Reality is imperfect
Last Saturday the Child and Family Guidance Center of Texoma hosted its annual Starfish Benefit.
I'm on the board there, and preliminary numbers indicate that we hit well above our fundraising goal. (Yay!)
Surprisingly, a few of our board members — and some of our guests — noticed a small problem during the event:
Some fundraising opportunities, which should have been available on our mobile app, were strangely inaccessible on some phones.
Naturally I checked on this with the representative for our fundraising partner, who manages the app. But since it wasn't a problem for everyone — and of course, it worked fine on their phones — they weren't able to resolve it immediately.
Fortunately, we found other ways to help any guests who mentioned it to us, so for those guests it was not much of a problem.
But I can't help wondering how many people tried to give, found it difficult, and simply moved on to enjoy the evening regardless.
From this I see a few lessons worth noting:
Test, test, and test again. During or after your live event is the worst time to learn that something's not working. Budget time for testing your systems, and test them in a wide variety of situations.
Remember that no system is really flawless. The real world is imperfect. When fortune smiles on us, things will go smoothly. But fortune is fickle.
Ensure your staff are well trained on alternative methods. If a problem comes up, a good contingency plan, though not ideal, can save you from a lot of pain (and missed opportunities).
All the best,
A.