ADL

ADL is a global civil rights organization founded in 1913. Today, events are one of ADL’s most powerful tools to educate communities, mobilize allies, and inspire donors in the fight against hate. With a lean central events team and volunteer-driven regional offices, ADL needed a modern event marketing and management solution that could power key large-scale events along with local fundraisers and educational programs nationwide.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

Scaling events as a platform for education and fundraising at ADL

For more than a century, ADL has been a leading voice against hate, working to build a world where all people are treated with dignity and respect. Events sit at the center of how ADL advances that mission through flagship events like their Never Is Now summit in New York City and their annual Concert Against Hate in Washington D.C. These events draw thousands of community leaders, students, educators, policymakers, business executives, and advocates from around the globe while raising critical funds to support ADL’s programs. 

Before ADL centralized its events function, each of the 25 regional offices largely managed their own events, often with just a few staff members. Only two people were fully trained on the legacy event platforms, creating significant operational risk and bottlenecks. Event data also lived in multiple systems, with registration in one place, email marketing lists in another, and donor records in Salesforce. As a result, ADL lacked a real-time, 360-degree view of the attendee journey. Leadership and fundraising teams couldn’t easily see who registered, education teams couldn’t see who actually showed up or which sessions they attended, and event and marketing teams couldn’t see how those behaviors tied to future giving. “Without a clean check-in report to upload, much of the data – including no-show rates and key attendance metrics – was either lost or incomplete, leading to gaps in stewardship follow-ups and donor engagement,” Gabrielle explains.

ADL also relied on highly manual processes to manage the onsite experience. Staff were often hamstrung at check-in by pre-printed paper lists, making it difficult to handle walk-ups and last-minute changes. For galas and dinners, table assignments and seating charts were created in paper files or basic spreadsheets, which made it hard to adjust layouts or move guests right up to showtime. These friction points risked undermining donor confidence and disrupting the flow of ADL’s most visible events. Because attendance was tracked on paper, post-event data was frequently incomplete or lost, and records had to be manually entered into Salesforce — introducing errors and delaying stewardship follow-up, segmentation, and impact reporting.

As ADL’s events portfolio expanded, teams spent countless hours on list segmentation and emails for different attendee groups, manually pulling data for donation acknowledgements and tax receipts, and building and distributing static reports for leadership. This left less time for strategy, content, and high-touch donor engagement. To keep pace with rising expectations and a growing portfolio, ADL set clear goals to:

• Standardize and modernize event management across national and regional events.
• Improve efficiency and reduce manual work for small central and regional teams.
• Deliver a more secure, seamless, and accessible attendee experience at large-scale events.
• Automatically connect event data with Salesforce to enable smarter stewardship, targeted fundraising, and better reporting.

APPROACH

Standardizing on Cvent as the backbone of ADL’s event tech stack

To tackle these challenges, ADL made a strategic decision to standardize on Cvent as its primary event platform across national and regional programs. Gabrielle says they initially researched many different options, noting “there was not one that met all of our needs” until they discovered Cvent. Today, Cvent sits at the center of ADL’s ecosystem, tightly integrated with Salesforce and marketing tools to support the full event lifecycle. 

Cvent powers ADL’s largest events, including Never Is Now and Concert Against Hate, as well as dozens of regional fundraisers and educational programs each year. “What started as a solution for operational inefficiencies has evolved into a partnership that helps ADL deliver impactful events that elevate both our brand and our mission,” Gabrielle shares. “Cvent provided a centralized, scalable solution that allowed us to modernize our event operations, streamline internal workflows, and significantly enhance the attendee experience.” 

Driving donor engagement through smarter, integrated registration

Gabrielle says the breadth of Cvent’s integrated solutions has been critical for ADL. “With Cvent, the tools are so diverse yet so specific,” she shares. “With everything in one location, we’re able to do things we were never able to do before.” For example, with Cvent Registration, ADL can now create targeted registration journeys, streamline event sign-up, and ensure accurate data capture for campaigns. Fully branded sites can be customized for different attendee types and paths, delivering a more personalized experience. Gabrielle’s team can easily track key metrics by using code snippets and reference IDs to see where registrants are coming from and which marketing tactics are most effective. Attendees can also self-manage their registrations — modifying or canceling as needed — allowing ADL staff to focus on more strategic priorities for the organization.

Automation has transformed many of the manual tasks that once consumed staff time, including key event marketing activities. “Using Cvent’s robust communication tools, we now automate email reminders, pre-event confirmations, post-event surveys, and targeted communications based on attendee segments or ticket types,” Gabrielle shares. “Tasks like automating information for tax receipts, pulling donor-related data, and personalizing communications for VIP attendees or sponsors have all been streamlined,” she adds. This has not only given the team much-needed time back, but has also boosted engagement by making messaging more timely and relevant. 

By pushing critical event data into Salesforce automatically, ADL now has a single source of truth that development, program, and education teams can rely on to understand engagement and coordinate outreach. “Salesforce is pretty much the engine that keeps our ship going,” says Gabrielle. “With Cvent, we can now take tiny, specific data points and put them into that engine so our fundraisers can go out into the field with very specific insights.” 

Gabrielle adds that building a consistent database of event and attendee data in a single source of truth has revolutionized how ADL targets interest and markets their events. “Being able to access a ton of information with the click of a mouse has been invaluable to see an attendees’ history throughout all of our events,” she says. “That data that would have just sat there is now usable, so to take something that was intangible in a sense and make it tangible has been really great.” 

The shift in experience onsite has been significant for both attendees and staff. “The most immediate impact came from modernizing our check-in process after implementing OnArrival, which completely eliminated our reliance on printed paper check-in lists,” says Gabrielle. “This not only drastically reduced attendee wait times but also improved the overall first impression for guests, including high-level donors and corporate partners.” The shift has also given valuable time back to staff. “The transition from chaotic paper lists to digital check-in has empowered staff to reallocate their time to guest relations and problem solving, rather than basic administrative tasks,” she adds. Regardless of which version of OnArrival they use, Gabrielle says ADL can now “bring the same level of professionalism and efficiency to all of our programs throughout the country.”

Creating personalized, data-driven journeys with the Cvent Attendee Hub

Beginning with virtual events during the pandemic and then evolving to hybrid experiences, ADL turned to Cvent Attendee Hub as the central engagement platform for its marquee events. With Attendee Hub, ADL now offers a single digital home for conference content, networking, and real-time updates, whether attendees are onsite or joining remotely.

Post-event, on-demand content and integrated surveys extend the life of ADL’s programming and capture rich qualitative feedback. All of this activity rolls into unified reporting, giving the organization clear visibility into who engaged with which topics, sessions, and calls-to-action — making it easier to prioritize stewardship, demonstrate impact to funders, and design even more mission-aligned events year after year.

ADL has seen strong adoption and engagement using the Attendee Hub for the last several years. For example, their most recent Never is Now saw more than 3,000 users engaged with ADL’s custom-branded app, a 25% increase from the previous year. “Once attendees log into Attendee Hub, they know they have all of the information at their fingertips,” notes Gabrielle. “The questions we get at the info booth now are less about where to go, and more about the content we can provide to educate them.” In fact, 88% of survey respondents said the app was useful for navigating the conference, connecting with content, and enhancing their overall experience.

Streamlining space planning for high-stakes events with Cvent Event Diagramming

Beyond transforming the attendee experience, Cvent has also fundamentally changed how ADL’s internal teams work. “Events used to be a heavy lift, filled with redundancies, manual tasks, and post-event data gaps,” Gabrielle notes. With Cvent, ADL staff has gained back invaluable time, allowing them to focus on more strategic priorities. “We now operate with more precision, collaboration, and confidence,” she adds.

For example, Gabrielle used to spend at least 12 hours diagramming event space with paper floor plans and Excel spreadsheets, meaning change management and VIP seating assignments were time-consuming, manual exercises. Cvent’s Event Diagramming solution now lets Gabrielle co-create space with venue partners with to-scale floor plans, drag-and-drop seating, and custom objects to make it easy to visualize unique layouts. Real-time collaboration features ensure ADL’s program managers, security teams, and AV providers can all mark up the same diagram, reducing last-minute surprises and costly rework onsite. This ensures Gabrielle can spend her time optimizing for safety and a flawless donor experience. “As an example of the tool’s efficiency, I was able to diagram something quickly over the weekend for an upcoming event whereas it took a dozen hours before,” she offers.

This has proved to be one of the most transformative changes for ADL’s events team. “Today, we rely on the Access Portal to provide cross-functional teams with direct access to live dashboards, performance metrics, and custom reports throughout the entire event cycle,” Gabrielle shares. “This shift has saved countless staff hours and has  enhanced collaboration and transparency across departments.” 

ADL has successfully moved from a reliance on just two power users to a more distributed, empowered model. This gives regional fundraisers and education teams the ability to self-manage communications, view real-time registrations, and run their own reports within specific, pre-set parameters. “This has been a game-changer for both our event and development teams, particularly when stewarding donors or refining event programming based on live data,” Gabrielle says. For those who prefer to stay out of the platform, Salesforce reports provide the same event data without any extra manual work. “Attendee engagement history is now seamlessly incorporated into constituent records, empowering fundraisers to have more informed and personalized conversations with key stakeholders,” she explains.

ADL also greatly improved efficiency by deploying shared templates, business rules, and training to ensure that even small or volunteer-led teams can run events that look and feel as polished as national programs. “Everything used to be silos,” Gabrielle notes. “Now we’re working with the technology to bridge that gap so education teams, fundraisers, and operations are all empowered by the same data, tools, and processes.”  She says this has elevated the entire events program across their offices and teams. “With Cvent’s platform as our unified tool, ADL now has a consistent approach to event management nationwide,” she shares. “Regional offices, regardless of size or capacity, can leverage the same high-quality tools used at our national level. This has improved brand consistency, event quality, and overall data collection, while ensuring every region benefits from the same efficiencies.”

IMPACT

Turning operational efficiency into deeper donor and community impact 

Since implementing Cvent across its portfolio, ADL has seen dramatic improvements in both efficiency and data quality. These impacts underscore ADL’s ability to drive more engaged attendees and richer community experiences, which in turn positively impact their fundraising and donorship efforts. “We’ve gone from incomplete or inconsistent attendance records to achieving impressive accuracy,” says Gabrielle. “That data lets us tailor follow-ups to actual behavior and increase the impact of our donor and partner communications.”

Beyond numbers, Gabrielle says ADL sees events as a stage for the “everyday heroes” — teachers, community organizers, and students — whose stories inspire the next generation to take action. Cvent helps ensure those moments feel as meaningful and accessible as possible, whether attendees join in-person or virtually from around the world. “Getting to see these incredible people shine for what they see as ordinary work – but what the rest of the world sees as superhero work – is remarkable, “ Gabrielle says. “It’s really special to give them that platform to let them know that their work matters, and seeing the event through their eyes is incredible.”

Within ADL, leadership has expressed increased confidence in event operations, thanks to streamlined processes and better access to data. Events are now recognized as a highly valued, data-driven component of ADL’s broader strategy, and cross-departmental collaboration has strengthened as fundraising, education, programming, and advocacy teams rally around a single source of truth for event data. “Cvent has been a game changer completely for our events,” insists Gabrielle. “Our events are now more efficient, data-driven, and impactful, supporting ADL’s mission while enhancing donor and stakeholder engagement.”

She adds that her team’s close partnership with Cvent has allowed them to evolve their solution suite to suit their changing organizational needs. By understanding their unique goals, Cvent teams have helped guide the non-profit on best‑fit product usage and access support, consultation, training, and insights to optimize their program. “To have everything we need at our fingertips and know we’re not alone, even as a small non-profit, is incredible,” Gabrielle says. “I know there’s someone there literally 24/7 and our wonderful Cvent reps have held our hands through the experience, so knowing that Cvent has my back is such a game changer.” 

LOOKING FORWARD

Continuously elevating ADL’s mission-driven events for the future 

ADL continues to expand and refine how it uses Cvent across its portfolio — from large-scale summits and concerts to regional fundraisers and student programs. The team is focused on further standardizing templates and governance so their teams can launch sophisticated events faster. They’re also eager to continue deepening Salesforce and marketing automation usage to connect event engagement even more tightly to long-term donor journeys. “Cvent has helped us modernize and streamline our event operations, allowing us to meet and exceed our business goals,” Gabriell summarizes.

In addition, they’re continuing to pilot new Cvent capabilities to keep raising the bar on accessibility, personalization, and security. With the ongoing support of their Cvent team, Gabrielle knows their masterful integration of Cvent into their tech stack is a differentiator for their organization. “Cvent has become the backbone of our event operations — bridging departments, connecting people, and driving measurable success,” she says. “Cvent helps us lift ourselves up and deliver the experiences our mission deserves.”