Charity Event Planning Benefits
Any business, from a large corporation to a small startup, can make a difference and gain public brand awareness through a charity event. It shows an authentic desire to connect with the community and a passion that goes beyond your mission statement. But charity event planning takes a considerable amount of time, even more time if you’ve never run any kind of fundraiser.
If you find yourself in that position, don’t be discouraged or talk yourself out of taking the next step. Instead, take a look at the guide below to focus your charity event planning efforts.
10 Steps to Charity Event Planning Success
You need to incorporate solid charity event planning to make your business’s time, effort, and budget worth it. As you read through the ten step guide below, jot down notes to strengthen your initial proposal when you bring it up in a board meeting or your close-knit office crew.
1. Define a Purpose - Fundraising at a charity event is always a main focus. However, you may also wish to gain publicity and reach out to a new network. Defining your purpose encompasses all of the purposes and how you plan to accomplish each one.
2. Set a Goal - Raising money is key, but you must define how much money is a realistic challenge. If the money is going toward a project, will it be able to fund the project completely? Setting a goal during your charity event planning unites all of your fundraising materials. It can also be beneficial to informing donors what their hard-earned money is going toward.
3. Calculate a Budget - List all expenses required to host and run the event. Include staff, space, catering, marketing, entertainment, transportation, decorations, utilities, and thank you cards or gifts.
4. Choose Leaders - Consider your team member strengths and divide employees and volunteers into committees so that the details don’t become overwhelming. You can’t handle charity event planning all on your own shoulders.
5. Study Your Target Audience - Who is most likely to attend? Who is most likely to give? Who has most reason to care? You must utilize these three questions to find a cross-section of people to invite. They are your target audience.
6. Consider the Details - Venue, food, dress attire, staff, itinerary, entertainment: each of these represents a piece of the charity event planning puzzle.
7. Develop a Route of Sale - Brainstorm about what level of donations (and perks) might be available, how tickets will be sold and delivered, and how to organize the guest list as it grows. Also, you might consider how to impact sales if the guest list does not grow fast enough.
8. Market - Like your own service or product, a fundraising event needs marketing. How do you convince supporters to donate time and money by attending? Which platforms online and through traditional means will you use to get the word out?
9. Assign Roles - Mentally walk through how the night will proceed. If there are any roles yet to be filled, find people suitable for the positions to make sure everything goes smoothly. Establish a chain of command in case of emergency or problems arising during the event itself.
10. Send Thank You Notes - After the event, remember to send personalized thank you notes to all those who attended, donated, volunteered, and participated in any way with the fundraiser. Expressing thanks in this way will encourage those same people to participate again if you run another event.
These ten steps are not rigid. Your fundraiser may require hammering out a few other charity event planning details. That’s why you need a team to help you carry out your ultimate purpose.
Unparalleled Parking: A Welcoming Team
You’ve begun to consider event space and a charity event planning itinerary, but have you thought about how guests will be welcomed? The first impression sets the tone for your evening, so you should choose a team of hosts to represent you at or before guests reach the entrance.
Unparalleled Parking attendants can run a smooth car check operation and utilize the available parking lots to their fullest. This alleviates guest concern for finding parking or having a long walk through questionable weather. In addition, valet services establish a level of luxury from the moment an attendant opens the car door and greets each individual with a smile.
If you’d like to know more about Unparalleled Parking and how our company can factor into your charity event planning, call us at (651) 300-1515.