in this video we're gonna talk about how to plan a fundraising event. My name is
Dan Kimball product specialist at Aplos software you know in planning
fundraising events there are tons of events out there everybody's kind of
looking for that magic bullet or how to raise a lot of money for your nonprofit
organization but today what I want to do is kind of kind of walk you through and
talk a little bit about you know what are the basic components of any kind of
event whether it's a huge event such as like a dinner banquet or a gala or
something even smaller scale either way there are some some basic core
components we want to talk about you know the first thing you want to do when
planning an event is actually identify its purpose what is it that you're
actually trying to accomplish with the event for example there's fundraising
events where your actual raising money and there's actually such a thing called
a friend raising event where maybe the money is not important but maybe you're
just introducing people to your nonprofit organization church or
ministry so you want to really kind of get its purpose down
what you know what is it exactly you're trying to accomplish by doing this event
and then after you identify the purpose you of course you want to set a goal how
much money are you trying to raise or what is it you're trying to accomplish
through that event so let's say for example you're let's just take for the
sake of this video a gala or a dinner or some kind of dinner type of function you
want to set a financial goal and then of course you want to set a budget so you
want to raise $50,000 how much is it going to cost you to put this particular
event on once you kind of get those in place then of course you got to get into
the nitty-gritty the details to putting that thing on we all know especially for
small nonprofits you know you still have to do your regular job you've still got
the work of your mission to do so you throw an event in there it can get real
busy so what I recommend people doing is identifying or putting together some
kind of leadership team it could be volunteers led by a staff member from
your nonprofit or church it could be an all-volunteer group it could be your
group paid staff it either way somebody who's kind of the point
that's really in charge of putting that particular event on we call that a
committee you could call that a volunteer committee so once you kind of
have those basics of course then comes the planning and then you want to
identify who your target audience is who you're trying to get there that's kind
of be really important based off the event if it's a you know is are you
looking for a younger crowd are you looking for a group of alumni are you
looking for big donors are you looking for both everybody you know wants that
perfect scenario where I want all ages and I want to raise a million dollars
well that may or may not you know not happen in your first try but either way
these are good things to talk about and and really zero in on on who it is your
audiences who are you targeting for example it might be a tournament of some
kind well you're gonna say well we're gonna look for kind of a younger
audience maybe younger people don't you know don't want to do a traditional
sit-down banquet or vice versa maybe you know if you're trying to reach out to an
older group they're not going to want like a concert or something like that
you know so I think that's kind of an obvious type of thing so it's really
important that you as you start to plan and promote you really identify ting
keep in mind who it is you're targeting and how you target them if it's an older
audience you're probably gonna want to reach out more by a traditional
invitation and an email if it's a younger audience you might want to look
into doing a Facebook or a text or something in in that matter as well and
then of course you got to promote it and really give yourself enough time for me
what's really frustrating as a fundraiser is when I hear about or find
out that organizations have put on this really cool event they've done the
planning they've set a budget they set a goal and then all of a sudden they
didn't give themselves enough time to get the word out so all of a sudden I
get an invitation for something like it's like in two weeks so you know even
as much to go back and do something like what's called a save the date card or a
save to date notification six months out four months out something like that so
those are details that are become really important in promoting and putting on
that that so again when talking about your
target audience there's a couple ways you can approach
it you know you have to kind of ask your question are we going for the audience
or are you trying to put it on that particular fundraiser it's kind of like
the chicken and the egg kind of debate if you think about it that way what's
more important well I think you know the biggest thing is you want to think about
it more of how well do you know your donors and prospects I think that's
really the first question you want to ask every if you google best fundraising
idea in the world you're gonna get a thousand different searches and opinions
and things like that or if somebody comes to you says hey this organization
over here did this really awesome dinner banquet they did a live auction they
auctioned off a house in Maui and and a boat cruise and all this and they raised
five hundred thousand dollars you should do that and you go okay great let's do
that but you're a brand new organization you haven't been around for three or
four years you might not have the donor base to do that kind of event so it's
really important I think before you even get into any kind of event understand
and know your audience you know are you young are you old are you both you know
kind of thing or even do a survey you can very simply as is throw out a survey
to your donor or if you have an advisory board get some feedback kind of that way
so let's keep let's go on with this you know let's suppose you're gonna do this
dinner or this banquet you you've got everything in motion you have maybe a
group planning it and one of the things you want to think about is the actual
setup of that event what a lot of people don't realize is that the time involved
you get the promotion out maybe there's invitation there's RSVPs
involved but now you have event day or event weekend they're set up involved so
you really want to be thinking strategically about what does that look
like are you do you need extra volunteers are you gonna close down your
office for the day a lot of people don't realize just sort of the little details
another little item that I really like to encourage people when talking about
special events is the actual practice what we call walk through a lot of
people you know they maybe don't think about the the location and maybe there's
some logistical things do you have a plan a do you have a plan B whatever
reigns is it indoor is it outdoor you know all those kinds of things so if
you're feeling overwhelmed you kind of want to take it step back and go yeah
these are the kinds of things you want to think about so not only do you have
setup day but you actually have a practice day where maybe you walk
through the registration process want to make sure your technology works if
you're doing like registrations with your computer or maybe you're taking
donations you know that kind of that kind of thing and then finally you know
of course you have the details of the event the last thing to think about in
doing a special event is to follow up what happens after the event are you
gonna ask for donations at the event are you gonna ask people to respond or give
you something after the event and then last but not least my favorite thing to
do is to thank people you got to have a thank you plan and whatever I think the
great I'll call it the great sins of a fundraising event is having people a
bunch of people come to your event and not taking down any kind of information
and email you know who did they come with some way to to reach back out to
them and say hey thanks for coming because of your attendance the following
happened we raised this much money 300 people were became more aware of our of
our our mission in downtown wherever you may be kind of things so don't forget to
think and and then build off of that another thing to think about when when
doing a special event is your volunteer base in your volunteer corps that in
itself can become very important a good volunteer base can save you obviously a
lot of time a lot of money in some cases in terms of staffing but you really want
to think through you know first of all who are your volunteers and how are you
getting them and to make sure that on the day of the event there's someone
that's giving those volunteers particular tasks and things to do are
they working in shifts are they working the whole time for example you know a
lot of people don't think through let's say you're doing this dinner this
banquet you have 40 tables that you've sold and you have volunteers and their
jobs are over around dinner time are you going to feed them are you
gonna feed them the same dinner that the the guests of that event or are you
gonna maybe do pizza for them in the back you know those things will add to
your expenses as well so just really have a strategy about again who your
volunteers are and who's kind of responsible for giving them tasks
because at the end of the day you can't fire yeah I mean you can maybe ask them
to not come back but it can be kind of awkward if you have a volunteer that you
don't either know what to do with or maybe a volunteer shows up and and maybe
they're not as helpful as you would hope so be thinking about that as you as you
build out your event and then the last thing I just kind of want to touch on is
is you know the difference wean a really good event versus maybe a not-so-good of
that and I really think it comes down into planning and we all know there's
there's always going to be circumstances that maybe we can't control that's the
great kind of joy and stress about a special event you just can't predict you
know I as an example recall a time I was responsible for a fundraising dinner and
we had this really beautiful lighting pieces and in the middle of the event
two of them caught on fire during the event and it was pretty it was pretty
wild and and funny if he afterwards but it certainly took us by surprise but
luckily we had a cup people that got right on it put the fire out they they
kind of distracted the guests say it's no big deal we're gonna keep moving on
but it was something that I mean and I could probably give you a lot of other
examples of things that have maybe gone wrong but really what you want to think
of the difference between a well-planned event is is really thinking out some of
the details ahead of time I think things like the registration and Food lines
those are two areas that can really be the difference between a what I'll call
a clump a clunky event versus a smooth-running event are people waiting
around for too long to get to their table or you know is it unorganized so I
really think that to do an event you really want to think through the the
planning and some of the steps ahead of time so that it's a really good
experience from the guests standpoint so I hope you enjoyed this video you find
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videos like this and certainly give us some feedback add some comments in there
tell us about your event experience and we'll love to hear from you