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Published On: Tue, Feb 5th, 2019

7 Steps to Pulling off a Successful Fundraiser

Fundraising events are great for raising money for an organization, but they can also be stressful and time consuming to plan. The success of your fundraising event is dependent on the planning process. To ensure the success of your event, you should follow these seven steps.

photo/ Gerd Altmann

Define Your Purpose

Before you plan your fundraising event, you should define the purpose of your event. Is it just a fundraising event? Or do you have another goal in mind? You can use this opportunity to raise money for a charity or cause that’s close to your heart.

The purpose of your event could be to generate publicity or to reach out to a new demographic. Most fundraising events have a few goals in mind. Without a purpose, you’ll never come out with a goal. Determine the details of your fundraising event with your team.

Determine Your Goals

Some goals are easy to determine. Some businesses still don’t have a goal in mind after running a fundraiser for years. Without establishing a clear goal in mind, your can’t run a successful event. This prevents them from collection monthly donations since these events can do much more than promote their business.

Maybe you’re hoping to raise money for a charity or cause. Or, maybe your goal is to simply raise awareness. You shouldn’t be focused on raising dollars alone. You should determine your goals on the following factors:

  • How many donations you need to collect.
  • Business and partner sponsorships.
  • The number of attendees.
  • The number of media outlets or public relations companies.
  • The number of contacts who could become potential donors.

You should determine how much money you plan to raise if this is one of your goals. Since this is a fundraising event, then you need to do everything in your power to hit a certain amount of money. The amount you choose should be inspired by how much you hope to collect. It should be the amount you would collect after taxes and expenses are deducted.

Plan as Early as Possible

One of the biggest problems with fundraising events is that there’s never enough time to plan them. Some hosts are busy planning them until the very last minute. You should plan your fundraising event six months in advance. Without the proper planning, you could forget the minor details or miss important deadlines, which can negatively impact your event.

As part of the planning process, you should consider the dates, times, and venues. You should also plan the advertising, marketing, and promotional process. Lastly, you shouldn’t forget about assigning the committee or team members.

During this process, you should determine how you’ll engage potential donors. Your fundraising event should have a committee with people assigned as chair members. Most of these committees have wealthy individuals who will contribute the most. You should include the host committee in your planning process.

Budget & Determine Costs

Another important part of the planning process is to determine the budget and costs for the event. When determining a budget, you should include the catering, entertainment, security, staff, transportation, utilities, and venue. Budget is even important for nonprofits since the costs can quickly exceed what they can afford. There are plenty of free calculating templates and spreadsheets that can help you determine the costs for your event.

Book the Perfect Venue

You need to find the perfect venue that will make your event more attractive to potential donors. You need to include important details such as cell phone service, occupancy, parking, seating, size, and special accommodations for the handicapped and special needs guests. You should keep your audience in mind when it comes to those who have food allergies or sensitivities. If you plan to serve alcohol, make sure you have the right licensing to serve these beverages.

Pick Roles & Key Members

The import part of running a successful fundraising event includes hiring the right team members. This means delegating tasks, no matter how minor they seem, to make sure it’s running properly. Delegate roles for everyone who’s involved with the event. Define the responsibilities and goals associated with each of their roles.

You should have committee members, staffing, and volunteers. Your event should also have a host committee or more than one hosting chairperson. These people encourage the most money to the event and motivate others to do the same. The hosting committee usually includes business leaders, celebrities, politicians, or wealthy individuals.

Someone you know who has life coach skills could provide value to your event. Life coach skills and communication skills are important for encouraging others to donate to your event. Maybe you should ask this person to plan a speech for your event. While these individuals are responsible for running your event, but they ensure that you meet your fundraising goals.

Don’t Forget to Say “Thank You”

Fundraising events can become a success or not if you meet your goals. No matter if you met your goals or created awareness, planning is the key to running a successful event. Before the event wraps up, don’t forget these two simple words – “thank you.” If you make your attendees and donors feel special, they’ll help you with future events.

Make sure your companies takes the time to write thank-you notes to everyone who attended or was involved with your event. This includes the attendees, donors, catering, staff, hosts, and volunteers. They’ll be more likely to donate to your cause again later on down the line.

Author: Philip Piletic

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