A successful mass participation event is something every fundraiser must covet, but what are the secret ingredients in making one top class? Jenna Pudelek shares some of the tips from yesterday's Fundraising First Thing debate on the issue. 

It’s hard to not to be impressed by the earning power and youthful appeal of Movember and Dryathlon, or the staying power and brand affinity of the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, in its 23rd year and raking in £20m in 2013.

But where do you start and what makes for a successful event? In such a saturated marketplace, how do you make your event stand out from the crowd? Mass participation was a fascinating subject to write a feature on for this month’s magazine because of the scope for such events and the different ideas and opinions at play.

Yesterday, Fundraising Magazine held the second in its Fundraising First Thing series. The focus on mass participation events tied in with this month’s main feature and a small group of fundraisers gathered to listen to great presentations by Mark Bishop, director of fundraising at Prostate Cancer UK, and Terence Lovell, head of community giving at Save the Children.

Bishop’s presentation touched on the light-hearted and fun side of mass participation with the entertainment-led success of Movember and his experience taking part in a car rally across Europe dressed as a variety of Bond Girls. But he also reminded everyone what it’s all really for with a moving video of a speech by Brian Kilgannon, who has terminal prostate cancer.

Lovell focused on Save’s Christmas Jumper Day event, which raised £1.3m in 2013. He used Save’s brilliant spoof of the Killing doing Christmas Jumper Day to demonstrate how the right video content can boost the online “talkability” of a campaign.

It was a sell-out event (if you don’t want to miss participating in our next debate on how to be a fundraising leader on 17 July, get your tickets now), so here are some of the top tips and themes to emerge from the morning’s discussion:

• There is a growing trend for month-long campaigns – the likes of Movember and the Dryathlon are perfect fits for social media story-telling with plenty of opportunities for sharing as the campaigns progress and build momentum
• Bishop: “Everything you do should be referencing your cause and your brand.” His advice is to take a look at your charity’s event programme to weed out anything that “jars with your cause.”
• Lovell’s advice was to have a solid business case – understand what you will achieve, the purpose and how it fits with the overall strategy.
• Christmas Jumper Day tapped into the trend for kitsch vintage festive jumpers. It’s great because people are already doing it, but beware of a fad and think about what you will do next, when the momentum fades.
• Know your audience. Who can take part and how many of them are there?
• Senior buy in can enable results. Get the whole organisation involved – Christmas Jumper Day had a campaign manager but involved all fundraising teams, the media department, data, marketing, digital, internal comms and supporter services.
• Cross-selling – what will you offer sign ups next? The key question from all mass participation events has to be, how many participants continue supporting the charity – how many become regular givers, do other events, volunteer, take part in the same event year after year.