4 Tips for Making Your Fundraising Event a Success

Fundraising events can be a great way to gather attention and donations for your advocacy, but they can also be tough to plan and expensive to pull off. However, if you research ahead of time and keep these tips in mind, you’ll have a great event that will pull in donations, interest, and more volunteers for your organization.

1. Communicate your advocacy clearly

Fundraisers could have various purposes, whether it’s to generate donations for animal shelters, homeless shelters, hospitals, or orphanages. Some fundraisers might even be for environmental or human rights protection. Most people will be willing to donate to these causes, so when you promote your event, ensure that the advocacy is front and centre. Be specific about what portion of the proceedings will go towards the charity. If you’re affiliated with well-known and reputable organizations like Red Cross or World Wildlife Fund, it might be helpful to indicate that also.

2. Make it fun and engaging

You won’t need much fanfare to attract people who already share your passion, but if you want to reach out to the general population, you could add fun elements to your event, like fairground hire with rides, games, and food stalls. You can also contact bands who may be willing to entertain the crowd.

3. Advertise aggressively

Promoting the event is key to gaining public interest in it. Draft promotional material and a marketing plan to ensure you reach as many people as possible. Include in the promotional material all the details on the fundraising, if it’s paid entry, which organizations you’re affiliated with, what’s the purpose of the fundraising, and so on. Include the fun things the event has to offer, be it a band or rides. Besides posting on your own social media page, ask the bands who will play if they can post promotional material on their social media pages so their fans are informed of the event. Use bright colours and a stylish layout to attract people’s eyes. You can even use print ads and put them up (with permission) in high-traffic areas of the city like the post office, city hall, supermarkets, etc.

4. Create a smooth experience for attendees

On the day itself, you need to be well-coordinated with your staff to ensure nothing goes wrong. Have a first-aid booth and a help desk set up in an easy to spot location and arm your team with walkie talkies so you can communicate remotely. If you’re serving or selling food and drinks, inform your suppliers ahead of how many attendees you expect so they can prepare enough for everyone. Be prepared for rain or sun by putting up tents where guests can seek refuge.

Planning an event can be hard, but as long as you communicated well with your team and plan well in advance, it’ll minimise the problems you’ll run into. After the event, be sure to thank your guests for participating and to update them by posting proof of the funds going to the intended institution.

Hemant Kumar

Hemant Kumar is a project manager at Tridindia with more than nine years of commendable experience in writing about LMS, translation, and IT. His unmatched talent and passion for digital marketing gave him the opportunity to work as a multi-tasking project manager at TridIndia’s sister company, Link Building Corp. Today, he contributes to the world by imparting knowledge on SEO, link building and internet marketing etc., that helps business owners grow their online business.