October 23, 2020
CASE STUDY: USING ZOOM TO CONNECT SPEAKERS/VIDEO (OCT 2020)
Multiple Location Zoom Gala
Oftentimes, you can use available tools to run a great event. For a Pennsylvania based charity, this was the case. The organization wanted to mix pre-recorded video with live commentary and an auctioneer. The challenge was that no one was in the same state as the organization! Thankfully, with Zoom, you can reliably manage your event from any location as long as you have an Internet connection.
Zoom recently introduced the ability to send the meeting video to different streaming services, including ClickBid’s EventStream. This means that any Zoom Pro account can host a meeting and send that meeting’s video to ClickBid bidders while they bid on auction items.
For many organizations, this is very important because cost is a major factor, especially with the challenges brought on by COVID. Staying in front of your donors is vital to showing that you have a plan and a purpose throughout these challenging times. In many cases, a short and simple shared Zoom meeting can provide exactly what you need at a reasonable cost.
Zoom also allows you to have multiple speakers from multiple locations join and leave a meeting seamlessly. By using the available waiting room, an organizer can hold speakers until it’s time to have them speak. You can let one or more guests into the meeting that is being shared to EventStream and then send them out of the meeting when they are done. This creates a seamless way of hearing from guests.
Pro tip: Give your Zoom meeting link to several donors who plan to have a viewing party. During the program, join them into the meeting to add some energy and reactions from viewers.
Specific to this charity, they had a staff member as the host, a computer shared to play the pre recorded videos and the auctioneer in the waiting room to run the auction/fund-a-need. Lastly, a volunteer that opened and closed the live auction items was on speakerphone with the auctioneer. This allowed him to stay in sync with the auctioneer as they called the auction.
The presentation started with the host welcoming guests to the program. After a few minutes of introductions, they switched to the participant who was sharing their screen to play a video. This person had downloaded several videos that were made in-house to show the charity at work. When they were ready, they played them. At times, they jumped from a video to the host and back.
After about a half hour of programming, the host added the auctioneer to the Zoom meeting. The auctioneer and the volunteer that was running the auction software conducted the live auction and paddle raise. The auctioneer was able to see the progress of the auction by viewing a webpage that showed the bid history in real time.
After the auctioneer was finished, the host gave their final comments and the program ended. Ending the program was simply ending the Zoom meeting.
Zoom provides an inexpensive way to bring your message to your donors. Engaging these donors during a pandemic is critical to keeping them once a vaccine allows in person events down the road. Cost is a major concern for many charities that have been hit hard by shrinking budgets. That’s where Zoom shines. A simple monthly subscription (that you may already have) can open your possibilities to a professional event that provides needed opportunities to engage and delight your donors.
