Creating Evergreen Fundraising Materials from Event Content

Major fundraising events, like golf tournaments, galas, and 5Ks, tend to create a huge swell of excitement. Everyone gets a jolt of energy, and your mission takes center stage for the event—and then, once the big day’s over, everyone goes back to business as usual. Photos get buried in someone’s camera roll, quotes get forgotten, and speeches never make it past the stage. This “event amnesia” is, unfortunately, incredibly common for nonprofits and can be incredibly costly. 

Fortunately, with a little intentionality and strategy, content from events can fuel everything from marketing, donor stewardship, and grant writing to sponsor recruitment, giving days, and impact reporting for the entire year. That’s the power of evergreen content: once captured, it stays relevant far beyond the event date, helping you keep memories of the event fresh and your nonprofit top-of-mind for supporters.

In this guide, we’ll review how to capture, package, and repurpose event content into a powerful, high-ROI fundraising tool that works 365 days a year. 

1. Build a Library of Authentic Visual Assets

Authenticity outperforms production value every time. Your supporters want to see real faces, emotions, and interactions, not staged stock images. Genuine photos of supporters interacting with each other and beneficiaries builds trust and relatability in a way no stock image can. 

However, it’s important to note that “authentic” doesn’t mean “accidental.” Don’t just hope you’ll capture good images—instead, treat capturing visual assets like a deliverable to be used in donor thank-yous, annual appeals, website refreshes, next year’s event marketing, and beyond. Create a checklist for your photographer (who could be a hired professional or a volunteer with a phone) that outlines the shots needed, ensuring you’ll walk away with usable images, such as:

• The Hero Shot: Look for high-energy group photos, like carts lined up at the start of a charity golf tournament, runners at the starting line of your 5K, or the entire gala ballroom raising their paddles. 
• The Connection Shot: Capture candid interactions, like board members chatting with donors, golfers high-giving, or volunteers working with beneficiaries, show community, sincerity, and impact. These are great options for year-round stewardship campaigns.
• The Branding Shot: Find images that show sponsor logos in action. For example, at a golf tournament, that could mean close-up shots of branded golf pin flags, hole signage, or sponsor thank-you banners. These provide great content for next year’s sponsorship pitch and illustrate ROI with real examples. 
• Video Snippets: Micro-videos are ideal for social media, so film a variety of short, vertically-oriented clips for social media Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts. You want to capture the overall energy of the event, so capture cheering, networking, auction bidding, someone sharing why they care about your cause, or your executive director giving a quick soundbite. 

2. Capture In-the-Moment Social Proof

Event day is the ideal moment to gather testimonials. After all, attendees are already experiencing your mission firsthand and feeling a strong connection to your cause. That type of emotional energy is priceless—and crucial to tap into. The goal should be to leave the event with a collection of emotional human content that demonstrates why your mission matters. Here’s how:

• Create a system for collecting testimonials: Set up a static station or appoint a roving reporter (which can just be a volunteer or staff member with a smartphone and a lapel microphone) to ask attendees a single question. Something as simple as “Why do you support [organization name]?” is perfect to prompt authentic, unscripted responses that make for powerful marketing assets.
• Capture sponsor feedback: Sponsors love visibility, but also love feeling connected to the organization’s impact. Ask a sponsor representative, “Why did your company choose to invest in this event?” or “What value does [company] get from partnering with our organization?” Record the answer on camera or audio, and later transcribe the quotes for use in your sponsorship prospectus or pitch emails. This kind of third-party validation offers valuable social proof to other businesses.
• Collect beneficiary stories: If appropriate and with permission, invite beneficiaries in attendance at the event to share a quick reflection about the impact of your work on their life. These testimonials can be repurposed for use in grant applications, impact videos, case statements, and year-end giving campaigns. 

3. Turn Data into Impact Infographics

Numbers are important, but to truly impact readers, they need to be translated into digestible formats with meaningful information. While the headline metric of any fundraiser is dollars raised, data becomes evergreen when it shows tangible results.

An easy way to do this is to convert event metrics into visual impact. Take the stats from your event to answer the donor’s underlying question: What difference does my support make?

Let’s use a charity golf tournament as an example. Translating the numbers into actual impact might look like this:

• “$50,000 raised at the annual Charity Golf Classic = 1000 meals for families in need this year.”
• “144 golfers participated = A sold-out tournament that connected community members to the mission.”
• “30 local businesses supported the tournament = Strong business community support for the nonprofit’s mission and the golf event.”
• “50 volunteers contributed a combined 500 hours of service = Local buy-in for the organization that is equivalent to three months of staff time.”

Remember, data is the most impactful when it’s easy to visualize, making infographics an essential tool. Don’t worry if you’re not a graphic designer or don’t have one on staff at your nonprofit—you can create simple, branded infographics using Canva or similar design tools. Once created, you can use these assets in:

• Your annual report
• Website donation page
• Year-end email campaigns
• Stewardship letters
• Sponsorship materials

4. Repurpose Educational Content & Speeches

Fundraising events often feature programming that, with a little refinement, can be transformed into high-value educational content. Treating programming as a storytelling asset makes it a tool for ongoing donor cultivation and outreach. Here’s how to do it:

• Don’t let good speeches disappear. If your executive director, board chair, or other speaker delivers a keynote or mission update, consider transcribing it after the event for use in a thought-leadership blog post, an email newsletter feature, or quotes for future appeals or marketing materials. 
• Turn workshops or panels into lead-generating resources. If your event includes breakout sessions, workshops, or presentations, simply convert the slide decks and/or handouts into downloadable PDFs or website resource library content. Ask visitors to provide their email address to download the resource, making it a lead magnet.
• Repurpose the event program. Your printed program may include impact summaries, supporter lists, and mission statements—all content that can be easily turned into a digital “Year in Review” brochure for potential donors and sponsors. 

5. Create a "Sponsor Showcase" for Recruitment

Your nonprofit’s corporate partners want visibility, and the more clearly you can demonstrate the value your event provides, the easier it will be to secure sponsorships in future years. Show, don’t tell, your prospects what visibility looks like:

• Make a sponsor-focused highlight video: Create a 60-second reel designed exclusively for sponsor recruitment, which can be the centerpiece of your sponsorship pitch meetings. Focus only on brand visibility, like:
  
  • Logos on golf carts, banners, hole signs, and pin flags
  • Branded swag or giveaways
  • Sponsors interacting with event attendees
  • Emcees thanking partners
• Post Year-Round “Partner Spotlights”: Use the event imagery you’ve captured to schedule short sponsor shoutouts on social media throughout the year. This keeps the relationship warm and demonstrates tangible recognition long after the event is over.
• Write a Sponsor Case Study: Write a short case study to send to similar companies as proof of value. This ensures you’re not just telling potential partners what they get, you’re showing them. 

6. Build Content Into Your Pre-Event Planning

A true evergreen content strategy requires intentional planning months before event day. Regardless of your specific event’s focus, ensure you keep these considerations in mind: 

• Assign a dedicated person to capture content: If the person taking photos and capturing video is also handling registration or managing volunteers, key moments will be missed. Assign a volunteer or staff member, or hire a photographer whose sole responsibility is capturing content.
• Use an event management tool to manage and export data: A purpose-built event management platform, like a golf event management tool, is key to freeing up your time to capture content. Use your platform to export registration lists, donors, auction results, and other data right after the event wraps and while everything is fresh. Waiting even a week increases the likelihood that something gets lost. 
• Organize content in a shared Drive: Before the event goes off, create a clearly labeled folder system to keep assets organized and accessible. Using labels like “2025 Golf Tournament - Sponsor Photos” or “2025 Gala - Testimonials” makes items easily findable for future use. 

Final Thoughts

As donor expectations shift and fundraising trends emphasize authenticity, transparency, and storytelling, evergreen content becomes one of your most valuable assets.

When you intentionally capture visuals, testimonials, data, stories, and sponsor exposure, your event stops being a one-day success and becomes a fundraising engine all year. The energy, smiles, and mission moments you gather at this year’s events can power your stewardship, marketing, and sponsorship strategy long into the future.