10 Tips for Planning a Charity Event That Leaves a Lasting Impression

Events can be highly effective ways for charities to raise both awareness and funds. What’s more, if that event leaves a lasting impression, its benefits can extend far into the future. With that in mind, Get Loos share their top ten tips on planning a charity event that attendees will remember for a long time to come.

Set SMART goals

SMART goals are specific, measurable and realistic. They are something of a cliche in the business world but remain highly popular for a very good reason. Setting SMART goals forces people not only to think about what they want to achieve but also how to measure their success in achieving it.

Establish a realistic budget

You don’t need a huge budget to put on a great event, but you do need to know how much money (if any) you have available. This is going to be a key factor in your spending decisions. In the initial stages, assume that you’re going to have to pay the going rate for everything. When you actually make your purchases, however, check for charity discounts. If they’re not shown, ask about them.

Define and research the target audience

Before you think about what you are going to do, define who you are doing it for. Then research what their preferences are. If you’re aiming to attract multiple demographics, then you’ll need to ensure that you have something to offer all of them.

Create a compelling event concept

Your event concept is essentially your elevator pitch or marketing hook for your event. In other words, it’s a very brief summary of what makes your event worth attending. If you’re writing it, it should be about the length of a tweet (280 characters). If you’re speaking it, it should take 30-60 seconds.

Choose a suitable venue

Your choice of venue is literally going to set the scene for your event so it’s vital to choose the right one and book it as early as possible.

Assemble an event team

The format of your event team will depend very much on the scale and type of event you are running. In some cases, it could be as basic as you and one or two other volunteers. In others, you may need to hire professional event organisers to assist.

Draw up an event plan

Once you have your team, draw up a plan for your event. Essentially, this should set out what will be offered, where and when. It’s often helpful to start with a fairly high-level plan and then refine it as you go along.

Determine what practicalities need to be covered

There are three main areas you typically need to cover. These are permits, services and equipment. When assessing these, remember to think about health and safety considerations and also accessibility considerations.

For example, having toilet facilities may be required for health and safety reasons. Even if it isn’t, it will make longer events much more accessible. This can help to keep you on the right side of the Equality Act 2010. On a more cheerful note, it can also encourage more people to attend.

If there are no on-site toilets, then you can organise portable ones. These usually come in different versions, including ones suitable for disabled access. You will generally need a combination of both.

Promote the event effectively

People will only attend your event if they know it’s on so promote it as effectively as you can. Reach out to regular media as well as social media. Small charity events are unlikely to make national news but local papers and radio stations will often happily cover them. Consider creating a hashtag for the event to make information about it easier to find.

Mistakes to avoid

There are numerous potential mistakes to avoid. Most of them, however, boil down to getting too far ahead of yourself on everything except promotion. In other words, it’s looking at your budget before you’ve defined your goals or creating an event concept before you’ve researched your audience.

Make sure that you’re comfortable you’ve completed one step before moving on to the next for everything except promotion. That you should start as early as possible.

Most of the other mistakes you can make relate to lack of clear communication between team members. You can avoid this by laying down robust communication protocols when you form your team.