Every benefit auctioneer has seen both versions of the night. In one, the room is electric, the paddles fly, and the fund-a-need blows past goal. In the other, the energy seeps out somewhere between a long check-in line and a 25-minute speech. Dan Campbell of Raising Paddles LLC has stood at the front of hundreds of rooms, and he can usually tell within the first ten minutes which night it will be. Not because of the crowd, and not because of the cause. It comes down to the preparation.
On this episode of 501(c) Drop, Campbell joined BetterUnite Co-founder Leya Simmons to share what he wishes every nonprofit knew before the lights come up. His credentials are hard to argue with: Raising Paddles works roughly 300 events a year, has served more than 1,000 nonprofits, and has helped raise over $500 million for their missions.
The first mindset shift Campbell offers is about the role itself. Many organizations hire an auctioneer the way they hire a band, as entertainment for the evening. He suggests thinking of a professional benefit auctioneer instead as a revenue strategist with a microphone.
Brought in early enough, an auctioneer shapes far more than the live auction. They advise on the run of show, the timeline, the paddle raise, revenue enhancers, and even the physical room: sight lines, sound, and AV. After hundreds of events, they know what works, and they know that a single bad decision, like sound your guests cannot hear, can send thousands of dollars out the door before dessert.
Campbell's live auction math is refreshingly specific. A professional fundraising auctioneer averages two to three minutes per item, so six to eight items means a tight 15 to 20 minutes of auction time. A volunteer auctioneer often takes five or six minutes per item, which doubles the length of the same auction. Audiences fatigue after three or four hours, and more events are seeing guests leave early, so every extra item has a cost.
Item selection matters just as much. The best live auction items have mass appeal, are hard to find, and offer flexibility. A big screen TV, by contrast, has a natural price cap because anyone can buy one at Costco. Put items like that in the silent auction and save the wow factor for the stage. And if you do not have the right items, that is fine too. About 20 percent of Raising Paddles events have no live auction at all.
For most organizations, the fund-a-need is where the real money comes in, because it is the moment the audience connects directly to the mission. Campbell's rule for vision casting is that less is more. He recalls one event where three speakers each covered the same three topics, creating a repetitive 25-minute stretch that drained the room's momentum. A succinct, focused mission moment sets up a paddle raise that typically runs eight to twelve minutes.
Momentum in the first 30 seconds carries the entire paddle raise, which is why Campbell uses pre-commits, matching gifts, and a technique he calls fishing. Before the paddle raise begins, he asks whether anyone in the room would like to anchor the giving with an extraordinary gift. At one event that had planned to start bidding at $15,000, the fishing moment drew gifts of $50,000, $50,000, $100,000, and more from eight donors, roughly $200,000 before the paddle raise even started. The lesson: most organizations underestimate the capacity of their room. If you ask for $15,000, that is what you will get.
Asked how to make a room electric, Campbell's answer surprises people: activate your board. Board members often believe that buying a ticket is their job done. Raising Paddles runs board trainings to reframe the event as a work night, teaching members to identify and invite people with both the capacity and the propensity to give.
The results can be dramatic. At one event, 14 board members filled their tables with mission-ready guests, and the fifteenth filled 14 tables on his own. That organization went from $800,000 to $2.2 million in a single year. Campbell teaches a simple method he calls 10-3-1: identify ten people in your sphere of influence with giving capacity, and personally invite them to join you. The same care applies to sponsors. Rather than handing a busy sponsor ten tickets and hoping, help them fill their seats, or right-size the sponsorship and surround their guests with mission-focused people.
The most common mistake Campbell sees is a poorly managed run of show. Every minute is money, and gaps, delays, and too many talking heads let energy seep out of the room. Long lines are just as dangerous. A slow check-in frustrates guests before the program starts, and a slow checkout can be the last impression they take home.
His advice is simple: test everything. Check the Wi-Fi, train your staff, and have volunteers walk the full guest journey from check-in to checkout before event night. Technology should be invisible. He also urges teams to help the auctioneer make donors feel seen, from correct name pronunciations to friendly bidding rivalries to acknowledging last year's winners. One clever client even marked major donor tables with candle centerpieces so the stage always knew where the giving would start.
Before the planning gets deep, Campbell asks teams to step back and answer one question: if the Monday after the event you called the night a huge success, what would that look like? Financial goals matter, and he recommends setting three of them, a base goal, a reach goal, and an aspire goal. But so do the other purposes an event serves: growing your donor network, launching a capital campaign, or raising awareness. Events accomplish far more than the dollars raised in the room.
Campbell's parting challenge is one every team can act on today: remember that the night belongs to the mission. Decorations, food, and the band all matter, but every decision has both a dollar impact and a mission impact. His suggestion is to appoint someone on your committee as the mission governor, empowered to check every choice against what the event is really for. Get that right, and the electric room takes care of itself.
Transcript Recording:
Leya Simmons (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome to today's 501c drop. I am here and joined by Dan Campbell of Raising Paddles. He is the auctioneer that today is going to tell us what every auctioneer wishes that you knew before the event. I love the title of today's episode. Welcome Dan. Thanks for joining me.
Dan Campbell (00:21)
Yeah, glad to be here, Leya.
Leya Simmons (00:23)
I ⁓ so this is one of those things as a itan and I were just talking about this right before we we went live that in my background I was a fundraiser and ⁓ an event-based fundraiser, and I wish so much that I could go back in time and tell back then Leah fundraising for the different nonprofits that I worked for, all of the things that I have learned from. And I'm not going to lie, primarily you all, as benefit auctioneer specialists and as the auctioneers.
That are in the room, I don't know how many, Dan, 50, 60 nights a year and dealing with a variety of nonprofits. I mean, you have so much knowledge and experience that we working for one single, or even if you're working with two nonprofits, can never have about the actual what's going on in the room and frankly also what happens before and after the event. So
I am super happy that you're here to break down some of those barriers and tell us some of those secrets. ⁓ so when my time machine shows up, one day I can go back and tell Past Leah how she should run her event fundraiser. I'm gonna read a very quick intro of Dan, but then I'm actually Dan, I'm gonna pass it over to you to tell us a bit of your story. Dan founded Raising Paddles 10 years ago, and he has since helped more than a
Dan Campbell (01:28)
Love it. That's great.
Leya Simmons (01:41)
thousand nonprofits collectively raise over five hundred million dollars for their missions. Those are astounding numbers. His team is one of the largest fundraising firms in the country and their consultative approach brings a difference maker to every event. I can absolutely vouch for every single one of those words. We've worked together for a bit now. Dan again welcome. Tell us how you got into all of this.
Dan Campbell (02:07)
Wow. So ⁓ first of all, everybody probably wants to know I I am going to a Cubs game tonight. I live in Chicago, so that's why I got my jersey on. ⁓ but yeah, I I you know, I grew up in a family of auctioneers. ⁓ my dad and my sister were auctioneers as well. My dad, it was his full-time career. ⁓ he spent 20 years in at UPS and then transitioned into the auction world. ⁓ he sent my sister and I to auctioneer school and we learned the the trade, but
Leya Simmons (02:14)
Love it.
No way.
Dan Campbell (02:32)
really just to kind of help him with his events, antique and estate auctions. And I was in college, I was raising money, you know, cash for college expenses, et cetera. But ultimately I graduated, went into the corporate world, and that was the end of my auctioneer career. So I thought, right? ⁓ but I spent a couple decades in the technology world working for companies like Oracle and Hewlett Packard and and several others. But ultimate Yeah, so
Leya Simmons (02:35)
Mm-hmm.
Really? I did not know that about you.
Dan Campbell (03:01)
Ultimately, ⁓ I we had a major event in our life. We had a daughter who passed away unexpectedly in 2015. And we're a very faith-based family. ⁓ you know, she was very mission focused, and we wanted to honor her legacy in some way. And I thought, you know, I have this skill that I learned when I was with my dad, and maybe I could help out a few charities and help raise some money, you know, for great causes that she would be very proud of, kind of just honoring her legacy. And
Leya Simmons (03:27)
Mm. Yeah.
Dan Campbell (03:31)
Had little did I know, because I thought I'd get a couple of phone calls. And there's such a high demand. Many of you probably already know that there's not a whole lot of dedicated fundraising auctioneers out there. It's a small industry in and of itself of auctioneers out there, but a lot of them are auto, cattle auctioneers, art auctioneers, et cetera. ⁓ but the fundraising space, there's only a few hundred. There's not that many. And as you probably all know, there's 1.5 million nonprofits in America. So there's not enough of us to go around.
Leya Simmons (03:50)
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (04:01)
So soon I was getting calls left and right and I started really booking up a lot of events. And we're doing about three hundred events a year, Leya now. ⁓ raising over a hundred and twenty million dollars a year. It's it's incredible the journey we've had over the last ten years and just get to, you know, think about our daughter in a way that that turning a tragedy into something positive is really, really special to us. So
Leya Simmons (04:24)
Dan, that has to just be the most incredible story and what an honor to your daughter and what you're doing with and could I ask what her name is? McKenna. That's such a beautiful tribute and testament and an ongoing tribute to her. That's just incredible. And I'm I'm so sorry for that, but I'm I'm so happy you're here with us today. ⁓
Dan Campbell (04:33)
McKenna. McKenna is really yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
Leya Simmons (04:46)
I I I I did not expect that whole story. So I'm taken aback a little bit, but I love I I you know all of us come to nonprofits for some reason, right? And they are typically bigger than we are in in general. So I I do think that that that type of and and I do know that, and I don't know if people that are watching and listening to this know that there is a strong family connection in the auctioneer world. A lot of times the auctioneers
Come from. That was news to me actually when I first met ⁓ met you all auctioneers, that that that was such a kind of a typical path. So fascinating that you moved away and then came back. Do you find that the time you spent working in the tech world ⁓ has has influenced for good or bad your auctioneering path?
Dan Campbell (05:35)
Significantly. In fact,
you know, I I think one of the things that a fundraising auctioneer does that isn't always as prevalent in some of the other parts of the auction world is is the consultative aspects. And we're gonna talk deeply about that here on this podcast. ⁓ about, you know, how do we how do we consult our clients to help them optimize for fundraising, maximizing their fundraising for the event. And I had a lot of consulting experience in the world that I was in. ⁓
Leya Simmons (06:03)
Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (06:04)
Once I left it, I couldn't leave that skill trait. you know, I took it right along with me into the world of of fundraising.
Leya Simmons (06:09)
Yeah.
I love it. Well, all right, let's start there then with the consulting. So what what does what makes the decision ⁓ so I guess let's really start at the start. The decision to hire a specialized auctioneer for an event, like whether or not to do that, and then secondary to that, which one to hire, w you know, what is it that makes that so important? What are the factors that should be considered?
Dan Campbell (06:36)
You know, I think ⁓ many organizations, ⁓ the first thought is it would be entertaining to have an auctioneer. It would be somebody who feels comfortable on stage. ⁓ we've all had seen that experience where a volunteer has stood up on stage and really didn't know what to do, right? And it's not their fault, it's just not their skill set. So ⁓ it's not like adding a band either. You know, yes, it can be fun to have a performance of an auctioneer, but I like to
Leya Simmons (06:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (07:05)
have you think of us as a revenue strategist with a microphone?
Leya Simmons (07:09)
⁓
that's a I've never heard that before. Those are good words.
Dan Campbell (07:11)
Yeah.
And so when we are brought in early enough, we can make a a lot of impact in various areas, such as the run of show, the timeline, how to optimize that for fundraising with that fundraising lens on. ⁓ the live auction that many people have, not everyone, but a lot of people like to have a live auction. It's exciting, it's entertaining, a paddle raise or a fund to need, you might call it, other revenue enhancers that sometimes the auctioneer is a part of as well. We can talk about that a little bit.
Leya Simmons (07:24)
Uh-huh.
Dan Campbell (07:40)
And even the logistics of the room, how to set up the room, ⁓ things that happen in the room that yeah, the space physically, ⁓ visual sight lines, sound, AV, all those things, we've seen what works and what doesn't work. And when it doesn't work, it can be a disaster. When the sound is not ⁓ high quality, ⁓ if you can't hear what's going on on the stage, how do you connect? How do you engage with the mission? Right. So all of those things we can look for ⁓ just
Leya Simmons (07:45)
Like physically the space, you mean? Yeah.
Dan Campbell (08:10)
based on our best practices, what we've seen at three hundred events a year, how we can maybe make a few decisions that will not only raise more money, but it could be the difference between losing thousands of dollars that walk out the door that could have gone in into the mission because we weren't prepared, right?
Leya Simmons (08:27)
Yeah. I s realize also that I said 50 or 60 events a year and here you're saying 300 events a year, so I grossly addressed. You're okay. You one human are physically addressed. I got that. Right? Like how is that even possible? All right. So then I I know we'll come back to more of that contextual piece, but what makes a really good live auction? That one piece. What what makes a really great live auction for an event?
Dan Campbell (08:34)
Well, I personally do fifty or sixty. We have a team, right? So my gosh, my I'd have no family life if I did three hundred events, right? For sure.
Yeah.
And that's often one of the first reasons why somebody is going to ⁓ to reach out to us. They they think, well, gosh, if I bring him alive in auctioneer, he's gonna know how to sell things. And we do. We we go to we go to auctioner school. There's at least twelve auction schools in the country where we go get training. It's a thing, right? And ⁓ we are very skilled in that area and it is a life skill. You learn it and you continually drill and practice and there are some amazing auctioneers out there. but
I think a real good live auction in a ⁓ fundraising event has to be ⁓ mission focused and also has to be time sensitive. ⁓ you know, a lot of auctioneers, my dad, for example, it was an all-day event to sell an estate, somebody's estate with all their belongings and their valuables, right? And and obviously when you have an audience of I'll call non-professional auction people, right? They don't go to many auctions.
Leya Simmons (09:32)
Yeah.
Attendees. Yeah.
Dan Campbell (09:55)
some do, but ⁓ they're used to coming for the party, having a little fun, maybe some entertainment at the end. ⁓ you've got them for about three, maybe four hours, which is an awfully long time, and they're starting to fatigue. We're seeing more and more audiences that are ⁓ leaving early. They're they're fatiguing on too much content, too much vision casting, and too big of a live auction. So six to eight items, maybe anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes of auction time.
Leya Simmons (10:16)
Sure.
Dan Campbell (10:22)
A professional fundraising auctioneer is going to average two to three minutes per item. So if you have six or eight items, that's going to take 15 to 20 minutes, right? If you want to shorten your live auction, fewer items, including description time, including selling time, can take that two to three minutes. So you want to kind of factor that in. Now, a non-trained or a non-professional auctioneer ⁓ typically doesn't go quite as efficient, and they might take five minutes per item or six minutes per item. So you got to factor that into you.
How many auction items you have based on the kind of auctioneer that's going to deliver on that, right? ⁓ so you be very careful not to have a live auction that goes too long. ⁓ having having the right items, things that have mass appeal, things that are hard to find, hard to get, things that provide a lot of options. So all of those, that flexibility, making sure an auction item is consumable for a broad ⁓ appeal to all of your audience.
Leya Simmons (11:02)
Right.
Dan Campbell (11:20)
If you have an item that's really special, but only one person in the room wants it, you're not gonna have a lot of bidding. Conversely, you could have something that everybody might have interest in, like a big screen TV, but they can get that on their smartphone at their Costco app or Sam's Club app or at Walmart, wherever. They don't need to buy it at a live auction. And the bidding's gonna be muted, right? Because of that item. So there's a natural cap. Now, if you do get a donation of a of a TV, for example.
Leya Simmons (11:27)
Yeah.
Right. It has a cap. It has a natural top end, yeah.
Dan Campbell (11:50)
Let's put it in the silent auction where those people that are really in demand or really need an item like that, they're gonna still bid on it. It's just not great for the live auction. Let's bring the the wow factor to the live auction as much as possible. and and I love the fact just to tie into auctions, you know, when when when many customers have a live and a silent auction, BetterUnite is a great technology. Up a little plug-in for you to ⁓ manage all that, right? Manage that ⁓ that auction experience that is.
Leya Simmons (12:12)
Thank you so much.
Dan Campbell (12:18)
through the smartphone, but also to capture the information ⁓ for each live auction item after they are sold. Right. All of that can be in one place for you if you're using Better Unite, right? Yeah.
Leya Simmons (12:29)
Thank you so much, Jen. You know what I realized
at the beginning of this, I typically do introduce myself as well, which I did not do. So thank you for the Better Unite plug, which is reminding me to tell everybody listening that I'm Leah Simmons. I am happen be the CEO and co-founder of Better Unite, and we host this webinar.
Late better late than never, right, Dan? okay, I do have a question about that. You you mentioned that so clearly there's there's a a real thing, you know, too many items, not good. But is there such a thing as too few? I mean, can you kind of short shrift your live auction?
Dan Campbell (12:47)
That's right.
No, not at all. I mean, I I do events where there's one or two items. ⁓ I'd say about 20% of our events have no live auction. So that's not a a requirement to do ⁓ a fundraising event. The paddle raise, which we're gonna talk about in a little bit, I believe, is is really kind of the big thing, right? For most organizations, it is where most of the money is is coming in. ⁓ that's not not a hundred percent true. There are events that have huge silent auctions.
Leya Simmons (13:04)
Really?
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (13:28)
very big revenue from live auctions and they can be amazing, right? But but we certainly ⁓ can do one or two items. ⁓ we sh you know and there's every once in a while there's gonna be events that might do 15 to 20 items, but just be prepared that that's 45 minutes to an hour ⁓ of your total program devoted to a live auction that your audience may start to wane on you.
Leya Simmons (13:51)
You know, I had not thought about that. So, fun fact, Better Unite is actually the platform that the National Auctioneer Association uses when they do fundraising auctions. And just this past week, last last week, they did their conference and show. So they're they, and you likely know this, Dan, but for our listeners, it's a a very big ⁓ auctioneers from around the country, maybe world even, gather in wherever it is, happen to be in San Antonio this year, and they do competitions, but I had never thought about
Dan Campbell (13:57)
Yes.
Leya Simmons (14:21)
About the fact that our audience is so different because you're right, like so many, like cattle, real estate, cars, that's typically the attendees, the people that are listening, are there for a purpose, for their job, and they go all the time. But at the at a benefit auction, that's not true at all. So it's just something interesting. I I'd never really thought about that before.
Dan Campbell (14:41)
No, you're right. And we we have to be prepared
for that. You know, as auctioneers, we have to be cognizant of the fact that many of the people in the room are not professional bid bidders and and they need our assistance. We have to slow it down a little bit. We have to communicate in in different ways. and that's really a part of what we do and how we make it really ⁓ an exceptional experience for for your donors.
Leya Simmons (14:51)
⁓
Having now seen both, you know, the the the cattle real estate, so forth, and benefit, you're absolutely right. It is a vastly different experience and needs to be, to your point. Okay, so you mentioned that could be that we don't even have a live auction. We're just gonna jump into fund and needs. So what do you think, in your mind, you would categorize as the absolutely most important fundraising, I don't want to say component, but maybe moment of an event.
Dan Campbell (15:33)
Mm-hmm. The reason I I think most people would agree that the funding or the paddle raise, that mission moment is is most essential because it's the it's the most logical place to connect your audience ⁓ to the mission with vision casting. And we need to prepare a a very succinct vision casting moment where we create a call to action why we are here, why we need you to support us.
Leya Simmons (15:48)
Mm.
Dan Campbell (16:01)
And it's more than just showing up for the party, right? It's it's digging deep to help us ⁓ change lives and save lives in so many ways, right? So part of our consultation, and many organizations have it down, they know their missions, of course, but it can it can go awry if you have too much vision casting. You know, I had one one organization that really wanted to cover three main topics with their vision casting.
Leya Simmons (16:21)
Right.
Dan Campbell (16:28)
And they chartered three different speakers to talk, and all three spoke to all three topics, which made for about a 20-minute, 25-minute vision casting moment. And the crowd started waning. You could see it, the momentum was slipping out the window. It'd have been a lot better if each of them would have selected one of the key tenants that they wanted to cover in the mission instead of all three covering all three because it became repetitive, right? But independent left independently, these three different speakers who weren't talking to each other.
Leya Simmons (16:41)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (16:58)
We're doing their very best to create a mission moment that was impactful. They didn't realize that somebody right behind them was going to say the exact same things, or right before them was going to say the same things. And that's unfortunate because if you prepare, if you plan accordingly, you're going to have a better experience. ⁓ less is more, right?
Leya Simmons (17:06)
Right.
Absolutely.
And also, I mean, to your point earlier about the, you know, we see shorter and shorter attention spans of our audiences. I mean, that's just true across the board. We have shorter and shorter attention spans with we've got the TikTok generation coming up, it's even even shorter. So I can absolutely see that those mission moments have to be concise and directed. So
Dan Campbell (17:37)
Our our
our typical fund and need is going take eight to twelve minutes, depending on how many levels, how many people are in the room, because we've got to call each bid number. ⁓ so a smaller event might take six to eight minutes, a large vent might take you know, 12 minutes, maybe even a little bit more. But ultimately it's it's about creating momentum. And those first few levels, if we can have some pre-commits, if we could maybe have a
Leya Simmons (17:41)
Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (18:05)
a match or a matching donor that would be willing to challenge the audience that if they're donating tonight, it's worth double or triple or something like that. That can be really helpful for the momentum. And the momentum in the first 30 seconds to a minute is going to carry throughout the entire paddle raise for 10 minutes because the people are inspired by some of that giving at the top. We do a technique called fishing at the beginning of our paddle raises. Yeah. And so
Leya Simmons (18:12)
Right.
Dan Campbell (18:33)
What happens in most consultations is we talk about well, what paddle raise levels do we think our audience has a capacity of giving at? And most ⁓ underestimate their audience. They will say, well, that's yes. they'll start at 5,000, maybe they'll start at a thousand, some will start at 10. ⁓ I had an event ⁓ that I was just on a call with about an hour ago. Last year, they started at 15,000 and they felt that was the capacity of the room. And
Leya Simmons (18:44)
really? Huh.
Dan Campbell (19:00)
A fishing moment is where we will, before we start the paddle raise, we're gonna ask the room if there if anybody in the room would like to do something extraordinary and help anchor our paddle raise with a gift above and beyond our imagination. And if you would like to be that person, if you would raise your hand, I will come to you and you can tell our audience what you'd like to to donate. And you will inspire everybody in the room with your generous giving. Now it is, it's good and and
Leya Simmons (19:13)
⁓
It sounds like a Disney moment.
Dan Campbell (19:28)
You know, it's a survey question, and I will tell you occasionally nobody raised their hand and we just move on to the power raise. It's no crickets, it's not an issue. However, when it works, and this particular example that we were starting at 15, I somebody raised his hand. he says, I'd like to start us off with 50,000. And then another person raised their hand and I went over to them and they said, We'd also like to give 50,000. Another person raised their hand, I walked over to them and they said, I'd like to give a hundred thousand.
Leya Simmons (19:37)
⁓ man.
Dan Campbell (19:56)
I went to another person who raised their hand and they wanted to give 30. It just kept going. And I had eight people give during the fishing moment. Now it also tells me that we started too low because this year we're going to start a little bit higher because now they understand the capacity of their room. We're not probably not going to start 100,000, but here's the thing: if I had to ask for 15,000, guess what? The audience is going to give me 15,000. And yet between those eight giver donors, we probably had, you know, $200,000 of giving before we even started the paddle raise.
Leya Simmons (20:06)
Sure. I would imagine.
But they would again. Yeah.
That's awesome. yeah.
Dan Campbell (20:26)
And the crowd was energized. They were
leaning in and they could not wait to give. And and I will tell you that every one of those fishing, ⁓ it doesn't have to be, you can have them pr planted or pre-committed, but every one of those was organic. And that's just because they didn't know who was gonna be there with the capacity to give, right? That's a rare situation, but I it was a great example of what I was trying to point out for the fishing moment.
Leya Simmons (20:45)
That's right.
That is incredible. And you know, I've been so there's a gentleman, Chiri and Coshi, who's been doing a lot of research on kind of brain activity and where giving lives within that he has like a book around neuroscience and donating. And and there's the if you're purchasing something like an asylum auction and even a live auction, it's a closed loop system, right? Like I want to, I did it, and then I bought it and it's over. But giving stays open. And so what you're describing is just this perfect example of what he describes as the open loop, you know, general.
generosity ⁓ position of our brains. So fascinating. That is so and congratulations and to the nonprofit as well. It's really impressive.
Dan Campbell (21:30)
No question. Yeah. Well
it's just they have a good mission for sure.
Leya Simmons (21:33)
Yeah.
Well, sounds like it. What so if you're if somebody comes to you and or I don't know, if I were hiring you, what I would really want to know is like, what what can I do to make the room just electric? What can I do so that it feels like the cause I've been to those events where one of you, you know, a auctioneer's on the stage and the room just is buzzing, like it's like there's energy and how how do you how do you kind of manifest that?
Dan Campbell (22:00)
the most important thing we can do is to activate ⁓ our board or our committees. And and then we do we do board training ⁓ for many of our organizations. I do about two or three of these presentations a week myself. and we really want to focus on ⁓ getting the board to realize their role at the event. It is sort of a work night for our board. I realize some organizations that are listening to this.
Leya Simmons (22:06)
⁓ that was not where I thought you were going with this. Interesting, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (22:28)
maybe a school, they don't have a board per se. They have committees or maybe they have alumni that could be in that same framework. But ultimately, we want to make sure that those they know what their role is because often a board member doesn't realize. They think if I just buy a ticket and I show up, I've done my job. Or maybe I've invited a couple of my friends. But if each of them are taught and and we we give them awareness on how to be identifying people that have the capacity.
Leya Simmons (22:44)
Show up, right.
Dan Campbell (22:57)
Capacity to give andor the propensity to give. And if they're more intentional inviting those people and filling their tables, if they're a table captain or if they promise to fill a table, ⁓ if they fill people with them with the right people, and and there's no wrong people, but they're more of the right people, the people that are ready to give for the right reasons, we can do some magic. I had an event ⁓ a couple years ago where they had 15 board members, and after our presentation, ⁓
Leya Simmons (22:58)
Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (23:26)
14 the board members filled their tables with people that had a capacity and permits to give. They were really leaning into it. But our 15th board member went out and filled 14 tables all by himself. He was bringing people in from Miami, from LA. Yeah, everybody wants to know that guy's name. He went, they want him to join their board. He brought in 14 tables. Now we had 28 tables of people that had the capacity and the propensity to give. And they were there for the right reason. They were ready to give.
Leya Simmons (23:40)
I don't know that I know that many people. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Campbell (23:55)
Now we still had room for another hundred or so people in the room. It wasn't like we excluded anybody, but that group went from 800,000 in their overall fundraising the year prior to 2.2 million in the in the year following, just because the board was more active in getting more of the right people in the room. And they've taken off ever since. So it's it's not it's not as simple as it sounds.
Leya Simmons (24:17)
Yeah, I was about to
Dan Campbell (24:18)
Because we do
need to shepherd our board members to to fill the seats. And if they can't, let's find somebody else to help fill them. Same with sponsors. We ask a sponsor to fill we we give them 10 tickets as part of their sponsorship. And then they go back to their busy day life and run a successful business. And all of a sudden it's a week or two before the event, and like, my gosh, I gotta fill these seats. And they're gonna they're gonna start inviting their new hires, their secretaries, their family members. Those are not additional giving units.
Leya Simmons (24:38)
Forgot all about it. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (24:47)
And so we wanna be as board members and staff good at shepherding our sponsors and not put all that pressure on them to fill those seats with the right people. If they can't fill them, let's get them back and let's help them fill those seats. Maybe we don't have a sponsorship with 10 tickets. Maybe it's a sponsorship with two or four. That sponsor can still ask for more tickets if they want, but the reality is they can ⁓ they can fill a couple tape, a couple seats and then we can fill them surround them with mission-focused people, which
Leya Simmons (25:16)
Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (25:17)
creates better opportunity to engage with those long term sponsorships.
Leya Simmons (25:20)
Now that's an interesting strategy that I've never thought about. So you take a few and then you put other people that are inspired around them. Do you do you have some words or language that you suggest using around? Because I I just again putting myself back in that position, asking somebody who's sponsored that maybe you know you had to go out and cultivate and get the sponsorship, asking them to fill the the table with those that could actually give or have capacity, it feels like it could be a little bit awkward. Do you have suggestions?
Dan Campbell (25:26)
That's right.
Leya Simmons (25:50)
Or or tips for folks about that?
Dan Campbell (25:53)
I do. I I use a t a methodology called 1031, which is from my sales and corporate world days. But ⁓ you know, identifying ten people in your world of influence that maybe ⁓ have that capacity or propensity to give. We don't necessarily know need to know how much they make, but we we could identify whether they are philanthropic or not. We could identify by the house they live in, the car they drive, the business they have that they're successful.
Leya Simmons (26:00)
huh.
Uh-huh.
Dan Campbell (26:20)
And then that intimacy level I have with him personally. So I would want to walk up to my neighbor, say his name is Bill, and I say, Bill, hey, I see you you're very successful. I see you giving to the food pantry, you give to your church. I said, here's a here's a very ⁓ important organization to me. It's meaningful to me. And I would love for you to join me in supporting this event. Would you come and be my guest at my table and help us fundraise?
the for this event. And it's not a hard question to ask if they're friends. It's a little bit harder if there's somebody that is a stranger to you, right? And and just hoping that they will. Now it doesn't have to be my neighbor or my friend. It could be a contractor. It could be somebody I do business with. And it's ⁓ maybe I sponsor them and I do things for them. It's quick pro crow, right? I mean whatever you call it. So so there's a lot of different groups in your world, your sphere of influence that you could approach and just getting
Leya Simmons (27:01)
Sure.
Dan Campbell (27:20)
three or four couples to the room and you have 10 board members or 10 table captains or 15 table captains can make a world of difference. And we're not going to exclude those that that support us in other ways. They support us with their hands ⁓ in so many other ways. We just want to make sure that we are setting up for not just a friend raiser, but a but a fundraiser.
Leya Simmons (27:40)
I love that. Yeah, because they they do at the end of it all too. Like people have taken time out of their busy lives and of course they're supporting you, but they also came to have fun and do something that was enjoyable and be in relationship with people around them. That's actually my favorite part of nonprofits ⁓ or nonprofit events. So do you find that there's any like if there is one particular thing that nonprofits, you know, across the board tend to overlook when they're when they're beginning the planning stages, when they're in the beginning.
planning stages for their event.
Dan Campbell (28:14)
Well, I I would say one thing I I worry most about is that run of show, that timeline. ⁓ there's often a lot of voices that are coming into play that want certain things done, including some of your key donors. They they want their moment to shine as well, especially an honoree or an award winner. And as you start filling up your timeline with all of those things that can be ⁓ you know, momentum killers, ⁓ I think even even the technology.
Leya Simmons (28:25)
Yes.
Dan Campbell (28:42)
space where where you live, Leya, i is that if there's long checkout lines, that can be a a problem. That could be the last impression they have of your event and they will not come back. Right. Right. So when you have too many talking heads, that can detract. Right. When you have A V sus is situations or sound issues that go awry, that can be an issue. And any long lines at the bar or at the at the checkout line or anything
Leya Simmons (28:43)
Yeah.
You jumped on my soapbox.
Or even the check-in
line too, like we're between them and their drink and their friends. And if they're sitting there frustrated and waiting, then they we tee them up to you, frustrated and annoyed immediately.
Dan Campbell (29:12)
Check in line two.
Yeah. I'd say test your technology ⁓ before the event, you know, do a Wi-Fi check, train your staff, make sure your staff ha I'd even have some volunteers pretend to go up be guests and go from check in to check out, right? Just make sure everybody is seeing what good looks like and they can flesh out the flaws before they get to the night to the go time when all the guests arrive. you know, wanna make it a seamless experience. ⁓ that technology is sort of invisible.
for the night. If it becomes a ⁓ an issue they remember, then they have they're not thinking about your mission, right?
Leya Simmons (29:56)
It has
failed, exactly.
I that thank you for mentioning that. I absolutely ⁓ agree with wholeheartedly and that's I I have in my lifetime been just obsessed with quick check-in and no checkout and you know any display or anything else that you're using, the testing, the testing, the testing. We literally had for at for at with Better Unite at the beginning, we had this like pop-up that would say test, test, test. Like because as much as we can make it work, if you don't know how to work it, it's you know, everybody's losing in that case.
So anyway, thank you again for jumping on my own soapbox. Okay, so we've made the decision, we're hiring a benefit auctioneer. What do we need to do as the nonprofit to make sure that you are set up for success best we can?
Dan Campbell (30:43)
Yeah, definitely. ⁓ many of our organizations will provide scripting. They will ⁓ identify key guests, major donors. We want to understand the audience, who's in the room and people that like even certain tables. I I'll give you one really unique example. I had a a ⁓ great client who subtly, you know, we had about 40 tables in the room and everybody had their centerpieces and they were low profile, which was great because I can see everybody tip.
Leya Simmons (30:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, big roll.
Dan Campbell (31:13)
but what
they did is they added a candlelight, a few candles ⁓ at a few of the tables. And from the stage, what what we learned was that they had identified to the to the stage where the key donors were, the major donors were. That was their tables. And so nobody in the room could tell because it was very dispersed, but those major donors were at tables where that candle was, and the others did not.
And it was just so obvious from the stage that you could really tell where the money was going to come from. Not that other people wouldn't give and support, but we knew that's was our our our base, right? So that ⁓ certainly we want to here's the thing, we want to make the donors feel seen because they'll give more. And if if we have the right pronunciations of their names, if we're gonna call somebody out.
Leya Simmons (32:00)
Hmm. Yeah.
Dan Campbell (32:06)
If we understand friendly rivalries, ⁓ oftentimes a organization has people that come every year and they like to outbid each other, and that's good to know, right? I I'd like to know last year's winner of the auction item that we sold last year and have and acknowledge them and and that gives them pride, right? Or maybe it's even to the point where they get to say a few words about how great the trip was or experience was, right? ⁓ you may have board members that we want to talk to beforehand that wanna be sort of
Leya Simmons (32:13)
Sure. Those are fun to watch.
Dan Campbell (32:35)
Help the auction go along. Maybe they're gonna start out the bidding and they they're gonna keep the momentum going. These are things that help us instead of not knowing, it's just knowledge, right? ⁓ are there any key companies that need to be recognized? Because again, if they feel seen, they're gonna give more. And any real human details, all of that, this everything I just said will help loosen the wallets. I'm just gonna say it right now. That that's how we're gonna raise more money, is if we get a connection to that audience.
Leya Simmons (32:40)
⁓ right.
For sure.
Dan Campbell (33:04)
we want a connection to the mission. So we want as much mission information as we can. ⁓ during the panel raise, we're gonna ask for some some ⁓ key bullets about you know what these donations would do for the organization, something tangible, something that people can connect to. So all of that is what we flesh out during our consultative process. We're gonna ask those questions. Who are the key donors in the room? who do I need to acknowledge? and and again, what what
is it that we're raising money for and how can I c help the client the audience connect to that?
Leya Simmons (33:36)
So I'm so curio because I mean all I I hear you talking about this and it's just the way that you're framing it too makes so much sense. It's just basic relational psychology, but from a stage, which is so is very different for most of us, not for you. But so how how many hours do you find that you're typically consulting with your nonprofits prior to going on site to the actual event itself?
Dan Campbell (34:00)
⁓ way more than I acknowledge in my contract. I'll just tell you that. ⁓ our contract, we usually offer up about five hours of consulting on average. We always yeah, but we always go over it. There's always more to it. And that's just time and f with the customer, with the client, right? we are certainly doing stuff behind the scenes to prepare ⁓ not just us, but the team that we bring with us, the people on the floor, the recording assistant, everybody else that's involved.
Leya Simmons (34:02)
I bet. I bet.
Which is still a lot, yeah.
Right.
Dan Campbell (34:28)
there's a lot going on behind the scenes that you don't account for ⁓ hundreds of hours to be candid. And that's the same for the committees, same for the staff. They work tirelessly. They all need a vacation after the gala, you know. So I I I think they should go for sure. But it's it's worth it, right?
Leya Simmons (34:45)
I actually don't think they should go Dan. I think they need to still follow up on those gifts and follow do make sure you've got moves management in place, then take your rest. ⁓
Dan Campbell (34:50)
True, gratitude plan.
All right. Good idea. I I'm
with you.
Leya Simmons (34:57)
But ⁓ I I I mean that's so much of what I'm hearing from you too, though, is the you know, becoming becoming close to the organization and learning the names and the right pronunciations and so much more than a script, which is I I think a default setting in our in when we approach this a lot of times is like, we just bring somebody in and it's they're an entertainer and they're up on the stage. So that's that's really wonderful. What
Dan Campbell (35:20)
Leya,
a little little humor. ⁓ just ⁓ I back in the virtual event days back during COVID, I did an event for a Greek organization and I had to call out the name of every donor. And there was a probably about ⁓ eighty to a hundred donors, and each one individually I would call out as they raised their paddle. And I butchered so many Greek names like you, like nobody's business. I mean, it was it was charming actually. They laughed because there's no way I was gonna know every one of those names, right? How are you gonna do it?
Leya Simmons (35:29)
Okay.
Yeah.
How are you gonna do it?
You've got some grace there, but man, I can only imagine. And that's not, those are not, that's a lot of consonants altogether. ⁓ so then what so what mistake do you see? I we've kind of talked around this, but is there any one mistake you see kind of most often that that that event organizers ⁓ put in front of you that if you if you could wave a magic wand that this was never going to happen again, what would that thing be?
Dan Campbell (35:55)
That's right.
⁓ I I think the thing I see most often, I wouldn't say it's the most important, but the thing I see most often is how do we manage that that timeline run show? ⁓ transitions. every every minute is money to us. And and if you are ⁓ you you'll see and hear and feel the gaps and the and you just feel the energy seeping out of the room because of those gaps, right? Or if we're behind schedule. And so
Leya Simmons (36:38)
Yeah, a hundred percent, yeah.
Dan Campbell (36:43)
Nine times out of 10, we're never going to be perfectly on schedule. it's it's just de facto things come up. But but if you're 20 minutes, 30 minutes behind schedule, ⁓ you're really pushing the clock and you're you're you're you're pushing upstream to to raise the money you really wanted to raise. And sometimes we we fight through it and make it happen, and it's great. Many times we do, and that's again why you want a professional. I don't think a non-professional has the skill to help you in those situations, right? So I think that's the most common thing.
Leya Simmons (36:49)
Great job.
Dan Campbell (37:12)
But I think I'd like to say that one thing that many clients don't think about is before the event, they should step back with their team and say, what does a successful night look like? Right? And that's part of setting goals. And and it's always, you know, always a financial goal, of course, but also ⁓ having other goals. You know, ⁓ you know, what is our purpose? Defining your purpose for the event. Yeah, are are we
Leya Simmons (37:26)
that's a good one. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dan Campbell (37:40)
building a a larger network of donors. Is this a friend raiser? Is it a launch pad for a capital campaign? There's a lot of things that can be a part of that. But I think we need to stop before we even get too far into the planning phase and say, hey, if if if the Monday after the event we all got together and said, man, that night was a huge success, what would that look like to you? And then just envision it. Because you know when we envision things, no matter what's what skill set you have, we are much better accomplishing it.
And so I would really encourage people to set those goals. In fact, the financial goals, we often ask people to set three goals, their base goal, their ⁓ reach goal, and their aspire goal. And you know, oftentimes when you set three goals, you end up hitting that middle one and it it can be really considered a successful night by everybody.
Leya Simmons (38:27)
Love that because you know that is the pushback that I'll hear a lot of times from nonprofit consultants or you know folks that have run the same event year over year, they they they kind of like have lost the vision of it, they don't know why they're doing it. Then they're always questioning the ROI, right? Like, did it did it accomplish what we needed it to accomplish? And but but they are only talking about the dollars that happened in the room instead of the you know, like you mentioned, the are we raising awareness, are we bringing new people.
To the table six months from now, did somebody that was sitting at a table donate? Did we get some recurring donors? There's just so many things that can happen. I don't, you know, as personally I am a big fan of nonprofit events. I think they are magical. I think that they accomplish something that other organizations and companies don't get to have. And so I think everybody should run one because there's so much more than just, like you said, that base goal number that can that can easily happen.
Dan Campbell (39:11)
They are.
For sure, I agree.
Leya Simmons (39:27)
I so okay.
I have two more questions for you. Last one second to last is
Dan Campbell (39:31)
Okay.
Leya Simmons (39:34)
Well, actually, okay. We'll just wrap it up with one single question. So y you've told me now something that if everybody left here, if you could have them go away, like think about timeline, pay attention to transitions, those things. Is there something that everybody here could do for their next upcoming event, but do today? So something that they, you know, can can begin working on or start doing today with the goal towards that last of that next event.
Dan Campbell (40:02)
Yeah, I think we we need to remember that the night belongs to the mission. And we sometimes get wrapped up in the minutiae, you know, the decorations or the food choices and and the the ⁓ you know the band choice, right? And all those things are great, but if if we're not really putting our fundraising lens on around ⁓ what we're trying to accomplish for the mission, it it can be a missed opportunity.
Leya Simmons (40:27)
Yeah.
Dan Campbell (40:30)
So even with the school, you know, it's not it's not just ⁓ saving lives ⁓ for pediatric cancer, right? It's it's ⁓ making sure our kids have good curriculum and make sure that they have the opportunities to ⁓ to expand their journey, you know, as they graduate and move on to the to the outside world. And and so making sure every decision you make realize that it has a dollar impact, but it also has a mission impact. And so
I would love for you to, if I were just ask everybody to think about having somebody on in the room in your committee that has your governor, your governance, right, on that mission. And and to push back to all the committees who are working really hard. I've given this decoration committee full empowerment to do everything they want to do, and they're off in their corner doing their thing. I have the live auction procurement team doing their thing. I have the silent auction team. I have the the the
You know, whatever. Every different team is doing their thing and yet there's not sometimes an oversight to to really make sure that we're doing something that's mission focused. So
Leya Simmons (41:38)
That is such an incredible. I love that. We're
moving from minutiae to mission. That's what an incredible way for us to wrap this up. Dan, thank you so much for your time and just what an incredible legacy you have allowed for McKenna to leave for all of us, frankly. I'm I'm I'm without words on that. Thank you so much. And thank you for all of these very practical tips. This is actually very helpful. I, you know, talked to a lot of auctioneers, but you've really reframed a few things for me today, so I appreciate it.
Dan Campbell (41:57)
Thank you, Leila.
Excellent.
Leya Simmons (42:06)
all right, I will talk to you super quickly. Well, first of all, let me tell you thank you for joining us. And then if you have questions for Dan, you can email him here, dan at raisingpaddles.com. If you can't remember that, you can always email support at betterunite.com. These will be in the show notes if you're listening to us on the podcast on Spotify as well as on YouTube. And if you'd like to connect with me, there's the QR code that will take you to my LinkedIn. I always love that. And you'll hear more about future 501c drops. Next week, we are
This is one of the big ones, and I'm very excited about that. Cracking the mid and low donor problem, mid-level and low-level donors. We know as an industry, as a sector, we are losing those donors at a quite alarming pace. This is going to be the story of how one global ministry turned peer-to-peer giving into its first real solution. Dan, this was actually at events that they are doing this piece. It's really fascinating. Jeff Givens with Evangelism Explosion will be joining me. That's next Tuesday, July 28th.
130 Central. The QR code is there to scan. The link will be in our show notes as well if you're listening or just listen to the next recording. And if you have not seen BetterUnite, that Dan kindly pointed out, but my absence of doing so, and you'd like to know what event and auction software tool we were talking about, Dan was talking about, please scan that QR code for a demo or again email support at betterunite.com. We would love to show you around. Dan, thank you again so much.
I so appreciate your time today and all of the work that you do. You're just incredible. You and your entire team. Wonderful work. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Have an incredible day. Have a great rest of your week. We're gearing up towards the end of summer. Fall fundraising season is right around the corner. So listen to everything that Dan said and let's all go do some good. Have a good day, everyone. Bye-bye.
Dan Campbell (43:46)
Thanks, Leya Good working with you.