked probably the second most popular item and the second lowest value item and I put it last because there again,
I want to have momentum rolling into, for me typically, is the mission moment, which we'll talk about, which leads to the fund to need, the paddle race. And I want something that's going to get a lot of action, a lot of action. It doesn't have to be big dollars, but I want action. I want action and everybody engaged. So now we've got one, four, and seven picked. Usually there's one item when I see the list on, ooh, you know, the two years worth of teeth whitening, ooh, that's going be a tough sell. Exactly. It does, it does. And so I typically,
Leya Simmons (13:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, that one that always just like kind of falls flat. almost every action has that.
Matt Newsom (13:34)
I might put it fifth and try and ride that wave off of that big item, try and ride that wave and get something for that item. So that's number five. And then kind of two, three, and six are all about the same. I might have our second best item, our second highest price might be number two or number three. Again, building momentum. And the other two and six are about the same.
So that's kind of how I picture the entire package. There again, if you've got nine, then you can put your best item fifth and kind of fill in in the same sort of way.
Leya Simmons (14:04)
Do you ever just get totally surprised and the item you put at number four does well, but then like for some reason number six was just like blew everything out of the water? Really?
Matt Newsom (14:14)
yeah, every once in a while.
It's all about ⁓ who's in the room and what they want. ⁓ But usually we're able to predict it pretty well. But every once in we get a nice surprise. Every once in we get a not so nice surprise. But ⁓ particularly if we're doing consignment trips, sometimes that doesn't go as well as we'd hoped. But there are ways to just keep moving. It's all about momentum. If we just lost a little bit, how can we get it back?
Leya Simmons (14:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (14:39)
I always like to have our stagger, our good ones, so we always know we can rally with one that's upcoming.
Leya Simmons (14:44)
Okay, well, so sticking on our momentum theme, what is a common run of show ⁓ mistake that you see that just tanks the momentum or the donor energy before they ask?
Matt Newsom (14:58)
It's real easy and I see it a lot. It's too many speakers. Too many speakers saying too many things. You know, there's a word I've heard creeping into the Gala vernacular lately and it's a couple groups of mine used it in initial conversations. They said, yeah, and then we're gonna have our keynote. I'm like, ooh. Keynote to me means two things. It means 30 minutes and it means boring.
Leya Simmons (15:20)
⁓
It means long. Yeah.
Matt Newsom (15:22)
like, no,
no, no, no keynotes, no keynotes. We want a mission speaker. We want a mission moment. ⁓ But some groups, they do incredible. These groups, we all, we see them. They do incredible things. All everybody who's watching this, you all do incredible things. ⁓ But we can't tell everybody every story. We just can't. We can't tell. It's just going to take too long. ⁓ And so some groups just want to go on and on and on. I think back to Jerry Maguire, remember when
Renee Zellweger and Tom Cruise are talking and he's on and on and she says, shut up. You had me at hello. And you know, we're selling past the close. We had people reaching for their wallets and then we tell them again why they should give. Well, they were all ready to give. And so I had one group that had a mission moment after every paddle raise level a couple of weeks ago, much to my chagrin. It's like, yes, they're incredible stories, but every one of them could stand alone and be the
the mission moment. So too many people speaking, too many people speaking and too many organizations want to tell all the great things they do and they do incredible things. I want to hear someone say, me tell you what this organization did for me. And I think there's a big difference there. And we'll talk about that in the mission moment. know, Leukemia and Pharma Society, now Blood Cancer United as a good example, they can tell you, the doctors can tell you the great work that the money raised does for them and the organization can tell the people to support. Or I can tell you, hey, you know,
Leya Simmons (16:32)
you
Matt Newsom (16:49)
this group generated the ⁓ research that made the drugs that saved my life. So that's pretty compelling. I think there's a difference there.
Leya Simmons (16:57)
that's great advice. So you had me at hello. That's going to be the, my new mantra for, for our organizations. So then you mentioned, what, you know, you're going to, you might throw in an extra 30 minutes in your hour for a dinner. How do you trans transition from the dinner and if there is any sort of program, God forbid a keynote, but if there's that, how do you transition from that into your, your, you know, live auction fund to me, the fundraising mode.
Matt Newsom (17:01)
hahahahah
Absolutely,
and I'll take a quick step back. For me, there's six essential elements in a run of show. Someone needs to say, hello, thank you, welcome, thanks for coming. Let's thank sponsors A, B, C, and D. Hey, we gotta do that, and that's fine. Then the second element for me is what I call branding. Not the heartstrings, not the heart and the mission moment yet, but just facts and figures. Like, one of the lines I saw on Twitter the other day was, facts tell and stories sell. We're not selling yet, we're telling.
Leya Simmons (17:29)
Okay.
Matt Newsom (17:52)
So let me tell you how many dogs and cats we spayed and neutered last year. Let me tell you how many new drugs we developed for blood cancer treatment. Every organization's got their facts and figures and a lot of them are pretty eye-opening. So again, we're starting to kind of set the stage. Lots of times, I recommend we break for dinner then. So we kind of set the stage, we got people's attention, we break for dinner. And then what I love to do in that 30 minutes of dinner is I love to push raffle. love to have, raffles are big money makers.
You know, let's have our raffle sellers going table to table. Let's push our silent auction. Let's close the silent auction at the end of dinner that then leads right into the live auction. So anyway, I had one, I had welcome, I had branding. Then live auction is my third item. I like it because it builds energy that we then channel into the fourth, which is our mission moment. The person who says, me tell you how this organization changed my life. That was enabled by generous people who came before me.
Leya Simmons (18:32)
it's
Matt Newsom (18:49)
There are more people before you, there are more people like me who need their lives changed and that's why we're here. ⁓ Sixth is the, I think I'm getting them right, fifth is the paddle raise itself and sixth is thank you. So those are the essential elements. So I like to put dinner right between the branding and the live auction. So back to the question, how can we get people to start to move into fundraising mode? We can get them buying raffle opportunities. We can get them bidding in the silent auction, starting to get them shifting in towards supporting.
Leya Simmons (18:53)
⁓ good.
Okay.
towards emotion. I love that because it takes it from, I mean, you know, there's all the different love languages that people have. Some people are rational, some people are more emotional, but as a former fundraiser that, you know, we always say that donations are very rarely driven by the logical brain. They're much more likely to be driven by your emotional one. So you've tacked on your logic and then after the dinner, you've moved them over into the emotional brain. So that works perfectly in my fundraiser.
raising brain anyway.
Matt Newsom (19:49)
It's exactly right. And I'll say too that
one of the lines I saw, Maya Angelou said, people won't remember what you told them, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And I think that's exactly what you said.
Leya Simmons (19:58)
Yes,
totally. Okay, so
How now do you, so this is, love your strategy. And by the way, we're going to be, ⁓ Matt is very generously giving everybody attending and everybody watching a free copy of his book. And so we're going to give you instructions around that, but it's going to detail a lot of what Matt's saying here today. I'm going to let Matt sell this much better than I am later. But ⁓ I want to know, you know, with this kind of framework that you have created, laid out, written about, how do you coach an executive
director or development director or an event planner, and even board members on what not to say from the stage at a fundraising event. I have experienced this myself where you're just like sitting back with your head in your hands. You've got a board member or a long-winded, God forbid, keynote up there and like no way to pull them down. So what do you say beforehand to try and avoid these situations?
Matt Newsom (20:54)
⁓ boy.
Absolutely. Well, I talk to, you know, I'm very consultative in my approach. And so for me, it's six, nine months a year that we're talking about this. And I tell them early on, hey, I'm going to be the, I'm going to be a voice and I'm going to challenge a lot of different things when someone says, well, and then, and then this person is going to speak, then this person, then this person. Someone say, hold on. Why? Who are they? What are they going to say? Why? For how long does it really, does it really help us?
Or is it just that, you know what, every year the gala chair has always spoken and so we just figured she needs to speak again. And I don't, for me that's not a great answer. So my first thing is let's make sure we understand who's gonna speak and why and for how long what they're gonna say. And obviously the ED needs to be seen, needs to be seen. That's part of the role. So lots of times the ED might do the branding or might do the welcome. The director of development might do the welcome. There are roles for different people.
if people need to be seen and heard. But otherwise, ⁓ we don't need to just have more speakers for the sake of speaking. That's gonna be a common theme that you're gonna hear from me this afternoon. ⁓ So that's number one. Number two is when we have speakers, they gotta be coached. Everybody's gotta be coached and pretty darn well scripted. There are a couple of phrases that make the hair on my neck stand up. Off the cuff, off script, and wing it.
Leya Simmons (22:15)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (22:19)
Anytime a speaker says one of those, I'm like, I'm getting the shepherd's crook and I'm about to... There's only one time that goes well, never. ⁓ And so, you know, it just doesn't, it just doesn't. So everybody has to, in my mind, everybody needs to submit their remarks, submit a very tight outline. And here's what I've seen happen. A lot of people, they're asked to speak and they put on their, they're getting ready to give their best. Vince Lombardi.
Leya Simmons (22:22)
I know it does, I picture that exactly.
and
Matt Newsom (22:47)
you know, pick your favorite coach, halftime speech, they're gonna get everybody fired up, they're gonna tell the whole history, and all of sudden, you've got three or four people all said the same thing. And it's redundant, and it's unnecessary. ⁓ So I like to challenge who's speaking, why, and for how long, what are they gonna say, and then we need to tell them, hey, Leah, this is your role, and you don't have good news, you don't have to shoulder the whole load, you don't have to sell the whole program, we need you to cover this very specific part because
Leya Simmons (22:56)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (23:15)
We've got all of the different components are going to come together to sell the program. those are my strategies there. Stay in your lane. Stay what we've asked you to do. Don't go straight off topic. It just doesn't help.
Leya Simmons (23:28)
And it harms the fundraising effort. Like I think if you frame it like that to our board members and our in-year presenters, then hopefully they remember that piece. Like we did this on purpose. So I love that strategy piece. What do you, mean, so, okay, we've talked about.
Matt Newsom (23:30)
It really does.
Exactly right.
Leya Simmons (23:43)
the number of live auction items. We've talked about ⁓ the number of presenters or speakers and number of mission moments as well. What's the like timeframe that you like to see for those? Like how long minutes wise should the live auction be? Should a fund a need be? Because we all know our attention spans and since even COVID getting shorter and shorter. So what are you thinking of as magic timeframes?
Matt Newsom (24:08)
Well,
typically live auction is about three minutes per item. So that's pretty easy, Matt. Pardon me?
Leya Simmons (24:12)
that's pretty fast.
That seems pretty fast, like for what I've seen out there.
Matt Newsom (24:16)
Yeah, well, you know, I
control three important elements. I control where I start the bidding. I control the increment. I control when I sell it. Now, I'm not going to sell it before it's ready to be sold, but if we've got seven or eight items and we've got a pretty heavy program, I'm not going to start grinding down to $25 increments. You know, I may keep it at 100s or 250s or 500s or whatever. I kind of read the room as I go. So, so there's that.
Leya Simmons (24:32)
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Newsom (24:39)
And then typically the fun to need, depending on if people are giving on their phones and we're watching a scoreboard, that goes much quicker. And if people are raising paddles, then that can go a little slower and there are pros and cons to both. But typically that's 12 to 15 minutes, we'll do a last hero game as well, usually, or a paddle drop or whatever we want to call it. So we've got, of my 60 minutes, remember I'm giving the 60 minutes, we've got half of it.
little more than half tied up right there in fundraising. And, you know, the thing that drives me crazy is when an event planner says, we're going have to cut out two of the items because we're running long, like, wait a second, you got higher priorities than raising money? I'd like to hear that. ⁓ So there's that. And then I think the other thing to consider is taking the entire program and where do we put it in the night? And again, earlier for me is better. Yes, yes, it's nice for people to get a cocktail or two or maybe even three, but
know, pushing your fundraising off to 1030 at night, that's not going to go well because people go over that cliff, they're not coming back. And so it's important to do the fundraising pretty early.
Leya Simmons (25:40)
No.
Yeah, all right, I love all of that guidance. And I honestly too, just your frame around the, you know, is this or is this not harming the fundraising aspect of really why we're here? So you teased a little bit the mission moment. I wanna kind of give you a blank slate to talk to us about mission moment. Where should it live? How long should it be? What's your ideal? Like tell us, tell us all Matt.
Matt Newsom (26:11)
Absolutely. So again, I like to do the live auction leading up to the mission moment. It gets everybody in the way that I auctioneers. Everybody's engaged where everybody's participating, encouraging each other. So we've got everybody's attention. We just had a lot of fun. We've raised some money. It's exciting. And then I want to channel all that right into our mission speaker. And as I said before, I'd rather that person be someone who can say, let me tell you what this organization's done for me, not what someone says. Let me tell you what organization does for other people.
That being said, lots of times a mission speaker may not be all that polished and that's okay. Sometimes raw is real. ⁓ It doesn't have to be the most eloquent documentary video. Sometimes you shot on an iPhone and stitched together, it's a real thing. But long way to say it can be video. I'm fine with video. There's some pros to video. control everything, right? We control the link, we control the volume, we control the message. Nothing left to chance there.
Leya Simmons (26:46)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Newsom (27:09)
If it's a video, I love to surprise her and say, and you know what, friends, I have exciting news. Leah is here right now. She's right over here at table six. Let's give her a big round of applause. I've got goosebumps, right? That's really cool. And you get the impression she's tangible. She's right here with us, so real. You get that impact of the in-person. Now, if someone is gonna be pretty good live, then we can do that. But again, gotta be very tightly scripted. And I'm okay if they read. It becomes authentic.
Leya Simmons (27:20)
I think.
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (27:39)
So all of that said, it really doesn't need to be more than about three or four minutes. I don't think if they can't say that what, if they can't have people reaching for their wallets in three or four minutes, then we didn't coach them well enough. We didn't help them refine it well enough because it should be a relatively simple story. We're just bringing it to life. So I like to do that right up, do that after the live auction, mission moment. And then I like to come right up. I don't want anybody come. I don't want anybody else.
We're piling on, we're selling past the close, then we don't even need that person to speak. Again, if they're there, they can wave. And I say, friends, what an incredible impact this organization is making. Let's go. And we launch right into the paddle.
Leya Simmons (28:19)
That's really wonderful. just, I do think sometimes that mission moment gets lost in all of the other wraparound stuff that we see sometimes. And I can't tell you, I don't know, I'm a crier. You show me a video. Most of the time I'm going to cry at that video. It's a very good time to ask me to donate to that cause.
Matt Newsom (28:40)
Absolutely, absolutely. And again,
there's sometimes it just goes too long. It goes too long. And I'm a big believer we can't do that in three or four minutes then we didn't then we should go back and do something, do it again.
Leya Simmons (28:51)
edit it, figure that out, right? So how do you adjust the run of show if, and this is a question for you that I know we can't exactly anticipate, but how do you adjust the run of show if you're kind of not getting the love vibe from the people that are in the room? They're not responding the way that you would hope they had. And do you, actually I'm gonna add to that. Do you plan for that? Like, are you always kind of in your back pocket, have an idea of like, okay, what if this happens?
Matt Newsom (29:09)
Yeah, well, it's, ⁓
Not specifically, but I'd say
this is one of the big benefits of, and I use the word benefit, but hiring a professional benefit auctioneer. This is what I do. I did 76 events last year in 20 states. I see it all. I've had Mrs. Jones pass out in the middle and fall flat, you know, and I've seen it all. I've seen it all. And so I'm going to ⁓ adapt quicker on the fly than I think someone who doesn't have that type of experience. So can't really say
Leya Simmons (29:29)
You, yeah, you, that's surprising.
That funny face.
Totally.
Matt Newsom (29:46)
any go-tos that I have, but I'm pretty good at thinking quickly on my feet. sometimes we gotta start over. If the sound glitched out or the video was, sometimes the video doesn't work. We just do the best we can. The nice thing is we have a sympathetic crowd. The people know why they're there. They wanna see us succeed. It's live TV, it's live TV and anything can happen.
Leya Simmons (30:03)
You're good.
Yeah, they want to see you succeed. That's the point.
That's so true. That's so true. So, well, then how does your plan change depending on the number of people that are in the room? Like when you've got an under 100 person event versus an over 500 person event, you change any of this strategy based on that?
Matt Newsom (30:31)
No, I don't think I'd change the strategy at all. Some of the timings may wind down a little bit. We might only do five live auction items instead of seven and dinner won't take as long. But I think the strategies and the blueprint that I like to work from is not always in the same blueprint, but the blueprint I like to start with, it's the same. I don't make any real changes.
Leya Simmons (30:54)
Okay, I love that. do you, so what do you do, we've talked about that 60 minutes that we have for the program and maybe even dinner. What do you think should lead up to that? What about that 30 minutes or even an hour prior to? What's in your mind?
Matt Newsom (31:10)
Yeah, I think there's
pretty standard in it and it's good to have an hour of cocktails and, you know, gathering time where people can register, make sure they're logged in on Better Unite so they can fully participate. ⁓
Leya Simmons (31:22)
You don't actually
have to log in for Better United, just click through the link. But yeah, exactly.
Matt Newsom (31:25)
Exactly,
exactly. Make sure they're clicked in and ready to participate. And they're gathered. We want everybody to come at the same time. So there's value there. And I'll say too that a lot of groups are having great success with doing a VIP 30 minutes even before that, where you have a second kind of bourbon, not Pappy, but you got Buffalo Trace instead of Maker's Mark. ⁓ And you can upcharge people a couple hundred dollars there. And there are always people willing to pay the most to be the most exclusive.
Leya Simmons (31:51)
I gotta
tell you too, from from event, like a software perspective, that actually helps with check-ins so much because you get at least a swath of people in first before you have this flood of people when you're trying, if you've got a very big event, that helps with check-ins so much to stagger when folks are going to arrive in whatever way you can. So I'm, we're fans that over here.
Matt Newsom (32:10)
That's exactly right.
Because what's the first impression? People, you know, they're rolling up, they found their parking place, and if they stand in line, that's not a good day. If they can breeze right in, then we're off to a great start. So I think there's definitely a place for that hour, I'll call it. And I think it's an opportunity to be very intentional with fundraising. I ⁓ I said earlier, I'm a big fan of raffles, big fan of raffles. But raffles...
Leya Simmons (32:15)
Stand in line, that's worse.
Matt Newsom (32:36)
If you put someone selling tickets over in a table in the corner, that's not how it works. People don't wake up in the morning to go buy raffle tickets. they, if you, I had great success with a group that had four pairs. It was about a 350 person event. They had four pairs of high school kids that needed service hours and they were children of board members and such. We paired them up and they went person by person and they sold $7,500 worth of raffle tickets during cocktail hour. And then everybody went in and sat down.
We'll talk about that in a second too. And then they went table by table. They sold another $7,500. These are four kids selling them to 350 people or eight kids. And they were fantastic. So I think it's an opportunity to be very intentional with things like Raffle. Be very intentional with silent auction. Let's make sure that we're merchandising. Let's be very interactive. You can have people answering questions. You can have live auction preview, but maybe the auctioneer saying, hey, let me tell you, have you seen this trip to Tuscany? It's fantastic.
Leya Simmons (33:20)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (33:33)
I think it's an opportunity to be very intentional of getting people ⁓ in that mode.
Leya Simmons (33:37)
I just love that because I do think there's this idea that sometimes that people have gone to fundraising events, they know that there is a silent auction, they know just to look on their phone. I mean, we can text them all we want and show all the QR codes in the world that we want too for silent auction, even live auction items or raffles, but that person to person interaction and the time, I would also advocate just again, as a former fundraiser, that that...
know, beginning hour is a time that board members and staff can walk around and have identified the folks that they should go up and talk to. I know a lot of times you, you know, as the auctioneer, you've identified or have been told these are the people that you should walk up and talk to as well. So that advance work to me just makes sense from a stewardship perspective as well.
Matt Newsom (34:06)
Yes.
Absolutely,
when I was chair of the board of LLS, the staff used to give me a hit, not hit list, that doesn't sound good. They'd give me a list of people like, you know, these are the six people we need you to talk to and introduce yourself. And the person that succeeded me as board chair was someone that I went up and introduced myself and we became friends and that's how it works. And then the interesting thing too is staff, lots of groups, unfortunately, they'll either get bad software, we'll talk about that later, or they'll get good software like BetterUnite, but then,
Leya Simmons (34:25)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (34:52)
⁓ But then they'll all staff it themselves. thinking, this is the only time you get all these people in the room at one time during the year. Not the best and highest use of your time, Leah, executive director, to be registering people and getting them checked in, showing them the link to click through. You need to be working these people. And so having good people operating, you know, our mutual friend, Candice Luisi at Knockout Fundraising, there are third-party partners that can come in and take care of all of that, which ⁓ has benefits on many levels.
Leya Simmons (35:09)
100.
Yes?
huge.
Matt Newsom (35:22)
One other thing
I want to say, because it impacts run of show is, this is one of my favorites, it's Matt's six prong strategy, foolproof strategy to moving people. Because yes, our 45, we're 45 minutes into our hour and we want to start our program, start, know, cocktail started six, seven o'clock, we want to get rolling because if we started at 720, then we're behind the, behind in our show, in our program. So here's my six, foolproof six prong strategy. Number one,
Leya Simmons (35:31)
do you tell?
Matt Newsom (35:51)
Send messages through BetterUnite, through the software. That's number one. Can't hurt. It's helpful to some degree, but it's not the only thing to do. Number two is making announcements. The auctioneer, hey folks, come on in. Number three is actually really number one is fling open the doors. If we're in an ante room, if we're outside, have the ballroom doors closed and all of sudden they open up, it's light, there's music and people are like, wow, why would I stay out here? I want to go in there, which is what we want to do.
Leya Simmons (35:53)
Text, let's go.
The voice of God.
That's inviting.
Matt Newsom (36:20)
So those are the three easy ones. And then the four, five, and six. Number four, and this is one that can really work, is what I call pullers, where the organization tells our board, tells our committee, hey, when we open the doors and say it's time to move, people are gonna look at you. You're the tribal leader, they may be your guest. And if you say, oh my goodness, it's time for us to head on in, let's go get our seats, it's gonna be a great night, that's what they'll do. If they say, ah, the heck with that, let's go get another drink at the bar, that's what they'll do too, and that doesn't help us.
So that's number four. Number five is what I call pushers, which tend to be pullers. These are pushers which tend to be staff. And then six, the most important, is close the bar. Nobody leaves an open bar. Bars gotta close. And the best way to close a bar is five minutes before you really wanna close, put someone at the end. The bar's behind me. And we've opened the doors. We're five minutes till we start and people are starting, hey, I'm sorry, we're closing the bar. We're all going inside. There's wine service inside. So head on in. The bar will open up later. It'll all be good.
and because the bartender will get one more drink to death and doesn't know when to stop. But then the caveat to this, don't have bars inside the ballrooms, you just shifted the problem to another space. But if you do all six of those, I've seen where we've moved big groups in less than 15 minutes.
Leya Simmons (37:27)
that I've seen.
That's impressive, that's great. And that's incredible advice because that honestly, I can't tell you the number of events I've been to where I see the poor event planner or sometimes unfortunately development director that's like frayed and frazzled and so frustrated and is just like helpless to the fact that they're 30 minutes behind schedule, 45 minutes behind schedule and can't kind of seem to move things along. So if you have that plan from the outset, that could help so much just knowing.
Matt Newsom (38:00)
Exactly.
Leya Simmons (38:00)
and identifying those people as well. Your pullers, your pushers, the bar closers, all of those ones. I love it. ⁓ Okay, so how do you think about the relationship between the auctioneer and the event emcee or executive director or development director or event planner, whomever it is, the one that owns the program? What's that relationship like?
Matt Newsom (38:06)
Exactly.
It's funny because sometimes I end up owning the program because this is what I do and I know the mechanics, I know how it's going to work. So there are times that that happens. Here again, I think that's one of the benefits of hiring a professional auctioneer, benefit auctioneer. And particularly because having been consulting with them and building this out together, I'm working very closely with whoever my contact is. And I do like to clarify, who's making the call?
Leya Simmons (38:30)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (38:49)
Because people may ping pong up to me. Hey, you know, we should do this now We should do that now like well until Leah says so then, you know You need to talk to her because I can get pulled in a lot of different directions We make this announcement and always kind of go through somebody somebody's to be in charge because sometimes there are too many people trying to be in charge one of the things that I think is tricky is from an MC standpoint is is you know hiring or not even hiring but getting the celebrity or the weatherman or the
Leya Simmons (38:57)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (39:17)
or the news anchor, if that person can get you some free pub, if they can get you on the air the week before or do some feature, that's great, but a lot of times ⁓ an anchor shows up and the first time they've ever seen the script is when they get there right after their broadcast ⁓ and right before we go live and there's no chemistry, there's no, there's lots of reading from the sheet of paper and I just don't think it's all that effective. think.
Leya Simmons (39:32)
Yeah.
That's interesting.
I can imagine that, yeah.
Matt Newsom (39:45)
I think that some people want to have a celebrity. That just doesn't have the appeal, at least in that role. I obviously work with typically one person very closely and we can figure out who's going to be doing what.
Leya Simmons (39:52)
Mm-hmm.
That makes a lot of sense. you know, it's interesting because I have seen exactly what you're describing where it's like a disconnected person that has a big personality and a big voice, but like you do get that sense that they don't really know. They seem out of place on the stage. Yeah.
Matt Newsom (40:14)
That's exactly right.
Leya Simmons (40:15)
Okay, so my favorite final question, and it doesn't have to be totally final because you have so much institutional knowledge. I really wanna give you space to just let us know what we need to know. But if there was one thing that people took away from this about their run of show or about raising the revenue at their events, what would that one thing be?
Matt Newsom (40:36)
But it's funny because I go through this exercise as soon as I partner with a group. One of our very first kickoff calls, I'll say, right, there are four things we can do at an event like this. We can entertain, we can educate, we can honor and recognize, and we can raise money. Now my challenge to you is pick one and a half because that's all we can do effectively. We can do all those things, but we can only do one and a half effectively. So what's your one? And of course,
Leya Simmons (40:58)
interest.
Matt Newsom (41:04)
99 out of 100 times it's fundraising. I say fantastic, right? That's why I'm here and but guess what I'm gonna challenge you now when you say And I use the absurd example not entirely true, but could be close where they say right? So we're gonna sit down We're gonna have dinner and then we're gonna show the new documentary and then the kids are gonna do act for the play And then we're gonna induct the ten people into the Hall of Fame And then Matt we want you to come on and raise money and it's gonna be great like well, no, it's not
Leya Simmons (41:33)
Yeah.
Matt Newsom (41:33)
because you've put fundraising last. And so
as long as we agree ahead of time what your one and a half are now, of course we're going to make the entire night's going to be entertaining. So when I say entertaining, I mean very focused entertaining. You know, we're going to make it educational, but we're going to be very crafty in the way that we weave the story into our entire night. So typically it's fundraising and education. Fantastic. I'm going to hold you to it. And so when you say, you know, we're to have these four speakers, I'm going say, well,
That's not what we agreed on. ⁓ And so I think that's the number one mistake is trying to do too much because there's everything we could do. But if fundraising is our top priority, then we need to build everything around the fundraising. And where most people go wrong is trying to, again, speak to too many speakers, try and say too much, and try and do too much education.
Leya Simmons (42:15)
Let's hope so.
That's incredible advice. Okay, any other parting wisdom that you need us to know?
Matt Newsom (42:29)
⁓ I think that's pretty much it. I'm very passionate. And I think, again, this is, there are people who are better bid callers than I am. And let's talk about auctioneers. ⁓ You have four or five choices as the auctioneer. ⁓ Because ⁓ you're in that committee meeting, well, we're having a gala, we need an auctioneer. Well, you can go get the anchor, right? ⁓
Leya Simmons (42:32)
That's a good, yeah, okay, well let me give you...
Matt Newsom (42:54)
the person, the volunteer, we call it, right? The board member who's really funny. I bet he'd be really good. You know, that usually doesn't work out well. Then, this is the one I love. I've coined a new term. It's in the book. We'll talk about the book in a minute. But I've coined a new term. It's called a fafanoch. It's a friend of a friend of a neighbor of a cousin. Because we've been in that meeting, we've got to get him coming up, we need an auction. Someone says, oh, I got a guy. I got a guy. It's a friend of my friend who's a neighbor of his cousin. And he sells cattle and cars and tobacco all week. And we can get him for free.
And he'll come and he'll roll in, no idea of anything about the organization, but he'll talk fast and he'll sell a trip like he's selling ⁓ a cow. And people will be like, huh? Because there's a certain language there that those types of people speak. ⁓ And so I laugh about that. And as I always say that not all auctioneers are created equally. And I equate it to doctors. If you break your arm, you don't go see an optometrist, but they're both doctors.
⁓ They're both doctors. ⁓ And so, and I've had people call me, they say, you know, I've got an estate, would you do my estate? So I'm sorry, that's not what I do. ⁓ I can refer you, because I probably have known somebody, but you know, I'm a big fan of obviously hiring a professional benefit auction. This is what we do. And it's the creative process. It's the entire start to finish that really helps you raise the money.
Leya Simmons (43:54)
analogy.
Let me say as somebody that I get nothing from you benefit auctioneers except support of all of my favorite organizations. you know, just as a person that has watched probably as close to on par with how many events you have been a part of, like the value of a benefit auctioneer at that event is so great, so high. It is always our team. are
consistently advising, if we get the sense from an organization that they are not employing a benefit auctioneer specialist for their event, that's one of the number one things that we advise, that always ends up raising far, far more money and that it's just the best money that you can spend. ⁓ I completely endorse that response, Matt.
Matt Newsom (45:04)
No, I appreciate that. And then even within professional benefit auctioneers, I think there are kind of two different categories and not disparaging at all. But there's some auctioneers that are showmen, know, and it's the sequin tuxedo and all. And if that's what you and your organization want, that's fantastic. There are a lot of great auctioneers. And then there's some, the compliment that I'm paid regularly is they say, Matt, you were energetic, but you were sincere. And so I'm going to try and tow that line a little more.
Leya Simmons (45:10)
Sure.
yeah.
Matt Newsom (45:31)
But you can't go wrong. Once you get into a professional metaphylaxis, who does this for a living, you're going to be in good hands.
Leya Simmons (45:37)
It leverages all of that experience, wisdom, and time on stage as well. just, I love all of that. Okay, Matt, tell us all about your book.
Matt Newsom (45:44)
Well, if I, you know, I continue to raise money with Blood Cancer United. I ran the New York Marathon a year and a half ago and I was training for the marathon and I hate running, but I was out running one morning and I said, you know what? I have the same conversations. A lot of things we talked about in the last 45 minutes. I have these conversations every day over and over and they're fantastic conversations. said, you know what? I'm going to write them all down. So I am, I'm training for this marathon and
Leya Simmons (45:51)
wow.
Matt Newsom (46:09)
I'm out on my 12 mile run and I said, well, today I'm gonna write the chapter on live auction. I'm writing in my head and we're processing in my head and I come back from my run and I put it all down on paper. And I did that over the course of my marathon training such that I came up with, it's the Gala Fundraising Guidebook. ⁓ I call it ⁓ a blueprint for success and I've had a blast with it. It's great. It's helped a lot of people that I work with, but even people that I don't. ⁓
Leya Simmons (46:26)
Yay! I have my copy. I should have had my copy out. Where's...
Matt Newsom (46:39)
I've reached a point in my life where I love what I do and I'm trying to help people. In this crazy world that we live in, I'm very fortunate. I get to see the best of humanity probably three to four nights a week. Generous people supporting generous, supporting great organizations. So one of the things I'm happy to do, and so if I can make the plug, you can go to www.mattenewsome.com, that's N-E-W-S-O-M, or you can go to thegalafundraisingguidebook.com.
Leya Simmons (46:59)
Please.
Matt Newsom (47:07)
Go to the shopping cart and here's the thing, your coupon code, when you go to checkout, you use Better Unite, one word, Better Unite, it'll be free, books free, shipping's free, I'll take care of all of it. I wanna put these out in people's hands and ⁓ hopefully it helps people raise more money to continue the great work that everybody's watching today, the great work that y'all do. I admire what you do. So, mattnewsom.com or
thegalafundraisingguidebook.com and that coupon code is BetterUniteAllOneWork.
Leya Simmons (47:38)
I have just put that into the chat. It is in the email if you're watching the recording where we were sent the recording and we'll make sure that's in the blog as well. Matt, thank you so much. That is just so generous of you. And I actually, like I said, I have my copy here somewhere. I don't know why I didn't pull it up, but it is... No, ⁓ whoa, I refer to it. It is an incredible, it is really truly a great resource. So I really do hope that all of you will do that. Matt, thank you so much for joining us today.
Matt Newsom (47:48)
My pleasure.
I don't want see it on eBay, Leah. Don't want to see it on eBay.
Our pleasure.
Leya Simmons (48:06)
I absolutely appreciate it. Okay, let me jump over into, thank you for, okay, here we go. This is Matt and his information on your screen right now. If you've got questions, you can email those directly to Matt. If you'd like to ask me something, you can also email Leah at betterunite.com and then support at betterunite.com if you have any questions. If you'd like to scan this QR code here, you'll see.
that you can, ⁓ we'll take you for a tour of better unite your nonprofit operating system with the best event and auction tool out there. ⁓ we would love to show you around. We'd love to know more about your organizations. If you're not a current user of better unite. then next week, speaking of sparkling tuxedos, we have another benefit auctioneer. I'm sure Matt, you're familiar with Dean Crownover. He's going to be talking about, and you mentioned it quite a few times raffles. So this is something that Dean spends a lot of time thinking about.
talking about you can scan the QR code here to register and just learn even more about what Matt has described for us in our run of show will he'll hyper focus on the raffle and how you can make those an integral part of your next event so scan that April 28th at 1 30 central we will see you and it's always April 20 it's always on a Tuesday it's always at 1 30 central and so I would love to see you all there
Matt, thank you again so much for joining me today. This has just been invaluable advice. Again, the run of show that raises more dough, my favorite webinar title ever. I couldn't appreciate you more.
Matt Newsom (49:37)
the
That's my pleasure. enjoyed spending time with you today and I hope our viewers got something out of it. So look forward to being in touch with them. You look forward to being in touch with you. Thanks for all that you do. Thanks for all that Better Unite does. Great software can make a huge difference in an event. And I'll tell you ⁓ if you don't raise the money because you had bad software, nobody's going to say, well, we didn't raise the money. But good news, I appreciate the fact you saved a little bit on the expense side. Not worth it. It's an investment. It's an investment.
Leya Simmons (50:05)
Okay, Matt,
that may be my next tagline. Thank you for getting this done. All right, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for spending some time with us today. We really appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Tuesday. Let's all go do some good. Bye bye.
Matt Newsom (50:12)
Take care.
Bye.