Every first Friday in March, United Way of Greater Cleveland hosts its annual meeting. In recent years, our organization moved away from tradition and incorporated new and fresh elements to increase audience interest and bring the United Way narrative to life. By shifting from the traditional monologue, we created a meeting our audience was excited to attend.
You can do the same; start thinking of your meeting as an opportunity to share a new business strategy or unveil a new product and imagine a new way to do it.
Change the focal point
Traditionally, United Way’s annual meeting served as a celebration to conclude the annual fundraising campaign. Most attendees looked forward to the enormous fanfare created around how much money was raised.
As we transitioned our organization, we also transitioned our meeting from a heavy focus on fundraising to our impact in the community. Our annual meeting is about more than how much money we raise; it’s a chance to share our plan to graduate kids and help our neighbors achieve and maintain financial stability and good health. We changed the focal point.
You, too, can abandon the template and add something unexpected to your annual meeting. Even implementing a simple change can have a great impact. The use of in-the-round seating, at one of our recent meetings, allowed guests to feel as if they had front row seats to the introduction of the organization’s new story.
Connecting with attendees
Well-crafted stories are transparent, authentic and personal. They are a powerful and relevant way to emotionally appeal to stakeholders at your annual meeting.
Almost any marketing component, research or data can be compelling when they are related through stories and anecdotes.
Great stories have one thing in common — the audience can easily identify with the main character or cause.
Your organization’s customers and clients are essential components of your story and a perfect fit to tell the narrative.
Interactivity
While great stories tug on your heart strings, they also motivate sharing the narrative in social media. People live in an interconnected world where stakeholders are posting and creating updates about their experience with your brand. Leverage the inevitable use of social media to further engage your physical and virtual annual meeting attendees.
Weaving interactivity into your annual meeting with the use of hashtags and photo opportunities encourages your audience to share your brand narrative with their individual online networks. Screens throughout your venue are a great way to spur social sharing as live posts and status updates can be broadcasted for all to see. This tactic keeps the audience sharing as they are vying to see their post on the big screen.
Interactivity also works for the stakeholders who are not in the room. Expand your reach beyond the seating capacity by live streaming the event.
The annual meeting is likely one of few opportunities to get your donors, clients, prospects and friends in the same room. Leave them no choice but to leave the meeting feeling enthusiastic about your work and ready to commit to your call to action.
