Since the start of the pandemic virtual events have become the way charities like yours are engaging with their supporters on a regular basis.

Many Christian charities I know, including some of my clients, are now hosting monthly prayer meetings on Zoom. Special virtual events for major donors, giving them a chance to meet with charity workers and local partners in the mission field. fun nights of games, quizzes, and much more.

It seems to me that virtual events are here to stay and, when done well, they can really help charities like yours to expand your reach in cost-effective ways, delight your current supporters and make new ones. 

So today I want to share with you some ideas for virtual events ideas you can host during the Christmas season to show appreciation to your supporters, reach new audiences and build community. 

1.    Advent celebration events

The four themes of Advent are Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. You can use these themes to create a series of advent celebrations with songs, Bible readings, and stories of hope, peace, love, and joy told by your workers and some of your charity’s beneficiaries.

Or, you can hold a different type of advent celebration where you show participants how to make an advent wreath. Then ask them to share what Advent means to them, and pray together.

2.  A virtual ‘Thank You’ party for your volunteers 

The purpose of this event is to thank your volunteers and your prayer intercessors and to make them feel excited about your plans for 2022.

You can perhaps even mix this up a little. Do an in-person event with volunteers who live closer to your offices and are willing to come to an event and a virtual one for others.

You can use this event as an opportunity to encourage your volunteers to promote your Christmas appeal to their congregations and communities they are part of.

Maybe they will feel so loved and appreciated that they will go out and do some fundraising for you during the Christmas season. 

3.  A virtual Christmas carols service 

You are probably already planning to do this, an online Christmas service with carols and Bible readings. But you can raise the bar a bit this year and introduce some new elements to the service.

First, consider inviting the communications staff and worship team of one of the local churches that support your mission. These guys have become pros in doing recordings for their weekly services. So if you ask them in advance they might volunteer to film your charity’s carols service.

Then, invite some of your supporters to read the Bible stories and local church leaders to do the prayers. If you are a mission agency you can get the children of different mission workers to do some of the Bible reading in English and other languages.

The idea is not to get your staff team to do all the work but to open up this service to supporters, so they can participate in putting it together. 

4.  Cast your vision for 2022 and toast the New Year together 

Churches often do this. They have a special service at midnight on New Year’s eve to see the New Year together, to pray and celebrate.

So why not do something similar for your supporters. Perhaps not on New Year’s eve but on the 2nd or 3rd of January.

Invite your supporters to a virtual event where you can thank them for their involvement with your work in the previous year. Share your vision and plans for 2022 and commit the year to God in prayer together.

Invite a local church leader to share a few encouraging words from the Bible too. 

If you are planning to hold a virtual event I would love to hear about it and how it went – so feel free to drop me a line.