EP 101: From Parties to Global Impact: Fundraising Events with Surge for Water

Positioning review: Minor adjustments made. Softened one prescriptive recommendation about bid sheets to observational framing. Product mentions of Handbid kept factual and in the natural context of the conversation. All other content is naturally experiential, reflecting the guest's direct fundraising journey with Surge for Water.

Jeff: Welcome to Elevate Your Event, your favorite podcast for transforming fundraising events. Join us weekly for expert tips and creative ideas to make your next event a standout success. Welcome to Elevate Your Event, the podcast that's all about taking your fundraising game to the next level. This week, Shilpa Alva shares how a party with friends turned into a global nonprofit, Surge for Water. From DIY beginnings to high-tech giving, her story is packed with heart and smart strategies you won't want to miss. Let's dive in.

Jeff: All right, welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast. We talk about all the various ways your next fundraising event could be better. And we've got a really special guest today. I'd love to welcome Shilpa Alva from Surge for Water, who has an extensive amount of nonprofit fundraising and specifically event experience. So, Shilpa, welcome to the show.

Shilpa: Thanks for having me.

Jeff: Give us a little bit of background on your organization, how you got started, what you guys do. Obviously, Surge for Water -- I assume it's about water. But tell our audience what you guys are after. And then give us a bit of background on how you got started on the fundraising side of it.

Shilpa: Sure. So Surge for Water -- you're absolutely right, we're a water organization, but we like to say "water plus" because we believe that it starts with water and our work is beyond water. So it's comprehensive water-plus solutions that include sanitation, hygiene, and menstrual health. And that's the foundation of what we do. The way we do it is through community ownership and women-led partnerships. So working with community-based organizations currently in Haiti, Uganda, and Indonesia, in really remote rural parts of the world where our local partners happen to be the only organizations working on these water-plus solutions. It starts with water. And when you invest in water infrastructure and education, it leads to improvements in education, health, income, and just the overall well-being of a community. So that's what we're about.

Shilpa: Our journey as an organization -- I'm the founder and executive director, and I started this organization with a fundraising event. I was used to throwing large parties with friends, and I decided that maybe we could take this and raise some funds. Just a little bit accidentally, a little bit intentionally, a mix of different things, but it definitely started as an events-based fundraising kind of organization. We've evolved since then, but that's the start of us.

Jeff: That's awesome. And I love the water part. I went on a mission trip -- I've been there a couple of times to Rwanda -- and we did something very similar. We manually built water filtration systems using parts, drilling holes in plastic containers and putting pipes together. But I was able to witness firsthand the impact that bringing clean water to a village can have and just how desperate these people were for it. So just applaud what you guys are doing. There's definitely an impact there. And to be able to show the people at your events where those funds go -- because we did a lot of videos of these people carrying home their water jugs, the whole family walking together and proudly using them.

Shilpa: Absolutely. And showing people the before and after has been quite powerful. You've all seen the gushing water out of wells. And just showing people walking to basically swamps and holes, which are springs, alongside animals. That's always quite moving for people.

Jeff: The yellow jerry cans, absolutely. They tested my fortitude. They made me carry many of those up a very steep hill one day.

Shilpa: I can't do it. I've tried. I've even tried on my head.

Jeff: When these three African women are walking up the hill with two of them on their head, I was like, challenge accepted. I'm either going to toss my man card in this dirty water or I'm carrying these two jugs up there. I made it. It was good. But tell us about that first event. You're getting started as an organization and you run this first fundraiser. It sounds like it used to be a party or you had experience running parties. How did it go?

Shilpa: So the background to it is socially we would host parties -- groups of friends, right? You're in your 20s, you have some money out of the corporate world. And I definitely got to this early midlife crisis, if you want to call it that, when I was like, here we're spending all this money on these themed parties with several hundred people. And collectively we're spending thousands of dollars. It wasn't crazy, but it did feel wasteful to me. For what end, right? Yes, you have a good time in your 20s, which is important as well. So just reflecting on that. And then in my journey, I was responding to this calling of wanting to do something in the world that made a difference and helped communities, because I have privilege. And I just sort of married those worlds because I had experience, had a network of coworkers and friends, and thought, why not try this where we host an event to raise money and see if that works.

Shilpa: I had no idea what the entire nonprofit fundraising world was like. I did it very naively, which I'm happy about because I think if I knew about it, I may not have made the choices I did. So quite blindly -- it's quite amazing that we exist and have grown since that was our beginning. But just having no funds, no sponsors, no network -- the very first thing we're doing is like, why would people give us money? Maybe we should apply for a 501(c)(3). So I really came into it from that sort of side-door angle.

Shilpa: We did get registered before our first event. And just went out there and hustled, got the first sponsors, got restaurants to donate. It was all our friends donating their own stuff -- glassware, using the backs of people's cars to pick things up. All hands on deck. And that's still very true to how our events run today because that's where we came from. But we figured out how to do a really beautiful experience without the budget of that experience -- making sure that we branded well. That was really important from the very first event.

Shilpa: I think our first event was at the Weisman Museum in Minnesota. It's a gorgeous space. We were able to get the space for almost free through a university connection. And we labeled the event, we branded the event "Think Water," and we did these beautiful art installations. Our volunteers were dressed up in these vibrant, sort of crazy art exhibits themselves and crazy makeup. We made the Sunday newspaper, the lifestyle pages. And that was event number one.

Jeff: And what year was this?

Shilpa: 2008.

Jeff: 2008. I ran my own first fundraiser in 2006. So back then, 2008 -- was this all manually done? Bid sheets, all that kind of stuff?

Shilpa: Everything was manually done except -- one of our co-founders was BB Long. She was amazing, a software engineer, now she's an executive in that space. She designed this really cool interactive system that guests could come in and vote on where the money would need to go -- where we were going to drill the first well. And they could see it on this giant projection. But she did that herself because she just had the skills to do it. So that was probably the only technology play, but a pretty big one because people could see immediately -- basically the guests voted where we would do our first project. It was our very first one, so we were willing to give away that authority. We may not do that as much anymore.

Jeff: Were the votes free? Because today I'd probably put a price tag on that vote.

Shilpa: I would today as well. We didn't know we could do that. This is our first event. So we didn't charge. Oh my God, I go back to those days -- we say that they were manual, but I've got a lot of that out of my memory banks at this point.

Jeff: So tell me about that first event or maybe the first few events -- what did you learn? What were the things that you immediately started to change and evolve based on what you learned?

Shilpa: There's so many elements. If we stick on the technology piece -- this is back in the day when the credit cards were the paper ones that you'd just swipe. I can't even imagine that that was 2008. We called it card on file. You'd swipe it and put it in a manila folder.

Jeff: You're probably more organized than us then.

Shilpa: Things like that existed for the first three or four years. I don't think the whole credit card swiping thing was until much later, at least for us. We were writing down on bid sheets the auction prices manually and then trying to figure that out at the end of the night. That was a long time. Registration -- printed out lists where you're checking people off alphabetically. It sounds crazy even saying this out loud because I can't imagine that those were things that we did.

Shilpa: So obviously, as soon as we realized -- we'd go to other events and you'd see technology was available. And then we'd go and try to find the price of that and be like, we can't afford it. So I don't think we went in right away with everything. We probably digitized things like credit cards as fast as we could because that's a payment tool. Then we did it very piecemeal -- then we went in and did something with auctions online where you could close it online and continue it in person. As we could afford stuff, registration was an easy thing because you could just use your computers even if you didn't use a system. I think that was the first transition from a technology piece.

Shilpa: And the other things we started to learn -- we went through a period of a few years where we were in the status quo of not raising more money at events because we'd sell tickets and I think we were at that stage where we thought that tickets were the way to make money. Now we realize it's probably just 20% of what we raise at the event, if even. We monetize people when they come into the room because they're enjoying the experience and they're giving and bidding and donating. We didn't know that. That was learning it along the way.

Jeff: It's interesting. We went through a very similar phase in the beginning. Ticketing aside because ticketing is ticketing -- the big art-versus-science debate is what do you charge? We went through a phase where it's like, do I want more people here that might be paying less money to get in, or do I want fewer people paying more? And really what we concluded is the people that were going to come in and spend a decent amount of money typically weren't the ones buying our cheapest ticket. So it didn't always make sense to fill the room. When we have a Kentucky Derby party, it's a little different -- it's outside with a massive screen, more of a concert. But I'm curious what your thoughts are -- the types of people that you invited to your event, did that evolve over time as you figured out who's going to come in and donate at a meaningful level?

Shilpa: It definitely evolved. We went from -- and it was also a base, right? When we started in 2008, in my 20s, it was people who could -- we priced it at what a 20-year-old could afford. A cocktail party ticket. And we did that for quite a while. And then we started evolving because our base evolved. This is in the U.S. -- I do want to talk about our Dubai events in a moment. But in the U.S., we evolved to include a dinner, a VIP portion. And today our event is actually quite similar. It continues to evolve because we continue to have more people at the VIP portion, but we haven't made it inaccessible for the younger people.

Shilpa: The VIP is still an event in itself. That's the dinner. So we start with the dinner, which is that curated, more formal experience, but still has that fun element -- that's very important to us. And then it turns into a party later. So you have two, two and a half hours for the dinner experience, and then it opens up to the lower-cost ticket. And we've done this sort of format in the U.S. and it's worked for us because everybody likes that hyped-up vibe. It's more energetic because that's what the rest of the guests bring in. And then you move to the DJ and there's a different experience. So we've sort of had this two-part event in a single event. That's what we currently do in the U.S.

Jeff: So as that relates, you're still capturing information. I like that. You've got that kind of fun, broader experience -- lower price ticket, get more people into the room. And I would imagine these are people that one day will probably show up at your VIP dinner. So you're just introducing yourselves to them. When you get to that point of the evening, how are you promoting the charity and the cause? Or is it just party mode?

Shilpa: We do, and this keeps evolving. This year will be different from last year because it really depends on who's in the room. But I address the guests at the dinner and there's a formal speaking thing and there's more connection to the work. There's a strategic element where you're invited into the vision of the organization. That's what the dinner part is. The dinner in the U.S., it's still at the point where I can walk over to every table. Board members walk over to every table. We make sure we're greeting people. It's very personal.

Shilpa: And then when it switches to the other part, we do stop the party and turn the lights on and close the bars at a certain time. And we then play our video. That's the more marketing production. We play a beautiful video. I will speak again. And then we do another ask and go through the levels. It's a more tiered ask. So we do it twice, but I don't say the same thing. It's a different conversation. And we don't do the marketing video in the first one. You just have more people in the room and a little bit more alcohol involved, so it's a little more boisterous. You need more energy to get the attention. So it's a bit of a different vibe for the second part, which happens at 10 p.m. versus the first one happening at 7:30.

Jeff: And I know you use technology. Is technology part of your ask, or is this something manual in the room?

Shilpa: It's a mix. Because of the cocktail part, we can't do the traditional paddle raise -- they're not at tables and it's a little harder to manage. But we do this thing where it's continued to evolve. When someone raises their hand at, let's say, the $10,000 level, they walk over to the bar, get a glass of champagne or non-alcoholic equivalent, and they swipe their cards on their account -- we just get their name. So we collect the money right there. And then they get this blue light that indicates that they've donated. And then we just go through the levels like that. In about 15 minutes, we've gone through five different giving levels and collected as much of that money as possible. At the lower levels -- our last level is like $100 -- you get a longer line, but then you just open up everything again. We have this pause part of the evening where it's quite embarrassing, I guess, if you don't raise your hand. So it's very motivating -- you don't have a light.

Jeff: I've been to a party where they did this. I got my whatever color light for the level I donated at. And that was kind of fun. Everybody's walking around with it on their lapel -- I know what you donated.

Shilpa: We don't even change the color of light, so we don't distinguish that way. For us, it's just about giving. Everybody just gets the blue light.

Jeff: This charity I went to definitely distinguished on the lights. It's funny because there's the people who think that that's impersonal and insensitive and others that think it drives behavior. Americans are competitive.

Shilpa: Who knows? There are different ways you do it.

Jeff: And the second ask -- so the first one, the dinner, is a softer one. You inform them what the giving levels are. If they're not staying for the party -- because some of those people may not stay, depending on where they're coming from. And so that audience, if they're not going to stay, would hopefully be giving to ensure they would donate regardless. They're just told that there's an ask coming, but the main ask -- the hard one -- is done when everyone's in the room.

Shilpa: Yeah. Got it.

Jeff: For us, and we tell our clients this as well -- across the board you've got your ask because there's a collection of people in the room that are just going to be moved or willing or know you well enough, they're going to donate. But I assume you have an auction?

Shilpa: Yes, we do as well.

Jeff: Do you have a live and silent, or just silent?

Shilpa: So the auction is silent. We have done live auctions in Dubai with the pieces there, but we've intentionally not done the live auction in the U.S. because we'd rather ask for that same level of money for a program versus a consignment trip.

Jeff: Exactly. Right.

Shilpa: We have the people in the room, but we're just trying to get them to raise their hand at the level that goes 100% to us. And that's worked for us so far. But in Dubai, we've tried the live auction piece as well.

Jeff: So how big is your silent auction at these events?

Shilpa: Oh gosh, there's a lot of items. We don't display them all because it's all digital. And we have a large participation that's not in the room. A lot of our money is also raised from people not in the room. So we have a national base. We use our events for that too.

Jeff: Has it always been that way?

Shilpa: No, the pandemic moved us in that direction for sure because we did a virtual event during the pandemic. And then we saw how we were able to engage people. So we have a different market. And some of it is stuff we've acquired -- the classic things. The labor of love. Maybe not the love -- maybe it's just a labor.

Shilpa: It's so interesting because we have this conversation as a board every year -- should we stop doing the auction because of the amount of work that goes into it. And then we're like, oh, but it's also a way that people have something to do at the event, and it's a way to engage people in the room. So this debate keeps happening. This year it's happening again, even though some board members are like, it has to go.

Jeff: Well, we have the same debate, and ironically, they don't listen to me because they're like, Jeff, you run a mobile bidding software company, of course you want an auction. Well, it's not necessarily just that. Tell me what you think of this -- this is my perspective. And part of it is yes, they need something to do at the event. We get that complaint a lot at our Derby event -- we need more things to do. And we have a lot of things to do. But when people come into your event, you need them to engage with you and you need to give them a variety of ways to do it. Not everybody walking in the door is going to donate through a paddle raise. Some might do a drawing or some other type of game. And a silent auction is another way to connect with somebody. When I first started going to events -- starting with my kid's preschool or any other event out there -- if I'm not super connected with the org, I was invited by a friend and I walk in the door, I may not raise my hand in the paddle raise. I may not know the organization well enough. But hey, if there's something cool in that silent auction that I want, I'll go bid on it. And now all of a sudden, the charity has my name, my email, my phone number, and my credit card.

Shilpa: I agree with you, Jeff. I think that's what keeps us doing it. And I'll add -- for us, it's also the national base. It's a way for people to be in the room virtually. And we encourage our board members who are not from the Chicago area to be sending that out. And we can see -- I want to say like 40% maybe of who bid last year was not in the room. They tend to drop off depending on how late you stay up if you're not at the party or the event. And the other piece -- at least for us, it's a great way to engage Chicago businesses because our work is international. And this gives us a presence in the city. Connecting with local businesses, locally owned shops that are doing cool things that maybe people have heard about through us. There's another element that's obviously not our mission, but any time we can do that, I think it's really valuable.

Jeff: I think all of those are valid and actually really powerful things to think about. Auctions are a lot of work. There's no doubt about it. But thank God the software makes them a lot easier to handle and manage.

Jeff: Getting into technology in general -- technology will empower your ticket sales, your guest registration and check-in, your auction, your paddle raise to a certain extent depending on how you're doing it, and then payments and checkout at the end. What area of the technology you use do you feel works really well? And what would you love to see companies like Handbid or any of the others do in the future to make it easier for you?

Shilpa: I love the seamless part -- if you've registered and we get your credit card at that point, you don't need to pull out a card throughout the night. To me, that's the part that works really well, as long as you have someone's information on file. And donors are getting more used to that. I think when this technology first came out, even we were nervous to ask for that. And now it's understood. That to me was the game changer -- then you can just go spend at anything and you feel like it's one experience and you're not asking for money all the time, while you are.

Shilpa: The issues we have are usually tiny things at the back end -- how easy is it to keep track of what's happening? Can a volunteer sign in for a guest? There's always going to be some people at the event that are not as technology savvy. And for us, usually it's how easy is it to collect silent auction items. The front end, I feel like many of the systems are on par. We've usually struggled at the back end -- we want a pretty system to promote the event. We wanted it to be seamless to collect the silent auction items. Who has it? Where is it? Building the packages. Putting in GPS codes -- we get tons of items from small restaurants, salons -- and then you've got to spend all this time figuring out if they're in the same neighborhood. How do you curate?

Shilpa: I'd love a system that integrated that and said, these are all your items, here's your package, put these eight items together because this would be the highest. Because they're all in the same spot. Or like, these are from other experiences, these are what sell higher -- not just 70% of value. That's what I'd like. Maybe it exists. We've not used that yet, but that's what I want.

Jeff: I think it's a fascinating conversation for two reasons. One, it makes your life easier -- how can you start to suggest bundling of items based on where they're located, the relationship between the items, or the history of your donor base in terms of what they've bid on? Can you start to give recommendations? I think that would be really powerful. At the same time, the goal is not just to make your life easier -- you want them to generate more revenue.

Shilpa: Absolutely.

Jeff: For us at Handbid or any of these companies -- as you've used a technology platform year over year, it starts to learn more and more, or at least collect more data about you. Unfortunately, a lot of charities bounce between platforms and leave the data behind. And moving forward, that's going to be harder and harder to do if that data is going to yield the intelligence you're looking for. Because otherwise, if you came into a platform from scratch and said, which packages should I recommend based on the history of my donor base, they'll say, we don't have history of your donor base.

Shilpa: Yeah. And I think we're definitely one of those orgs that's moved between systems. It's usually a cost factor or we've had an issue with one and not wanting to work on figuring it out. But I will say, I don't think we'd want to switch systems if something was working and the price point was right and it launched us. Those would be advantages to an organization like ours.

Jeff: This is still an industry that's evolving in that direction because historically for a lot of these mobile bidding companies, they've been very transactional -- just here to facilitate a transaction. Facilitate a check-in experience, the bidding experience, the payment. But then over time, it's like, I need more intelligence out of these platforms because that intelligence doesn't exist in my CRM. My CRM has a history of me and what events I've attended or how much I've donated, but it doesn't know what I've done at these events. I think you're leading into something that might be the next evolutionary stage of some of these platforms if they're willing to go there.

Shilpa: Yeah, we would love it. Because you just know the pain at the back end. And everyone's resources are stretched thin for nonprofits. If you can maximize revenue and ease workload, then you could spend that same time generating more revenue. That's the story.

Jeff: And I correlate guest experience and happiness to revenue as well. What's been your experience in general? I would say 80 to 90% of the conversations we have with prospects or clients is all around the ticketing, registration, and check-in experience. Is it the same for you guys?

Shilpa: I feel like because we've been using technology for a while, that's quite seamless. I feel like it's been years since we've had lines at check-in. People are used to self-check-in and you send things ahead of time -- the text, the registration link. So to me, that's not the pain point. For me, the pain point -- and also related to the guest experience -- is the time we ask for donations. That's a bit clunky for us. And then also checkout, because we also try to -- this goes back to a small team -- we really try to get people to take their silent auction items home. We don't want to mail this.

Jeff: No one wants to come and deal with getting the item at the end of the night. You need to charge a delivery fee.

Shilpa: We do. But no fee is high enough. I drag it all home. I can't get rid of the box truck yet.

Jeff: I totally understand. So that's interesting because I would say at my event, I think we've nailed checkout, although I'm going to tell you something we're probably going to try next year. I'm proposing it. Let's come back to that.

Jeff: On the check-in process -- I think the technology allows for that seamless, no-line thing if it's used correctly. What I've witnessed at certain events is organizations saying, I'm not going to bother my donors or sponsors to fill in guest information. We bother them. I think that that's going to be too difficult, so I'm just going to leave it blank or even worse -- put fake information into the software to try to speed this process up, which absolutely slows it down. And it violates the principle of wanting to know who these people are so I can start a donor relationship. But I'm curious -- it sounds like your donor base is at the point where they're comfortable providing that information.

Shilpa: And Jeff, we were nervous to do that. I think the first couple of times we were like, I don't know if our guests are going to do it. And we try. Not everybody does it. So we still have people at the door registering people and welcoming them. But we also -- this whole thing of donor information missing, especially when someone buys a table -- we have our team members reaching out prior and getting that information. And we're annoying about it sometimes, I'm sure. But we try as much as possible. And our network is still friends of host committee members and board members. So we also have -- who do you know? That's a required field when you buy a ticket. So we'll go after our people. We'll be like, this is your friend, give us their email and phone number, get it from them. We do that extra work at the back end. And it's not perfect -- there's obviously information missing -- but we try to get it as close as possible.

Jeff: That makes a lot of sense. Going back to checkout. I would say in most cases, checkout has been solved by technology. It used to be the worst part because you had to manually generate invoices. Now it's mostly streamlined, except you have to get people to come get their stuff. And you have remote bidders, so you have a different challenge.

Jeff: One of the things we ran into -- because our event is a derby party, it starts in the afternoon. And the horse race in Mountain Time is around 5 p.m. And the Kentucky Derby, for those that don't know, takes around two minutes to run, so it's not a very long event -- don't go to the bathroom when they're lining up. After that we do a very short presentation and then we have a headliner concert. Two years ago, the headliner went from like seven to just shy of nine o'clock, and then we closed the silent auction. We had a lot of complaints that people who didn't want to listen to the concert didn't want to wait around. So we moved the closing up this year. And we ran into another issue -- people got so wrapped up in the concert, they were not paying attention to the auction.

Jeff: So in violation of your frustration about delivering stuff, we're actually talking about closing our silent auction the next day, which would be a Sunday.

Shilpa: Wow.

Jeff: We did this a lot in COVID. Because in COVID, it doesn't matter -- they're all doing it from home anyway, so you've got to get them their stuff regardless. This is up for debate. I have a few people that are like, well, then you're going to drive around and deliver all this stuff. We're at the venue the next morning cleaning up anyway from nine until one o'clock. Why don't we just close it at noon and tell people to come get their stuff? What do you think? Is this going to work?

Shilpa: I think it's worth trying. In Chicago, no one's going to come the next day and get their stuff. So we'd have to mail them or it comes to my house or team members' houses. We first try to get people to pick it up and then you're just constantly reaching out.

Shilpa: What I'll say -- what we also use the next day for is a second auction for everything that doesn't sell. We slash the prices. So there's another revenue stream. And we try to use the excitement of the event for that. So we release another auction on Sunday through Monday, 24 hours, and then you get rid of everything else. There's a whole other round.

Jeff: Does it sell? Because usually the stuff that I don't get rid of on Saturday, people don't want on Sunday.

Shilpa: We slash prices to make it sell. So it's not a huge amount of revenue, but it's still -- at that point, it's free stuff. It gets it out of your living room, which my wife is always a big fan of.

Jeff: Exactly. Do you ever have a recurring item, the one that just keeps coming back? Because you just keep putting it back.

Shilpa: We sometimes have board members who buy the items and then say, we don't want it. And I'm like, well, we're putting it back next year. And it keeps going back.

Jeff: We're going to have to come up with some sort of charity swap meet site where we can all swap items. You could bid on each other's stuff.

Shilpa: You should absolutely do that.

Jeff: We have helped our clients trade items before. Think about it -- we're in Denver and a trip to Chicago would be great. And you can easily get a hotel and some stuff in Chicago. And we can easily get a mountain home or something in Colorado, and it's not all that thrilling to go stay in the mountains here when you live here.

Shilpa: The Island of Misfit Toys auction. Please submit your best ever charity auction item that has never sold.

Jeff: We should do a blog post on that -- the top 25 silent auction items that have never sold. But the problem is we might be insulting some big donors. I was at a client's location in Nashville, and she was like, hey, do you have any advice for me? And she pulls out this quilt from her closet and says, we had a board member hand-quilt this and it is the ugliest thing and I have to put it in the auction every year and it never sells. And this is like year eight.

Shilpa: She needs to buy the quilt herself.

Jeff: I have literally purchased items myself just to be like, this has to go, and then just to make a donor feel appreciated. That's the approach. Well, this has been fun to talk about events. For somebody like you who's run so many of them and has so much experience, it's great to get your insights on what's worked and what hasn't. Tell me a little bit -- as we wrap up -- where do you see your event strategy going in the future? Are you going to run more of these? Just continue to modernize them? Run fewer?

Shilpa: It's not more. It's looking at the same. We do two -- one in the U.S. in Chicago and one in Dubai. Our goal is really to integrate and build on and expand the revenue from the event. I think there's so much opportunity with some of the high-value donors that come to the U.S. event or the corporations they're connected to. That's our next level -- how do we go into our events and expand or be more strategic about it.

Shilpa: This year, just coincidentally, we're a water organization, and one of the largest water conferences is happening in Chicago the Monday or Sunday after our event. It happens every two years. We've never strategically planned our event right before. The Saturday before it happened accidentally this time, but now we're being strategic about it. We should always do this because then we can reach out to people in our industry -- water companies that are going to be in Chicago from all over the country and the world -- and invite them. And that has a corporate play. Possibly a little event that plays off that, something smaller. How do we take what we're doing and grow it?

Shilpa: And then our Dubai base is actually -- our U.S. event is roughly 90% individual, 10% corporate. And Dubai is the complete opposite -- 80 to 90% corporate and 10% individual. So there's an opportunity -- the opposite opportunity in both events, which is exciting. That means we haven't tapped enough of the individual base in Dubai, and we haven't tapped enough of the corporate base here. So we are looking at those kinds of opportunities -- where's the money coming from and how do you build. It's not more events for us. We think we have significant opportunity with the existing ones.

Shilpa: And of course, the technology play is guaranteed. We can't do this, we can't grow without constantly being open to what's out there, changing with AI. We're open. We know that there's only so much and we're limited without using technology.

Jeff: It makes sense. We're in a similar boat. For my own charity -- where are our events going? We want to continue to advance the entire user experience end to end. How can technology become a bit of our event concierge at the type of events we have? Because our event is in a massive venue, very spread out. How can technology help with that? How can it make us more intelligent and save us time? These things are a lot of work, and anything we can do to save time, the better. Just the fact that we don't have to write auction item descriptions anymore is amazing.

Shilpa: Right. People don't read them anyway, and we spent all this extra time. I taught my staff this year how to do the TLDR at the top. Just give me the five bullets on what this thing is -- is it three nights or four nights, what are the exclusions? I can see the photos, I know what the house looks like. Is there internet? That kind of stuff.

Jeff: That's fascinating. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for spending some time with not just me but with our audience to talk about your events and how they've evolved over the years. And we wish you all the luck with Surge for Water. Obviously water is the source of life. What you guys are doing is awesome.

Shilpa: Thank you. And thanks for this opportunity, Jeff.

Jeff: All right. Let's wrap this up. Thank you guys so much for listening. And again, Shilpa, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom with us. And until next time, happy fundraising. If you enjoyed our show, please take a moment to leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe for more great content. And if you're a fan of video, check us out on YouTube. Until next time, happy fundraising.