As your chapter jumps into this school year, get ahead by taking control of all your fundraising events! This article will walk you through a plan to put on the best event your chapter has ever seen!

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1. Develop Event Goals and Objectives

The first step I take is to develop my external goals. These are goals for the event that directly impact our guests. I call them "The 5 W's." Who is my primary audience or target market for this event? By identifying our target market, we can provide better accommodations and create a more personalized guest experience. This will also make step 7 much easier. What are we offering attendees when they come to this event? Great you planned an event but why should I care to attend? Everyone has a million things to do and only 24 hours in the day. Your event needs to add value to the guests' lives and make them leave feeling better than when they walked in. Where will this event take place? Local events can be easier to manage but tend to have a lower budget than national events. Having an idea of where you will establish your event is helpful when outlining what it should look like. When is the event? Is this a week, a month, or a year out? The earlier you plan your event, the easier it will be for you. Time is your greatest asset when it comes to planning. Why are we doing this? The two main reasons events are created are to raise money and to serve the community. I like to believe you can do both. Sure the cookie dough fundraiser is the biggest money maker for the club but ask yourself, "How can we spin this so that our guests get value as well".

2. Create Your “Master Plan”

The big one for this is outlining what the event will look like. Put yourself in your guest's shoes and think about what you want them to see as they walk in, who they should be interacting with, where they should be going through your event, etc. Drawing out your vision for the event can be extremely helpful when enlisting others in step 4. Be as thorough as you can in this step, this is where being an over-thinker and adding more detail pays off! List all the items that need to be done before the event and create categories for groups of events to fall into (Logistics, Promotions, Resourcing, etc.). Create a timeline with all your tasks and when they need to be finished. I have found that this keeps all of my team on task and enables us to take initiative on the next task. Create key milestones within your project. Addressing big achievements and praising members for their work is widely overlooked within project management, your team will need motivation, especially through big projects. Have a backup plan after your backup plans backup plan. I like to say that if something can go wrong, it probably will go wrong. Consider the risk of your master plan, for example, some vendors are more prone to cancel something last minute than others, with this in mind, it’s important to know a backup vendor in case something goes wrong. It’s good to have backup staff in case an emergency comes up that restricts someone from coming to the event. These are just a few examples but it’s good to have as many backup plans as you can, just to be safe!

3. Outline Your Budget

When working through your school, make sure you submit a fundraising form (to be able to collect revenue from your event) and any P.O. you need (to purchase items for your event). Get an estimate of your total expenses and profit, you can look at previous events to get a feel for this too. Before you start spending, divide costs into essentials and non-essentials. Your budget should be allocated first to the essential items needed for your event to run and the rest can be split among non-essentials.

4. Create teams

Identify your committees, this would be logistics, promotions, resourcing, etc. Identify your leadership, and assign strong leaders as committee heads. Enlist others for your event, and find others who would be interested in volunteering for your event. Our chapter has found success in giving leadership points and board recognition as strong incentives for our students to participate as volunteers. Identify strengths among volunteers, find out what your volunteers are good at or interested in, and assign them to committees accordingly.

5. Find a Date and Venue

Solidify your date, you can no longer change your date after this so double-check with your advisors that this works. Find a venue, and make sure that the venue will accommodate all your plans, fit in your budget, hold all your guests, and be accessible to your target market. Before you confirm your venue, visit the space ahead of time so you know it is exactly what you are looking for. Confirm your venue and start laying out the space!

6. Collect Sponsors or Partners

Partnering with other organizations or getting corporate sponsors can bring down prices and increase potential participation via marketing to their audience as well. When reaching out to sponsors or partners, highlight what they will gain from participating in the event. Some ideas include relationship building within the community, marketing toward the event's audience, and more.

7. Promotion and Marketing

Marketing is made up of knowing your audience and selling to that audience. Reviewing "The 5 W's" can help you determine a marketing strategy for your event. Advertising via personal selling - word of mouth - creates a stronger relationship between you and the guest. However, online marketing can reach a wider audience in a shorter amount of time.

8. Execution

This is often the most stressful part of the entire event. The biggest tip I can give is that the event should be all about your guests. Take into account that your guests expect as soon as they park the event will be seamless. Plan the night minute-by-minute. Below is a snippet from a recent theater event we did. Building out a detailed agenda kept the entire team on track and helped us all give our guests that personalized experience they are looking for.

9. Reflection

Congratulations! You finished your event, now what should you do? A common habit of most people is to go get dinner, celebrate, and call it quits. You aren't done just yet. Reflecting on the event will help improve upon your event planning and can help key stakeholders of your event (your advisors) understand how the event went. Host meetings with your departments to understand what worked well for them and what could be improved for the next event. Make sure to record these meetings with notes so that you can look back or share them.