The Future of Nonprofit Events Isn’t Hybrid. It’s Intentionality.
Key Takeaways
1. Begin with your community, not the format.
Identify who the event is for, what they need from it and what might prevent them from participating before deciding how it will be delivered.
2. Be clear about the experience you are creating.
An event does not need to serve everyone, but participants should understand how they can engage, what is available to them and where the experience has limitations.
3. Do not confuse reach with connection.
Registration and attendance numbers do not tell you whether people felt seen, contributed meaningfully or formed relationships.
4. Design opportunities for people to connect.
Whether the event is virtual or in person, connection does not have to be left to chance. Curated introductions, one-to-one conversations and small group discussions can create space for manufactured serendipity.
5. Choose the experience your organization can deliver well.
Offering more ways to attend does not automatically make an event more inclusive. A focused, thoughtfully designed experience is often more valuable than an ambitious format that leaves part of the community on the sidelines.
The question is not whether every event should be virtual, in person or hybrid. It is whether the experience reflects the needs of the community and delivers what was promised.
In July 2019, I started working at a membership-based international development organization, where a significant part of my role involved thinking about how we convened people.
We were bringing Canadian organizations into global conversations, creating networking opportunities around major conferences, hosting panels, elevating thought leadership and consolidating ideas from across the sector for national, international and global summits..
I was excited by the possibilities. The formal conversations mattered, but so did everything that happened around them: the introductions, the unexpected exchanges and the relationships that continued after the event ended.
Then COVID happened.
Because we were already a virtual organization, we had experience with webinars and online collaboration. But that did not mean we had a blueprint for recreating global convening online. The pivot was fast and hard.
Events designed around conference rooms, networking receptions and international travel suddenly had to happen through a screen. We discovered new ways to reach people, but we also deeply missed bringing them together.
Both things were true.
Years later, we have more ways to gather than ever before: in-person events, webinars, livestreams, virtual conferences, hybrid gatherings, small online discussions and regional meetups.
But more options do not automatically create better experiences.
The most useful question is no longer whether virtual, hybrid or in-person events are best. It is:
What does your community actually need, and what experience can you genuinely create for them?
The future of events is not one format. It is intentionality.
What Virtual Events Made Possible
When events moved online, geography and cost stopped being the barriers they had once been.
People could participate without securing travel budgets, booking accommodations or being away from their families and work for several days. Organizations could invite speakers based on the perspectives they brought—not whether they were nearby, able to travel or already part of the conference circuit.
That remains personal for me. Tasha and I would have loved to attend an event in New York this year, but while building The Nonprofit Hive, the travel, hotel and event costs were not realistic for us.
Virtual access is not always a convenience. Sometimes it determines whether someone can participate at all.
Of course, moving online did not eliminate every barrier. Technology, time zones, language, reliable internet and screen fatigue created their own challenges. A virtual event was not automatically inclusive because it had a link.
But virtual formats expanded what was possible. They brought local, national and global perspectives into the same conversation. They created space for smaller organizations and people outside the traditional speaking circuit. They challenged the idea that meaningful participation had to happen in a large, expensive venue.
Why the Room Still Matters
For everything virtual events made possible, there are things they struggle to reproduce.
I love in-person events because they let you see someone be human.
You hear the story that would never make it into a formal presentation. You see someone laugh, hesitate or light up as the conversation unfolds. You can intentionally carve out time for a deeper exchange, but you can also be surprised by who you meet.
Sometimes the most meaningful conversation is with someone you assumed you had nothing in common with. You happen to sit beside each other and discover a shared experience or idea neither of you expected.
There is also something powerful about hugging someone you’ve just met or you have only known online, sharing a meal and experiencing the energy of a room together. It can create a feeling of connection and belonging that is difficult to replicate virtually.
But placing people in the same room does not guarantee connection. A conference can have hundreds of attendees and still leave people feeling anonymous. Intentional design matters in every format.
An Intentional Event-Planning Framework
| Start here | Consider next | Choose last |
| Purpose | Community needs | Format |
| What should people learn, feel, contribute or do? | Who needs to participate, what barriers might they face and how do they prefer to connect? | Which combination of in-person, virtual or hybrid elements can your team deliver well? |
| Connection | Capacity | Communication |
| Do people need to listen, discuss, collaborate or build relationships? | What staffing, technology, budget and facilitation can you realistically provide? | How will you clearly explain what participants can—and cannot—expect? |
Purpose → Community → Connection → Capacity → Format → Honest communication
The format should be the result of these decisions, not the place where event planning begins.
Reach Is Not the Same as Relationship
A webinar may attract hundreds of registrations. A conference may fill a large room. A livestream may reach people around the world.
Those numbers do not necessarily tell us whether anyone felt seen, contributed meaningfully or built a relationship.
In my work with The Nonprofit Hive, I have become increasingly interested in smaller, intentional formats that can support larger event experiences.
Our one-to-one Hive Chats create what we like to call manufactured serendipity. The interaction may not be as organic as bumping into someone in a conference hallway, but it creates the conditions for two people who might never have found each other to connect.
Sometimes their common ground is obvious. Sometimes the unexpected overlap is the most interesting part.
Small group discussions create another opportunity for participants to explore a question together instead of only listening to a speaker. These formats remind us that virtual participation does not need to be passive—and that connection does not have to be left to chance in person either.
An event could include curated introductions before people arrive, facilitated conversations during the gathering or virtual discussions that continue afterward. The goal is not to force the same experience into every format. It is to consider how different experiences can complement one another.
Hybrid Is a Tool, Not the Goal
Hybrid events can expand access, but they can also be complicated, expensive and uneven.
Doing hybrid well requires more than pointing a camera at a stage. The virtual audience needs to be considered in the technology, facilitation and flow of the event. Someone must monitor questions, support online participants and ensure they are not forgotten while everything exciting happens in the room.
That requires staff, planning and budget—resources that may be limited for small and mid-sized nonprofits.
The issue is not that everyone assumes hybrid is the ideal solution. It is that event decisions are sometimes based on pressure, habit or optics rather than purpose.
A virtual attendee may technically have access while still being unable to participate. In those cases, it may be more respectful to host a strong in-person event and offer a separate virtual experience before or afterward.
Different formats do not have to happen simultaneously to feel connected.
Start With Your Community
Before choosing a format, organizations should be clear about what they are trying to create.
Are people coming to learn, connect, celebrate, collaborate or make decisions? Is the priority broad reach or deeper relationships? Do participants need to talk to one another, or are they primarily there to hear from a speaker?
Most importantly: Who is the event for?
Every format creates opportunities for some people and barriers for others.
A 4 p.m. event may exclude parents handling daycare pickup. An evening gathering may be difficult for caregivers. A conference in a major city may be out of reach for smaller organizations. A virtual event may not work across time zones or for people without reliable technology.
Intentional event planning does not mean eliminating every barrier. That is often impossible. It means understanding who you hope will participate, identifying the barriers they may face and deciding what your team can realistically address.
The most inclusive event is not necessarily the one offering the most ways to attend. It is the one designed around a clear purpose and an honest understanding of its community.
Be Honest About the Experience
An event does not need to be for everyone.
It does need to be honest about who it is for and what people can expect.
If an event is primarily a broadcast, say that. If virtual participants can ask questions but will not participate in networking, make that clear. If only one portion of an in-person event will be streamed, explain what is included.
Problems arise when an event is promoted as interactive, accessible or designed for everyone, but the actual experience does not match that promise.
Transparency allows people to make informed decisions. It also builds trust.
From global health convenings to virtual one-to-one conversations, I have learned that the scale or format of an event rarely determines whether people connect.
The design does.
I still want the rooms. I want the hugs, the shared energy and the spontaneous conversations with people we never expected to meet.
But I also want us to preserve what virtual events taught us: more people deserve access to important conversations, more voices deserve to be heard and geography or organizational budgets should not determine who gets to contribute.
We have more ways to gather than ever before. Our responsibility is not to offer all of them.
It is to choose deliberately, design thoughtfully and be honest about the experience we are inviting people into.
Before deciding whether your next event should be virtual, in person or hybrid, begin with a more useful question:
What does our community need, and what can we create with intention?
Nicole