Request a Proposal

Whatever your event needs, we’d love to hear from you. Send us your request and someone from our team will get back to you soon.

Request a Proposal

Buy a Planning Book

Planning a Successful Major Donor Event

Learn the best ways to manage budgeting, logistics, sponsorship strategies, procurement, volunteers, scripts, storytelling, special appeal execution and more.

Buy the Book

Request a Speaker

Experienced Strategists and Storytellers

Bring a member of the Swaim team to your next conference or speaking engagement.

Request a Speaker

Register for Elevate

Send Your Fundraising Event to School

This 2-day conference is a chance to hit the pause button on your event cycle and look at how you can create a bigger impact with your fundraising events.

Virtual + Hybrid Events

Go Virtual with Your Event

When pivoting to a virtual event, you can utilize all of your in-person event elements (auction, videos, script) and arrange them into a much shorter event format and engage your key constituents in some immediate and valuable fundraising.

While you may not raise as much as with your in-person event, you will be able to capitalize on the moment and let donors continue to be heroes creating impact and funding your work. Canceling an event means no fundraising, but going virtual can help you continue to bring in funds.

More Details

Look through options and how we can help you convert your in-person event to a virtual or hybrid one.

Virtual Events

Information + Ideas

Webinars + Trainings

Webinars, Videos + Partner Resources

“Event Sponsors: How to Get ‘Em and How to Keep ‘Em” — Tactical Thursdays episode
“Fundraising Special Events” — iWave eLearning webinar
“Fundraising Events That Raise More Money” — Bloomerang webinar
“Safety Considerations for Returning to In-Person Events” — Elevate Conference session
“Confidently Navigating Uncertainty” — Swaim Strategies webinar
“Fundraising Events Post COVID” — Greater Giving webinar
“From Virtual to Hybrid” – Greater Giving webinar
“Take Your Fundraising Event Virtual” — Bloomerang webinar
“Fundraising During Coronavirus” — Nonprofit Storytelling Conference webinar
“Will COVID-19 Stop My Fundraising Event” — Group Infinity webinar
“The Show Must Go On—Fundraising Despite the Odds” – Greater Giving webinar
“Create Special Appeals that Raise Thousands” – Artisan Auctions video
“No Dash Dessert Dash” – Artisan Auctions video
“The Art of the Special Appeal with Samantha Swaim” – Greater Giving webinar
“Equity in Your Fundraising Events with Swaim Strategies” – Greater Giving webinar
“Creating Sponsorship Partnerships that Last” – Greater Giving webinar
“Third-party Fundraising Events” – myRollCall webinar
“Your Fundraising Event’s Special Appeal” – myRollCall blog
“Elevate Fundraising at Your Event” – Movie Mondays video
“Creating a More Compelling Special Event Using Stories” – Nonprofit Storytelling Conference Living Room podcast

Consulting

Book On-Demand Consulting

Our team of experts is ready to support you with on-demand consulting. Schedule as many time blocks as you need to feel successful on your next event. Choose from event strategy, storytelling and data + registration support.

Book

“Planning a Successful Major Donor Event” is a guide to help you elevate your fundraising.

“Planning a Successful Major Donor Event,” written by Samantha Swaim + Kristin Steele, is a guide for planning an engaging and effective major donor event. Based on the major donor event model, this book includes tools and strategies that will help you amplify your fundraising with any type of event.

Buy the Book

Planning a Successful Major Donor Event Stack of Books

Why: This book is designed to help you work smarter not harder on your events, giving you the tools and resources to ensure a bigger return for your time and investment.
About: Using strategic fundraising best practices, you’ll see where you can increase return on your investment for your effort. Learn the best ways to manage budgeting, logistics, sponsorship strategies, procurement, volunteers, scripts, storytelling, special appeal execution and more. Plus, learn more about the science of giving to design events that deepen the relationship between you and your donors.

A Look Inside

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.

Travis Phillips Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives
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.

Laila Cook Make-A-Wish Oregon
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!

Juan Martinez Basic Rights Oregon
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.

Katie Boehm KidsQuest Children’s Museum
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%.

Terry Stone Centerlink
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.

Stephen Marc Beaudoin PHAME
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.

Dianne Alves Columbia Land Trust
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.

Virginia Petersen Adelante Mujeres