Fundraising Pop Culture: Spock at a Gala

Spock

By Peter Heller

Many nonprofits have annual fundraising galas. Maybe your organization is one of them. These events can serve to honor the inspiring leaders in your community and raise important operating dollars. Yet they can also be a huge drain on staff and volunteer time, create giving that is not deeply connected to your mission, and be attended by many guests who don’t care too much (“Please, come to the gala to help me fill the table I bought.”).

I think of most galas as a necessary evil.

On the other hand, I love Star Trek.

What? Let me explain…

Star Trek, Spock, and Galas

Helping nonprofits maximize gala effectiveness always reminds me of Star Trek. Specifically the movies, The Wrath of Kahn and The Search for Spock.

Hang on, just a minute more…

Schlocky acting and plot lines aside, there is an important truth about galas in these movies.

At the end of The Wrath of Kahn, Spock is dying after heroically saving everyone else. He turns to Kirk and says: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one.”

At the end of The Search for Spock, however, Kirk has found Spock (big surprise) and he tells Spock: “The needs of few, or the one, outweigh the needs of the many.”

It Depends

Well, it certainly seems like it depends, doesn’t it?

And that’s my point about galas. Depending on your vision, a gala can serve to engage hundreds of people and raise lots of money. Or, a gala can be the chance to cultivate one or two VIPs in attendance so that they will be ready to make gifts that far surpass the total you raise at the event. Often a successful gala serves both purposes and it’s important to remember both motivations as you plan your gala strategy.

Hear it from Kirk and Spock directly, and let me know what you think:

Spock gives the ultimate sacrifice for his friends.

Needs of the one, outweigh the needs of the many.

Peter Heller is the Founder of Heller Fundraising Group, a New York City-based fundraising consulting firm that works with local, national and international nonprofits on capital campaigns. peter@hellerfundraisinggroup.com

Taking The Pulse Of Your Financial Wellness Program

Even though workplace financial wellness benefits have been around for a decade, they’re now more popular than ever. Today, more than eight in 10 public companies offer financial solutions to help employees reduce stress and improve their overall well-being. And of those that don’t, half are either considering a program or are in the early stages of implementation. So, it’s no longer a question of whether employers should promote financial wellness at work, but how to determine the right services and ensure the best possible engagement.

Morgan Stanley at Work and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP) conducted a survey¹ to find out what financial wellness programs are doing right—and what they can do better. Here are five vital signs of success for employers to aim for as they build out, enhance and evaluate their offerings.

1. Think about challenges beyond retirement

When we asked employers what benefits they considered part of their financial wellness suite, most named 401(k)s or other defined contribution retirement plans. While retirement needs may remain top of mind for benefits providers and participants, financial wellness should include a broad, curated array of services. For example, 70% cited equity compensation as an element of their program. An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) was also mentioned by a sizeable number of employers, a sign of just how intertwined employees’ emotional well-being is with their financial well-being.

What do employers consider “financial wellness” benefits?

2. Help employees understand equity awards

It may be tempting to think of financial wellness as a menu of products and solutions. But that would neglect the education component of financial wellness—a critical element of a successful program, especially when it comes to benefits where employees have less knowledge and experience. Half of employers surveyed said that employees have asked for help in understanding equity compensation plans. Although six in 10 employers now offer equity education as part of their financial wellness benefit, there’s still an opportunity to do more, through digital tools, seminars and coaching.

The Growing Need for Equity Education

3. Communicate year-round with more personal messaging

Despite the interest among employees in workplace financial wellness, actual usage tells a different story. 65% of employers reported that fewer than half of eligible employees participate in their financial wellness benefits. The top reasons? Lack of awareness, the feeling that benefits have been slow to gain traction and a perception that not all employees need these services. This points to a need for ongoing communication that’s more compelling and that addresses the unique needs of different employee segments, like women and people of color. Only 45% of employers say they tailor benefits communications based on demographics. What’s more, employers are simply stretched too thin when it comes to time, energy and resources, which may further lower the frequency and effectiveness of communications.

Communication Breakdown

4. Find new and better ways to measure success

It’s no surprise that in our data-driven world, keeping a financial wellness program healthy means setting goals and measuring and tracking progress regularly. Key data includes rates of benefit participation, turnover, absenteeism and employee satisfaction, plus health claims and productivity. Yet 17% of employers say they have no measurements in place at all. The good news is, employers know what’s missing and are ready to act. More than 50% of those surveyed said tracking success is the best way to improve their program’s effectiveness.

What’s Missing From Financial Wellness Programs?

5. Meet shorter-term needs and tackle everyday struggles

An important, but sometimes overlooked, benefit of financial wellness is relieving the everyday financial stresses that can weigh on employees. When people have the help they need to thrive in life—day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month—they’re more focused and productive at work. It’s why, according to our research, more and more financial wellness programs are helping employees meet challenges at every stage of life. That means advice and tools for building emergency savings, budgeting, consolidating debt, and buying a home; assistance with saving for college or paying off student loans; and help confronting the challenges of childcare or eldercare.

What Financial Wellness Programs Offer Beyond Retirement Benefits and Financial Education

What’s Next?

It’s clear that financial wellness through the workplace is here to stay. But there’s more work to be done to help programs work harder and smarter—including expanding the range of offerings, educating employees about complex benefits like equity plans, meeting the day-to-day struggles employees face, deploying better measurement tools, and driving participation with targeted, high-touch, and ongoing communications. Morgan Stanley at Work is ready to help you meet the challenges with a suite of financial workplace solutions spanning Financial Wellness, Retirement Solutions and Equity Compensation.

So You Want to Work With An Influencer

Influencer

Social media can be a grind. For a small nonprofit who likely doesn’t have a dedicated social media manager, let alone a marketing person, trying to create, curate and cultivate content for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest can be hard enough. Add to it that if you’re on social then the expectation is that you are engaging with the community on your posts, answering “customer service” like inquiries in your DMs, reaching out to page managers of other accounts to schedule collaborations, jumping on real-time trends, addressing crisis situations, rotating themes, making sure you’re addressing all your communities, communicating your brand, driving site visits, raising money, the list goes on and on. That doesn’t even include keeping up with all the changes on those platforms or any of the other huge social platforms that are more video driven like YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat or the ever growing crop of new channels — don’t you love it when your CEO says, “My daughter is using Clubhouse and we should be on that to go viral!” And likely after all this, you may still be getting your posts seen by only a handful of people and have only a couple hundred followers.

After a few years of what feels like spinning your wheels, you then were able to convince someone that you need to have a paid media budget. Since all the public social platforms have evolved or continue to evolve towards a pay to play model it means that the cost to acquire a new follower continues to increase. How do you stand out and build awareness beyond your current audience? Often people turn to the idea of working with an influencer with lots of their own followers and clout as a magic salvo. It’s not the end all be all solution, but influencer partnerships can have a huge impact on building awareness, developing your authority and getting you  included in social conversations.

You’re not alone. Influencer marketing is expected to be a $15 billion dollar industry by 2022 with 63% of marketers planning to increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year.

But before you jump into any kind of influencer relationship try to work through these questions. Document your answers so that you can hold your organization and the influencer accountable.

  • Your Strategy – does this tactic align with your overall marketing strategy? How will this ladder into the rest of the work you do? What are the goals and objectives you have for this influencer? Why do influencers make sense for your organization at this point in time? Knowing the answers to these questions will help act as a filter when deciding who to work with.
  • Your Goals and Expectations – What will success look like? Do you need creative control? Do you expect them to post it on their channels? And which channels matter to you based on the audience? How much content and what formats do you need? Is this a one off arrangement or are you looking for a long-term partner? Will a microinfluencer work for you, someone with a following in the hundreds, but they are all the top tier influential data scientists, or do you need a Billie Eilish to make your mark?
  • Your Budget – What is the value proposition you can offer to an influencer? Are you looking for them to donate their time? Their reach? How big is your budget? Is it zero? No harm in being honest about. Just means that you will need to focus your influencer outreach with that in mind and look for other ways to provide value to the influencer for their time.
  • The Influencer’s Goals – What are they looking to get out of this relationship? Ideally they want to work with you because they believe in your impact work, they are served by your organization or they have a direct connection and want to help advance your mission. Do they just want the fee? Are they using this as an opportunity to make amends for one of their past social media fumbles? None of these questions have wrong answers, but the more you know up front the better the outcome of the relationship.
  • The Results – How will you measure success? What data will you need to get from the influencer or will you need to capture? What ROI are you expecting?

If you can answer these questions you can build a case for investing in an influencer and you’ll be better prepared to find, negotiate and collaborate with any influencer. When you have a solid plan both your organization and the influencer are more likely to create a mutually beneficial experience for you and your new followers.

HelpGood is a social media agency that helps nonprofits, foundations, faith-based and purpose-driven organizations reach, engage and inspire action from key audiences. We are full-service in that we help with research, planning, creative production, implementation, evaluation, and optimization to your goals and objectives. 

Nonprofit Spotlight: The Book Fairies

BOok fairies

About The Book Fairies

Mission Statement: The Book Fairies collects reading materials for people in need throughout metropolitan New York.  The reading materials foster literacy and academic success, provide a respite from personal struggles, and nurture a love of reading across age groups.

With 1 in 4 New Yorkers’ being identified as illiterate, The Book Fairies seeks to support the literacy efforts and aspirations of our community members most in need of assistance by developing strong community ties and increasing accessibility to reading materials to underprivileged individuals across metropolitan New York. Our services include collecting new and gently loved reading materials from individuals, local schools and community organizations and redistributing them via our Special Needs partnerships, to high-poverty schools and organizations whose lack of materials can stifle the growth of their members. Since 2012, The Book Fairies has donated over 2.7 Million books ranging in age from baby through adult in order to infuse these communities with the necessary reading materials to directly impact their high rates of illiteracy.  What Covid-19 has proven, is that BOOKS are ESSENTIAL, especially for those who have been left in the dark without access to books prior to this crisis.  In 2020 we distributed over 453,000 books and we will continue to work on leveling the field so access to books is not a barrier to achieving literacy.  

About the Once Upon a Read-a-Thon

The Book Fairies ONCE UPON A READ-A-THON 2021, is a unique virtual fundraising event that will allow individuals of all ages to participate, at any level, in a month-long reading event in  MAY.   In addition to fundraising, we are promoting reading as we invite participants to read for 30 minutes each day of the month, if they would like.  

During the month we have amazing guest authors that read their books and answer questions on Facebook live. We also have fun giveaways during the month as well. This year’s event already has about 20 incredible authors – children and adult – who will be participating.

There are several ways for you to be involved.

I hope we can count on your support to help us reach our $100,000 goal – that means YOU will be an important part of getting 300,000 books into the hands of kids in need this year!

Eileen’s Bio:

Eileen Minogue is the Executive Director of The Book Fairies. She is a professional leader with experience in all aspects of business management, program administration, fund development and volunteer engagement. Eileen brings with her many years of professional experience in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors, most recently having been the Co-founder and Executive Director for Patient AirLift Services (PALS) a growing Long Island organization, building it from her basement to serving individuals both nationwide and internationally. In addition, she has been volunteering her time and talents to a number of other nonprofits for over twenty years including serving on the board of The Massapequa Community Fund, an organization that has provided direct local support since 2001. Eileen states, “I am incredibly humbled and honored to have the opportunity to work alongside so many talented and compassionate individuals and believe my commitment to literacy, the under-served and desire to level the playing field for all, will be a great match with the mission of The Book Fairies”.

Go to the 2021 Read-a-Thon landing page

How Does Your Government Funding Impact Your CARES Act Funding?”

CARES Act Funding

Many organizations have seen a significant downturn in their operations due to the pandemic and the money that the federal government has made available to them under the CARES Act has been a significant economic boost to help mitigate these downturns. While the SBA standards for forgiveness of the PPP loans seem fairly straightforward, there can be complications lurking beneath the surface.

  • Did you spend the funds provided?
  • Were they expended for allowable purposes during the 8-or 24-week covered period?
  • Did you retain your staff (or if you didn’t, did you meet one of the numerous safe harbors or exceptions)?
  • Did you not decrease staff salaries by more than 25%?

How your CARES Act funding interplays with your normal government reimbursement isn’t as clear-cut. In addition, if your organization was lucky enough (or unlucky enough depending on if you are a glass half-empty person) to obtain funding from multiple CARES Act programs, such as HHS or ERTC, how is the best way to utilize each of these sources of funding to maximize your agency’s benefit?

INTERPLAY WITH GOVERNMENT FUNDING:

There has been a lot of murkiness with respect to how the CARES Act funding will be impacted by your other government funding. From the beginning, we, as well as many other accountants and attorneys, have been cautioning providers that CARES Act funding could eventually have significant negative impacts on their reimbursements. While uncertainty still exists, there is a little clarity emerging:

  • Medicare: Within its Q&A, question 5 addresses how the PPP loan forgiveness impacts Medicare funding. Medicare, in its response, states that SBA loan forgiveness does not offset Medicare expenses unless these amounts are attributable to specific claims such as payments for the uninsured. This provides some positive insight from the federal government that it will treat Medicare (a fee-based program) as mutually exclusive to PPP forgiveness.
  • Federal Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”): The OMB issued guidance that payroll costs (this would apply to non-payroll costs also) with PPP loans or any other CARES Act programs must also not be charged to current federal awards as it would result in the federal government paying for the same expenditures twice. The federal awards that the OMB is referring to are deficit-funded (cost-based). This makes sense since if a program receives forgiveness for a particular expense, how can that expense be also charged to a deficit-funded contract? This is the “double-dipping” that you may have heard of.
  • Consolidated Fiscal Report (“CFR”): The instructions for the 2020 CFR requires CARES Act funding to be included in the Federal Grant line (line 79) of CFR-1. This line is considered offsetting revenue for purposes of funding. By treating it as offsetting revenue, it impacts cost-based programs (as expenditures would be reduced) but it has no impact on fee-based programs (as costs incurred don’t matter). This is consistent with the federal guidelines outlined above.
  • New York State Medicaid: The New York State Department of Health (“DOH”) is yet to issue any guidance with respect to how CARES Act funding will impact Medicaid funding (which is fee-based). We believe that the State is awaiting the budget passing to provide definitive guidance. As this is a fee-based program, we are hoping that the State will take its direction from Medicare on this.

UTILIZATION OF CARES ACT FUNDING:

While there have been many sources of COVID support for nonprofits, such as private grants, FEMA, EIDL, and ESSR funding (schools), the most common three programs are:

  • PPP Loans: There have been two separate draws of PPP funding, each with its own eligibility requirements. The PPP program covers personnel costs (compensation, health benefits, life insurance, qualified pension, and state and local taxes), rent (property and equipment), utilities (including telephone and Internet), mortgage interest, certain software and cloud-based solutions (payroll processing, sales and billing, accounting, inventory tracking, medical records, CRM, etc.), covered property damage attributable to the 2020 public disturbances, covered supplier costs (pre-COVID contracts), and covered worker protections (PPE, ventilation, increased outdoor space, etc.)
  • HHS Funding (Provider Relief Funds): These were provided to providers of medical services funded by Medicare and Medicaid. These funds covered both COVID-related expenses (broadly defined) and decreases in revenue attributable to COVID, either in calendar year 2020 versus 2019 or calendar year 2020 compared to budget (which must have been approved and ratified prior to March 26, 2020).
  • Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC): Similar to PPP, there were two distinct funding rounds with two separate criteria – the 2020 round and the 2021 round. Original regulations prohibited ERTC funding if an organization received PPP funding, but in December 2020, this was changed to allow both at the same time. This has opened the door for organizations to consider retroactive application for ERTC funding. Keep in mind that the 2020 funding is much more restrictive and much smaller than 2021, but it is still something that should be considered (especially for providers with fewer than 100 employees). ERTC funding only covers salary and health benefits.

By understanding what each program funds and how you are funded within your organization (cost- or fee-based), you can start to lay out your analysis of which costs can be covered by the various CARES Act programs in place.

  • Cost-based reimbursement: The only real options within cost-based/deficit-funded programs is to use CARES Act funding to cover losses. Any amounts charged to cost-based programs in excess of losses will reduce your contractual reimbursement (and in some instances, may impact ongoing funding).
  • Fee-based programs: Since there is no real offset on fee-based programs (remember DOH has not yet provided guidance surrounding Medicaid funding), you should seek forgiveness for any eligible costs within the fee-based programs. This is the same for non-government-funded programs and fundraising.
  • Revenue declines: If you had declines in patient service revenue, these can be covered by any HHS funding you received (after HHS funding was used to cover COVID-related expenditures)
  • Administrative costs: Administrative costs should be allocated to each of your programs using an appropriate allocation methodology (cost based, ratio value, etc.). Administrative costs will be offsetable based upon how the program they are allocated to are funded.

STRATEGIES:

Finally, by understanding which funds are available and which costs you have incurred (or will be incurring), you can start to develop strategies on how to maximize reimbursement:

  • Maximize non-salary costs on PPP: Since PPP, ERTC, and HHS can all be applied against salaries, you want to maximize the non-personnel costs charged to PPP loans. You can charge up to 40% of non-personnel costs to the PPP loan when seeking forgiveness.
  • Stagger funding: Consider applying (providing you qualify) for the ERTC before and after your PPP loan is in effect. This will allow you to maximize reimbursement under both programs. If you are applying for ERTC, also consider only applying for funding under fee-based programs (unless you have losses within cost-based programs that won’t be funded under other programs).
  • Understand what you qualify for: If you will only qualify for the ERTC for the first quarter of 2021 and won’t qualify for the balance of the year, apply for the ERTC for the first quarter and then use the PPP funds after the first quarter is over to maximize benefit (keep in mind cost- versus fee-based programs for the ERTC, as previously discussed).
  • Communicate with funders: Open up lines of communication with deficit-funded grantors to see if you can extend your grant term to take advantage of CARES Act funding.

The CARES Act funding provides a tremendous benefit to programs, but the rules and regulations can be very complex. Take the time to develop appropriate tools through Excel and documentation to support your cost allocations and expense charges to ensure you properly consider and maximize your benefits. There are significant opportunities for both funding and for mistakes, but if you consider how you are funded, what funding is available, and when that funding is in place, you have the greatest chance of helping your organization through these troubled times.

NONPROFIT CARES ACT UPDATE WEBINAR
**AS OF APRIL 6, 2021**

Ken Cerini of Cerini & Associates, LLP discussed:

  • How forgiveness interplays with your funding streams
  • With so many resources (HHS, PPP, ERTC, etc.) how they interplay with each other and how they can be effectively deployed
  • While PPP does not open providers up for a Uniform guidance audit, ERTC, HHS, and other CARES Act related funding could … are you appropriately prepared for these audits and do you understand your responsibilities?
  • If you received over $2 million in PPP funding, you could be subject to audit

Thank you to Human Services Council!

Download the PowerPoint Here

Download the PPP Excel Sheet

Download the Mixed Excel Sheet

Kenneth R. Cerini, CPA, CFP, FABFA
KENNETH R. CERINI, CPA, CFP, FABFA | Managing Partner

Ken is the Managing Partner of Cerini & Associates, LLP and is the executive responsible for the administration of our not-for-profit and educational provider practice groups. In addition to his extensive audit experience, Ken has been directly involved in providing consulting services for nonprofits and educational facilities of all sizes throughout New York State in such areas as cost reporting, financial analysis, Medicaid compliance, government audit representation, rate maximization, board training, budgeting and forecasting, and more.

You Have an Endowment, Now What? Solutions for Nonprofit Organizations

Time/Cost/Quality graphic

by Carol Starmack

Having an endowment is a luxury enjoyed by some nonprofits, a luxury that carries substantial fiscal responsibility and requires strong investment policies in place. Nonprofit directors are often subject area experts, but not necessarily financial experts. For many, the task of shepherding an organization’s financial resources can seem daunting. But it doesn’t have to be that way. By following a few basic steps, your board of directors and senior staff can create investment policies based on your financial beliefs profile that will help the organization prepare to find the right professional management team.

Before you get to work seeking professional help, it is important to have some preliminary discussions with your board and leadership.

When contemplating the management of an endowment the place to start is one of inquiry; you need to ask and answer a few questions about your organization to determine its financial beliefs profile. While not exhaustive, the points introduced below will help you determine if your existing policies are aligned with your current thinking. Also, they should help you define the kind of professional management assistance to seek or help affirm you are on the correct path with the external management already in place. Best practice is to review your investment policies once every three to five years [1], and revisiting these questions each time can help you make sound decisions based upon your updated financial beliefs profile.

Timeline

Determine whether or not the organization has a legal responsibility to operate in perpetuity or, rather, a non-binding commitment to intergenerational equity [2] that has led the organization to operate in perpetuity.

Mission Alignment

Determine how the impact and goals of the organization’s programs will influence your investment decisions. Is the work of the organization aligned with the stated mission and vision? Are the programs having the desired impact? If not, what will it take to reach the desired impact? Is there a desire to grow the organization, which will impact the required level of giving or internal budget?

Risk Appetite

Determine the organization’s appetite for risk. The level of assets an institution has often impacts the kind of investment opportunities available to the organization, and they all carry some level of risk. How much risk are you willing to take on? And while you’re at it, make sure to determine how your organization defines risk. Many nonprofit boards claim to be risk averse, but some professionals believe that investing too conservatively and not meeting long-term return goals is – by its very nature – a risk to the organization.

Asset Allocation

Which kinds of investments are your organization comfortable investing in? In addition to asset class allocation, you may choose to discuss industries to seek or avoid (without judgment – fracking is a recent example, as are opioid drugs). Socially responsible, sustainable, or impact investing are gaining traction and instruments are becoming more readily available — and perhaps moving toward mainstream. Some regulators have warned that climate change may pose major risks to financial markets in the future [3], so you may want to loop this discussion in too and broaden your discussion of risk.

Active or Passive

Will your organization seek active or passive investment strategies? And does your leadership understand this distinction? The answer to this question may partially depend on your level of assets and access to financial opportunities as well as your investment philosophy. It is believed by many that active strategies offer the potential for greater return, but also require more expert assistance and may carry higher costs that can potentially impact returns. Others believe the best path to portfolio growth is to seek lower cost, passive investment strategies that practice buy and hold portfolio management with long-term investment horizons, often relying on index investing tied to broad market indices. Make sure everyone understands these distinctions, and then ask which method is preferable.

Enjoy the Journey!

By engaging in this board-level thought work, you will come closer to understanding your board’s financial beliefs profile. Having that information will aid the members of your finance committee in their work to determine what to look for in financial management assistance and will better prepare them to meet with and interview finance professionals.

This effort can and should be fun, as it gets to the heart of why and how you are doing your good work. Holding facilitated conversations with your board is a great place to begin on this journey.

[1] Price, Nick. “Nonprofit Investment Committee Best Practices.” BoardEffect, (4 Feb. 2019), www.boardeffect.com/blog/nonprofit-investment-committee-best-practices/#:~:text=As%20people%20and%20situations%20tend,person%20assisting%20with%20their%20investments . Accessed 3-15-2021.

[2] The idea of “intergenerational equity” was framed by the Yale economist James Tobin, and states: “The Trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present. Their task in managing the endowment is to preserve equity among generations.”Tobin, James, “What Is Permanent Endowment Income?”, The American Economic Review, Vol. 64, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Eighty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May 1974): 427-432, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1816077?seq=1.

[3] Davenport, Coral, “Climate Change Poses Major Risks to Financial Markets, Regulator Warns”, New York Times (June 11, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/climate/climate-financial-market-risk.html. Accessed 3-15-2021.

Carol Starmack is a senior nonprofit professional. She has been called a “chief problem solver,” with recognized leadership experience in financial management & budgeting; strategic planning; organizational development; human resources; operations; and board governance and relations. View her Linkedin profile here.

Are you ready for the NY SHIELD Act?

We’ll start with the good news. States within the US are starting to implement

privacy regulations to protect our individual data. As individuals, this is good for us.

As leaders of nonprofits, small businesses or any entity that collects data as part of

doing business, these laws add new responsibilities and potential liabilities.

New York passed the (awkward acronym award winner) “Stop Hacks and Improve

Electronic Data Security Act” (SHIELD) Act on October 23, 2019, and the law went

into effect in March of 2020. 

Not surprisingly, minimal attention was paid to SHIELD Act compliance last March, as New York State was in the throes of the Covid pandemic. A year later, however, organizations are starting to receive audit requests for SHIELD compliance. 

Check out this video for an overview of what the SHIELD Act is:

How ready is your organization for a NY SHIELD audit? Here’s a great way to find out! Take RoundTable Technology’s secure and confidential NY SHIELD Readiness Checklist  to see how you score today! The Checklist will give you a score in each of the compliance categories. You’ll receive recommendations and resources for those areas where it looks like you’ll need to make improvements.
RoundTable also invites you to download the free guide, “NY SHIELD Act Playbook”.

BEHIND THE SCENES OF A VIRTUAL EVENT

BEHIND THE SCENES OF A VIRTUAL EVENT

Have you ever wondered what it looks like to put together a virtual event? They look seamless and effortless, but in reality, a lot of work goes into producing a polished event.

There are a lot of details and moving parts in order to make a seamless virtual event:

  • Map out your event
  • Find the best platform that fits your event needs
  • Determine your MC and other speakers
  • Work with participants to record their portions
  • Edit speaker videos
  • Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!
  • Create compelling visuals

MAP OUT YOUR EVENT

Your event can range from being all live on a zoom webinar to having a combination of live and prerecorded components and with or without an interactive audience. Determine your event format and how you envision it happening so that the rest of the event planning falls into place.

DETERMINE YOUR EVENT PLATFORM

There are so many types of virtual event platforms available now; it can be difficult to decide which to use. PBP is constantly investigating new platforms and revisiting old platforms, as the platforms are continuously upgrading and adding services. We watch as many demos and talk to as many companies that we can to make sure we are able to suggest the perfect platform for your event. Sometimes a combination of different platforms works best for your event, and we want to ensure you have the best platform for the best experience for your guests.

SPEAKER WRANGLING

Everything with the virtual world needs to be decided early because it takes time to prepare. If you decide to prerecord any/all of your speakers, then you need to know who the speakers are early on so that they have time to create their videos. You will need to *virtually* hold their hands a bit while they record their video – making sure they are dressed appropriately for the event, the lighting is right, the camera is positioned correctly, they are not looking down at their script constantly, etc. Your speaker may have to rerecord their speech, but better to know early on rather than right before the event.

EDITING

Once you receive your speaker videos you will need to watch them a few times to make edits. Many times the beginning and the end need to be edited out because the speaker is either starting/stopping the camera or someone is saying “go” in the background. These are all minor edits. Other times you may have to edit out a majority of the speech and just use a clip. However you envision your event, make sure you watch these videos a few times to determine how you want to use them.

REHEARSE!

You cannot rehearse too much. If you are doing a live show, you will need to make sure all your speakers know how to access the event, know when they will be seen on screen, who is interacting with the audience. If you are doing a prerecorded show you will need to watch it many times to find the best places to put the logos, making sure the videos line up well, that your program is clear to the audience. Finally, for a hybrid event, you will need your live speakers to know how to get “backstage” to be on camera, when they will be on camera and making sure the prerecorded part fits in with the live part. The more you rehearse, the more flawless your event will be because you will be able to pick up little details you may not have thought of before.

CREATING VISUALS

This may not seem like a big deal, but many events have a lot more visuals than it seems. From the slideshow before the event, title graphics for each speaker, logos in the corner, incorporating images while a speaker is talking. Make sure you stay on theme with all your images to tie the whole event together. Creating visual may not seem necessary, but they certainly add a nice touch to the event.

If your event was prerecorded or mostly recorded, event day should be smooth! Check in with your speakers, make sure they are set, send your step-by-step instructions to the attendees so it is easy for them to log on, have one or two people available by phone and email to help with any technical issues, etc.

While we are all excited to go back to in person events, that will be another learning curve with now having many more hybrid events and making sure the virtual attendees still enjoy the event. The event world is forever changing and we will always do our best to keep up!

REESE TOSHACH
reese@poweredbyprofessionals.com