EP 66: How Influencers Can Help Nonprofits Drive Awareness and Boost Event Attendance

Positioning review: No prescriptive adjustments needed. Conversation is naturally educational and observational. Guest shares his own methodology and experiences with influencer marketing for nonprofits. Handbid is mentioned only in the natural context of the hosts introducing themselves.

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. In this episode of the Elevate Your Event podcast, we are joined by Nick Lynch with Collidescope, where we're going to discuss influencers and practical tips, best practices, and case studies on how they can help nonprofits raise awareness, drive engagement, and boost attendance for their events.

Jeff: Welcome back to the Elevate Your Event podcast. We've got Jeff Porter here, CEO of Handbid and...

Stephanie: Stephanie Mason. She doesn't want to tell you what she does at Handbid. She does a lot.

Jeff: And we are joined by a very special guest, Nick Lynch, who is the CEO and co-founder of Collidescope. So Nick, tell us a little bit about Collidescope, how you got started, what you guys do.

Nick: Yeah, for sure. Hi guys, thanks for having me. My name's Nick, the co-founder and CEO of Collidescope. I'm based here in L.A. My background is mostly focused in advertising technology for almost two decades. I've been building advertising solutions and marketing solutions for brands and advertisers to better target their audiences on digital and social media. I used to work at MySpace. I've been in the social media space for a very, very long time.

Nick: From a personal standpoint, I'm a cancer survivor. I'm a Make-A-Wish kid. I've been a part of the Make-A-Wish family ever since they sent me to Disneyland when I was three. At the beginning of the pandemic, the first thing I thought of is, what can I do to help? I knew corporations were spending billions on CSR and cause marketing, influencers were emerging, and they wanted to leverage their platform for good. So I triangulated nonprofits, corporate partners, and influencers. That was the genesis of Collidescope.

Nick: We built tools to identify partnerships and measure their efficacy -- what we call the double ROI: return on investment for the corporate partner and return on impact for the cause. Over four years, Collidescope has become like the Deloitte for social good. We've helped raise millions of dollars and reached tens of millions of people.

Jeff: When you talk about calculating ROI, do nonprofits have that information or do they struggle?

Nick: We try to think holistically. We break down different buckets -- awareness, engagement, action -- and measure accordingly. Some organizations collect some information; we help them think through the goals and measurements. And it doesn't need to be pretty. Collidescope started in a disgusting spreadsheet. Google Sheets is free, Google Analytics is free.

Stephanie: You mentioned helping nonprofits with corporate partners and influencers. A lot struggle with finding sponsorships. What are you doing on the influencer side?

Nick: We look at corporate partnerships completely differently. I just wrote a book called Impact Redefined. We look at nonprofits almost like influencers themselves and media companies. When you start talking to corporate partners about activating your audience to enhance their brand, that conversation is significantly different than a one-sheet of sponsorship packages.

Nick: When you throw in the influencer side, you're amplifying what you're doing -- building integrated, authentic, mutually beneficial partnerships that can scale over time.

Jeff: Does this really work for everybody? Make-A-Wish sounds like an easier conversation than my charity, Prader-Willi Syndrome Association -- a rare disease with a smaller footprint.

Nick: Yes, it works across the board. Content creators are the best storytellers online. They can take something complex and make it tangible and emotional. When I hear niche, I hear it needs additional storytelling. There are millions of content creators of varying sizes open to causes.

Jeff: How connected does the influencer need to get with the cause?

Nick: It starts with the goal. For awareness, work with as large an influencer as budget allows -- they don't need direct ties but should have authenticity. For engagement or action, partner with influencers tied to the mission. For example, we work with a large adoption nonprofit and every influencer is either an adoptive parent, has been adopted, or is in foster care. Authenticity is the key word.

Stephanie: What are the barriers keeping nonprofits from using influencers?

Nick: Number one is cost. Four ways to fund a campaign, three pretty much free: donation posts, barter with swag, co-marketing with corporate partners, or asking for a nonprofit rate. To find influencers, look at who's following you today. Make the ask very specific and intentional.

Jeff: Give us an example of a campaign that helped a charity.

Nick: The American Lung Association in L.A. transitioned their gala to a streaming talent show with baseball players. We measured everything. Traditional email got crickets. When we activated influencers on Instagram, we saw a huge lift. We found Instagram was the only platform driving results, and only certain types of images. We focused everything there, rinsed and repeated for two months, and smashed their goal by about 170%. The expense ratio dropped to around 8-10%.

Stephanie: How far out do you start before the event?

Nick: Eight to 12 weeks. Three months out, light tease. Two months, double the frequency. Four weeks, triple. Last 10 days, bombard.

Jeff: This is the future of event-based marketing. Small organizations need to find people who have followers and know how to put campaigns together. You can't optimize what you don't measure.

Nick: Think strategically about platforms, partnerships, and storytelling. Create an emotional connection people want to be part of. If influencers are the best at telling stories, let them tell your organization's story.

Jeff: How can people get in touch?

Nick: Our website's collidescope.io. Email nick@collidescope.io. I'm on LinkedIn. And my book, Impact Redefined, comes out next week.

Jeff: Special thank you to Nick Lynch with Collidescope -- check them out at collidescope.io. If you enjoyed our show, please leave us a review. You can find us on Apple, Google, and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe. Until next time, happy fundraising.