The tools I took away from the Swaim Strategies sponsorship training were better than priceless: they were directly responsible for increasing our sponsorship support for our annual gala including the addition of a presenting sponsor. This one training has literally paid for itself hundreds of times over.

I was asked, ‘What is the smartest decision you have made this year to impact your organization?’ I answered without hesitation, ‘Hiring Swaim Strategies to overhaul our Gala.’ The team made a huge difference in our approach to fundraising through a gala, and the increase in revenue year over year was phenomenal.

We’ve worked with Swaim Strategies for 10 years, and we’ve seen growth every year. They helped us look at our donor base to redesign our entire event to better suit our audience, and we saw a 80% increase in revenue raised at our fall gala last year!

Swaim Strategies helped us look at the history of our dinner program and consider all our ‘must-haves’ as critical pieces in building to the ask. Their guidance helped us construct a fun, informative and exciting arc for our program, all leading up to surpassing our goal for the special appeal.

We hire Swaim Strategies to be a fundraising resource to our national affiliates. In the first year of this partnership, one of our centers saw a 100% increase in money raised through their special appeal. Year two the increase they saw was 385%.

Working with Swaim Strategies has created huge, community-shifting positive impact for PHAME. Over four years our annual ‘Sparkle!’ gala has grown by over 300%, and the buzz around it continues to grow. Our sponsors, supporters and ultimately our students are more engaged and committed to PHAME than ever before.

Swaim Strategies is so effective because they really work to understand us and our mission. Their experience has helped us tremendously to best highlight ourselves within our events as we grow our goals and donors.

Swaim Strategies not only provided the much needed heavy lifting for our event planning, but their ongoing guidance and advice regarding strategy and donor cultivation has been invaluable to my own professional development.