From Guest to Giver
5 steps · SMS, Email, Phone, Meta
Turn the night of the event into the start of a relationship.
Sample charity: the people and numbers in these screens are made up, so the picture shows the tool, not a result.
The problem it solves
Event guests followed up while it matters.
Why your CRM misses this. Attendance often lives in a ticketing tool, a box office or a paper sign-in sheet that gets tallied into totals. The names stay on the sheet, so the CRM never learns which guests came.
Data
2 of its 2 sources usually sit outside the CRM
Signals
it reads 4 of them
Reach
4 channels: sms, email, phone and more
Journey
5 steps, start to finish
Connect: the data it draws on
Mission joins these into one record per person, beside your CRM.
Sources
Analyze: who it finds
- Days Until Event How many days are left until this event? Use it to send pre-event messages at set points as the event approaches.
- Attended Did this participant actually attend the event? Measure actual against registered attendance and spot the no-shows.
- Event No Show Did this participant register but not show up? Send a personal note after a no-show to recover the relationship and improve future attendance.
- Event Participant Flag Has this supporter ever attended an event? Separate event-engaged donors from those who have never come to an event.
Dashboard: Events
Audience: Gala Guests Who Never Gave
Supporters who came to one or more events but have never made a gift. They showed up for your mission. They just haven't been asked the right way yet.
What to do: Follow up personally after the next event. Reference what they experienced and make the first ask easy and specific.
Activate: the journey
Each step names when it happens and the channel it uses. Under the steps is the campaign as it is built in Orbit.
7 days before
SMS + email
Reminders by text and email, timed from Days Until Event.
Day after
Email
Attended: a thank-you with photos. No-show: a “sorry we missed you” with the highlights.
Day 7
Call list
Guests who have never given get a personal call from their host.
Day 21
Email
A first ask tied to what they saw.
Day 21
Meta Ads
A lookalike audience of your best guests finds more people like them.
- Exit: a gift moves them into The First 90 Days.
The campaign in Orbit
Learn: what flows back
Their first gift shows up in First Event, First Gift and flips the Donor & Participant Flag. Compare conversion event by event.
Results land on the same supporter record, so the next run starts from what just happened.
Proven. Community fundraisers get their good-luck email the day before their event and the thank-you the day after, on their own. Conversion rose from 28.5% to 39.6% year on year, 81 more events were booked, and the team has about 10 hours a week back. See a similar use case
Where you see it in Orbit
Questions people ask
What problem does From Guest to Giver solve?
Event guests followed up while it matters. Turn the night of the event into the start of a relationship.
Who does From Guest to Giver reach?
Gala Guests Who Never Gave: Supporters who came to one or more events but have never made a gift. They showed up for your mission. They just haven't been asked the right way yet.
Which data does it need?
Participants: event, attendance status, role, ticket type; Donations: supporter ID, gift amount, gift date
Why can't my CRM do this on its own?
Attendance often lives in a ticketing tool, a box office or a paper sign-in sheet that gets tallied into totals. The names stay on the sheet, so the CRM never learns which guests came.
Which channels does it use?
SMS, Email, Phone, Meta. 7 days before: SMS + email Then Day after: Email Then Day 7: Call list Then Day 21: Email.
Who runs it?
Events.
This pathway is one of the four in the capstone of Learn Mission, a free course.
Build it yourself
You build the audience, the email, the schedule and the guardrail in Orbit, one stop at a time.
Open the capstone