In a world where anyone can learn everything about your university on their phone, why spend real money getting people in a room? Our Keynote this week gets into these topics and more with Sarah Winkler, SVP at INVNT Higher Ed.
Sarah shares that a campaign launch is “not informational, it’s decisional.” People don’t come to your kickoff to finally understand what a campaign is. They come to decide whether they’re in. And “in” doesn’t have to mean a gift that night, it can mean I’m in for the next call, I’m in to learn more. The whole job of the experience is to create the conditions for someone to say yes.
Watch the full-length version on YouTube (52 mins)
Building one of these launches forces advancement, marketing, and leadership out of their silos and onto the same page, because you cannot tell one story in one night unless everyone believes it. The event moves the donors in the room, but it also aligns the institution behind them. That, more than any single gift, might be the real return.
Big Themes This Week
In a digital age, what an in-person event uniquely delivers is emotion, trust, and belief, the things that actually drive philanthropy.
A campaign launch is decisional, not informational. The job is to help people decide they’re in, and “in” can just mean ready for the next step.
Events that work start from what the audience should feel and decide, not from a checklist of who needs stage time.
Team Discussion Questions
What do we want people to feel and decide by the time they leave our next event?
Are we designing from the audience, or from our own org chart?
Where could the work of building an event align advancement, marketing, and leadership behind one story?
