Preview!
In conversation over breakfast, Janice Gavan (VisABILITY president & my wife) pointed to our background in managing nonprofit special events for fundraising and marketing purposes. We discussed past career challenges, successes and flops. Between us we have been responsible for nonprofit activities that:
- included from 100 participants to 35,000….
- that captured press coverage ranging from an anemic little squib in the morning paper to national and international press attention from all wire services, all networks and most newspapers….
- that raised from $2,300 to $750,000!
During these experiences we have made every conceivable mistake. And plenty of good decisions. So we decided to explore this portion of our background and build a summary of suggestions based on our experience. We will augment that with advice from a sensational caterer who has long been the Go-To vendor to nonprofit special events in this part of Colorado. He, too, has seen special events succeed and fail. In addition, we are going to ask some professional event planners to weigh in on this project with their own experienced-based observations.
BOTTOM LINE: managing a nonprofit special event is mostly about clarity of purpose, thoughtful planning, constant follow-up and effective time-management.
In Spring of 2012 we will fill this page with all the information and tools we can gather about this topic. While we working on this we will welcome the assistance of readers. If you have suggestions about things we should address or if you can submit anecdotes that may help us illuminate this complex topic, please forward them to jburke@visability.com.
