How are Charities Harnessing Technology for their Events?

This month my EMMA-Live Co-Founder, Adam Stanier had the great pleasure of sitting on a panel for the Charity Digital Fundraising Summit, discussing the theme of the Evolution of Event Fundraising. With the end of another incredibly busy winter season of fundraising events coming into view for myself and the rest of the fantastic EMMA team, I’ve had the privilege of observing the Evolution of Event Technology play out in real time over the last?14?years. Last week was our busiest week of the year, with a whopping?9?events taking place simultaneously on?Thursday?night, and it was a real thrill to see our inspiring charity partners use their EMMA platforms to the absolute max.??

Some six or seven?years ago, a silent auction platform may have been just a small cog in the mammoth machine of an event. However, that cog wouldn’t have fit perfectly into this metaphorical watch – an event planner might have been using any number of other disparate platforms to manage their raffle, their ticketing and their guest check-in, not to mention mountains of spreadsheets to try and stay on top of their table plans and dietary requirements. And it goes without saying that none of these systems would have talked to each other or updated themselves if a change was made elsewhere.??

It's one of the core reasons that we felt compelled to build not just a new silent auction platform (with a fairer fee structure), but a full event solution that would revolutionise the way charities could manage their fundraising events. This year, I’ve seen the true impact that an all-in-one solution like EMMA can have on the production of a fundraising event. Of the?17?events that took place last week?alone, a number had also used?EMMA to sell their tickets and collect their guests’ dietary requirements. They were then able to manage their seating plans and use the platform to check off guest arrivals on the night. All of this is before a single guest had even sat down at their table and had a chance to flick through the silent auction items on offer that night. ??

Where before, a tech platform was an unwieldy but unavoidable necessity required to operate a specific function for an event, now it can act as an integral system within the event-planning team and?support every phase of event planning. It can integrate with an organisation’s existing databases?(typically Salesforce or Raiser's Edge NXT)?and send insightful data back, ready to inform the strategy for the next event. ??

Evolution of this kind has only been possible through the close contact that we maintain with our charity partners, and the?continual feedback we receive from them. It's how?we’ve managed to introduce features like invoice generation, restricted volunteer profile types and combined event reports for clients that do multiple events with EMMA. The resounding sentiment of the feedback has always been that people want one platform to do more things, not more platforms to do one thing. ??

Therefore, as we move into the final phase of 2024, I’m more excited than ever to be working on the newest evolution of EMMA, which will propel the event technology landscape forward, and set the bar for what charities should expect from their tech. EMMA 2.0, launching in January,?is set to revolutionise the way organisations manage their events and raise funds, and we cannot wait for you to join us on the journey.

If you're interested in exploring EMMA for your next event, visit https://www.emma-live.com/??

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