This is the second part of my blog exploring the biggest lessons I’ve learned about organising fundraising events. Check out part one here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog///lessons-in-fundraising-events-for-charities-part-1/ 

Here are the last four big lessons I’ve learned during my career – both as a Fundraising & Events Manager and as the founder of Lime Green Consulting.

Lesson 5: Harness the power of corporate support

There are countless ways in which a company can support your event and many people underestimate the potential. The obvious one is event sponsorship which can be worth thousands of pounds, but it’s not easy to get a sponsor for a new and unproven event. However, bear in mind that companies can also:

• Directly promote your event to their staff, social media followers etc.
• Organise joint promotion drives to promote both themselves and the event, sharing and reducing costs all round.
• Provide freebies for participants.
• Add credibility through brand association.
• Provide volunteers to help run your event.

Morocco Hitch was supported for over 10 years by the travel company Rough Guides. At the peak of the relationship, Rough Guides funded some of our marketing activities, advertised Hitch on social media and their website, and gave away hundreds of free guide books to participants.

Rough Guides is a great student brand and their support definitely gave Hitch added credibility – this was important because some students felt uncertain about a hitch-hiking event. The relationship worked for both parties – many students became loyal users of their guidebooks after first reading the Rough Guide to Morocco.

I got involved with another event called Moon Rise Run in its early stages, so had to start at the beginning when developing new relationships with companies. We managed to secure free products from six companies involved in health and fitness which was perfect for the sporty, young, mostly female audience.

Participants were delighted because they got a great goodie bag to take away after the event. And Moon Rise Run got to show that it was a perfect match for some brilliant brands. Who knows – maybe one of these companies will become the major sponsor in future?

The Moon Rise Run team hard at work packing goodie bags containing products from Urban Fruit, Nature Valley, Linwoods, Creative Nature and Up & Running

Lesson 6: Learn to glide like a swan

Lets face it – events are hard work. They’re stressful and unpredictable and you can rarely control everything. Even the best events are powered by blood, sweat and tears!

Managing an event often involves depending on a wide range of third parties. Moon Rise Run succeeded with the support of Eventbrite for ticketing, a sound and lighting team, and a number of bands, food vendors and volunteer race stewards. With such an impressive array of partners, there were inevitably hiccups – including a last-minute booking cancellation and a few changes to the festival line-up.

So event organisers have to be like swans. A swan is a picture of elegance and serenity on the surface as it glides across the water – but underneath its little legs are paddling frantically, putting in lots of effort to get it to its destination.

In the same way, you need to keep all of your ‘paddling’ behind the scenes. As you debate, make and occasionally go back on any number of tricky decisions, you must always be calm, confident and consistent with your participants and prospective customers.

Accept that mistakes will happen, but be willing to release key information early. Don’t hold back from announcing your festival line-up, your free goodie bags or your event schedule, even if details may change or be added later. These details are what get your participants excited about the event and willing to share it with others.

Lesson 7: Don’t go it alone!

There are lots of tools out there that can help you to be a better events organiser.
I highly recommend Basecamp, which allows you to list and share action points, calendar items, files and discussions. You can choose who gets email notifications about different topics and even give restricted access to certain third parties.

Basecamp is great for counting down to major events or website launches. Every staff member involved can contribute using a personalised profile – on one recent project, everybody set themselves up with a photo of their favourite cartoon character or super hero. The charities I’ve worked with love Basecamp as it makes organisation fun and tactile, rather than overbearing.

For simpler projects, I also use Evernote which is really great for creating clean and simple to do lists.

Having a really structured inbox is really crucial. One big problem for event organisers is the sheer rush of emails and social media interaction that you get right before a major event, just when you’re busy with final preparations.

There’s no way around this – your participants expect ‘normal service’ and being busy isn’t an excuse. Be sure to share the responsibility among your team – Gmail and Outlook allow you to colour-code incoming messages for different people. Don’t let the quality and speed of your replies slip, because it will really affect people’s experience.

Lesson 8: Always have a contingency plan

There’s one very difficult experience that has helped shape the way I prepare for fundraising events. It happened during my time as Fundraising Manager at Link, responsible for overseeing Hitch.

With hitch-hiking perceived as a ‘risky’ activity, we had a comprehensive range of safety measures and contingency plans designed to safeguard participants and ensure that the event ran smoothly. While these existed on paper, we hoped that most would never need to be used.

Then one day they were tested and it had nothing to do with hitch-hiking. In April 2011, a bomb exploded in central Marrakech. The explosion happened in a cafe used as a meeting point for students enjoying a holiday after their journey, five minutes before the daily meeting time.

Link operated an excellent daily tracking system and all our student groups had checked in their location the previous evening. However, we had over 600 students whom we couldn’t completely rule out as having been in Marrakech when the incident happened.

While we feared the worst, we knew we had robust safety measures in place. We immediately sent emergency text messages to participants to check they were safe and had a great process for logging incoming information quickly. We were trained to respond to worried parents and even had a dedicated contact person at the FCO.

Within two hours we had spoken to the majority of our students and by late evening we had confirmed that all 600 were safe, although some were understandably distressed.

I couldn’t be more proud of the way my team reacted in very challenging circumstances. Everybody kept their cool and relied on the processes we had in place.

When organising a major challenge event, you take on a burden of responsibility that you must be able to live up to – for the safety of your participants and for the reputation of your event. This experience reinforced my belief that very unlikely scenarios can happen and that you must always plan accordingly.

I hope that hearing about my experiences will help you to improve your own events. If you have any questions, you’re welcome to get in touch with me!