If you have questions about the content or implementation of any of these messages, we're more than glad to provide guidance. We want to make this as easy as possible for you.
Pre-retreat messages for you to send to participants
These are samples of messages you can use to welcome your retreat participants, keep them engaged (and excited) before the experience, let them know what to expect, and make sure they understand the timing and other logistics. Feel free to adapt the details for your particular situation. (If you make significant substantive changes that might affect your participants' understanding of the experience, please run those by us.)
Sending these emails can be done using a simple broadcast email service. (If you don't have one, Mailchimp is a good option -- delegate the setup to your assistant.)
Or you can send the emails from your own email account. If you do the latter, we strongly recommend using "bcc" to send to the group. This eliminates any "reply-all" noise and, more important, keeps contact info private before the retreat. (Remember the instruction to participants to not talk about "what you do" before the retreat?)
Some of the emails refer to a pre-retreat web page. Here is a sample of such a page that you can use as a model and adapt to your situation. (Be sure to change the links in the sample emails, so people see what you want them to see.) If it suits your workflow better, you could send the same information in an email instead of setting up a web page for each retreat -- just be sure to send it out more than once, as we’ve found that emails are easily misplaced.
If you have questions about the content or implementation of any of this, we're more than glad to provide guidance.
Click on the title of each email below to see the whole thing.
Welcome!
Application
Lodging info
Getting the most from the experience
Important last-minute items
Your morning prep
Where we'll meet today
Online "courses" you can offer your participants
Another way to stay front-of-mind with your participants, whether before or after the retreat, is to invite them to sign up for either or both of these two courses:
What Kind of World Do You Want?
Core Strategies for Leadership Philanthropy (this is even useful to those not interested in philanthropy)
Delivery of these courses is fully automated, so it's an easy "done-for-you" way to keep in touch with participants and add value to their experience. If you would like to take advantage of these options, let us know and we will go over specifics and set up a sign-up page you can send people to.
Please note that the emails that deliver access to these courses will be "from" Jim Lord <programs@leadershipphilanthropy.com>. We will insert your name in the body of the emails and also on the course introduction page. Some further customization is possible; we can talk about that if it would be important to you.
Post-retreat checklist
As soon after the retreat as you can, perhaps the same day or within a day, you’ll send an email asking participants to complete a post-retreat checklist. This is similar to the checklists you've done after retreats in which you participated, but adjusted to the briefer format you're delivering. We've also had it set up as a web form for convenience.
Here's a sample email you can use. Please be sure to use your customized link to the checklist, as shown. This ensures the checklist results will be emailed to you.
We will also see the checklist results, which lets us have a peek into your retreat room and get a sense of your participants' experiences.
It is vitally important that you receive a checklist back from every person. Why? Because the checklist is a fundamental part of the experience. It’s not over until they make sense of it and process the value they received. As they leave the retreat, it’s unlikely they understood what happened. The checklist serves to increase their enthusiasm, keep the adventure alive, and give them ways to talk with others about it.
So please continue to send reminder notices every 2-3 days to any who have not replied.