5 Ways to Enhance Your Charity Event
Asking for donations may have been perceived as erecting a donation box on some remote highway and waiting for a rare passerby in the hopes he or she will be moved by your cause and prove generous. Nowadays, hosting a charity event often brings a higher level of exposure to your cause and encourages people to contribute and/or get involved.
But planning a charity event is a complex task, and it is not always easy to manage it. Here are five suggestions as to how you may be able to enhance the success of your upcoming charity event:
1. Pay attention to crowdfunding
There are now online crowdfunding tools for everything imaginable, both for profit and nonprofit enterprises. But one of the very best options for charity events is getting the funds through crowdfunding. Such campaigns help get the word out and collect funds in the simplest, most affordable way possible.
Plumfund is well known with minimal fees, meaning you can funnel donations and extend your reach through its platform with close to 100 percent of funds being retained. You can also use this crowdfunding tool to encourage people to donate offline, which will cost nothing at all.
2. “Sweeten up” the event
If your charity event includes a parade (or even if it doesn’t), giving out free candy is a great way to “sweeten” the atmosphere and keep things fun and interesting. You just need to find a great supplier for affordable bulk purchase candies for every occasion. From candy “buffets” to giveaway bags to the toss-in-the-crowd (carefully) approach, Sweet Services is such a supplier with an array of classic and novel sweet treats that will make your event a smashing success.
3. Choose an interesting location
There are many factors to consider when deciding on where to hold your charity event. You need a place that is easily accessible, but also a location where passersby could also be curious to come.
Using a city park or a public square would be great for exposure. Or, meeting at a local church may provide some good contacts and give the event “dignity.” Even consider meeting at a popular theme park or some more informal setting to give the event a “fun atmosphere.”
It all depends on the nature of your charity and the type of audience you are especially seeking to reach out to.
4. Games, prizes and food!
While you want to have a keynote speaker and some “serious time” to get people thinking about what the charity you are promoting has accomplished and all it can do in the future (with a little help), break time is important too.
Many charity events include meals, snacks, fun games with prizes, raffles, bingo tournaments and other “cool” touches. Get creative, call up some local restaurants to see if they cater, and find the balance between prizes being affordable yet “worth winning.”
5. Calling all volunteers!
One of the best ways to save on event expenses and thus maximize the impact of donations given, is to form an all-volunteer event staff. You will need some peripheral services done by professionals and may wish to use an event-management consulting group, but all the rest should be done by dedicated volunteers.
Volunteers are good for another reason as well: they create valuable, potentially influential and long-lasting contacts. They become a great way to spread the word about your vision before, during and after the event.
Article by Zainab Sheikh
This article was written by the guest author listed at the end of the article.