Soapbox Engage Blog

When it comes to raising large sums of money, many nonprofits turn to fundraising events to meet financial goals for their nonprofit organizations. This strategy can generate significant funding for your cause or organization. Still, the preparation and planning process can feel a little overwhelming and can take a bit of time.

A successful fundraising event requires excellent planning and preparation. So we gathered some wisdom, tips, and tricks from event planners and fundraising professionals to create this event checklist and help you plan your next great fundraiser.

Table of Contents

1. Identify a clear goal for your event
2. Assemble your planning team
3. Identify your ideal audience
4. Set a budget for your nonprofit event
5. Choose your nonprofit event type
6. Start planning your event specifics
7. Create a follow-up plan for your nonprofit event

4 Benefits of Effective Nonprofit Event Planning

A nonprofit fundraising event offers many benefits beyond bringing in much-needed money and resources. Fundraising is really about relationships, and successful events help you establish new connections or deepen existing ones. Here are some great reasons to plan a fantastic event for your nonprofit:

Raise awareness about your organization and cause: Even major organizations like the American Cancer Society have to be strategic about educating their audience, dispelling myths, and fighting misinformation. Fundraising events can be an excellent opportunity to gather current and potential donors to learn about your organization and cause while inviting them to participate financially.

Connect with new volunteers and donors: Many people attend fundraising events before taking the next step to give their money or time to the cause. It's an opportunity to showcase your nonprofit's culture and meet them in person to establish a relationship.

Grow brand recognition: Brand recognition is just as valuable for nonprofits as for major companies and businesses. Just imagine the benefit of your organization being a "household name" like Nike or The American Cancer Society. Holding well-run fundraising events helps build brand recognition as more people come to know and interact with your nonprofit and tell their friends, too.

Gain corporate sponsors: It can be challenging to help companies envision generically sponsoring your organization. But inviting a business to sponsor a specific event is a far easier ask. When done correctly, fundraising events can help you build trust and gain more corporate sponsors that invest in your mission throughout the year.

Any nonprofit of any size and shape can enjoy these benefits from a well-organized fundraising event. On the other hand, a poorly run charity fundraiser can break trust with donors and volunteers and even cost you money, time, and resources.

7 Steps to Planning An Effective Nonprofit Fundraising Event

There are countless details to attend to while planning a successful fundraising event for your organization. Quite honestly, it can get a little overwhelming. But with a bit of organization, you can make the process less stressful and plan an amazing event.

To keep things simple, we created this basic guide to help you plan your next fundraising event, ensure everything goes smoothly, and increase the likelihood of reaching your goals!

1) Identify a clear goal for your event

Sure, your goal might be to raise money, but before you dive in and start planning, it's essential to take some time to clearly name your goals and vision.

What are you raising money to accomplish? First, determine whether the funds will be for an internal need (like updating facilities or buying much-needed equipment) or an external need associated with a project or local cause.

It's critical to clearly communicate what the money you raise at the event will do so supporters can get excited to participate.

Beyond the financial goals, do you have other visions for your event? Are you hoping to recognize and thank your volunteers and donors? Connect with new supporters? Educate people about your mission or cause? All these are great visions and can be accomplished through a nonprofit event, but it's critical to name these goals so you can take the proper planning steps.

2) Assemble your planning team

Many nonprofits rely on committees to do the majority of the work planning and executing a fundraising event. An excellent committee can take charge of planning everything from behind-the-scenes details and major logistics to marketing and advertising, entertainment, and much more.

Choose individuals to be on your planning team and create a leadership structure for your committee. Having the right people on your committee really can make or break your event. Gather people who have the right planning, organization, and networking skills to help you meet your goals.

Typically, experts recommend assembling your team 4 to 6 months before your event date. Begin by establishing a leader and ensuring everyone understands their role and the specific goals for the event.

3) Identify your ideal audience

Let's be honest, your events aren't for just anyone. Fundraising events can target or attract many demographics. Therefore, the details of your event should reflect the characteristics of your ideal audience. In turn, this will increase attendance and the success of your overall event.

For example, suppose your goal is to bring in new donors who have never given a financial gift to your organization yet. In that case, you might choose to focus on education and awareness of your cause. On the other hand, if your goal is to strengthen your relationship with existing donors, then celebrating achievements and accomplishments might be a more appropriate theme or focus area.

4) Set a budget for your nonprofit event

No matter how big or small, your event needs a budget. This is especially important if your primary objective is to reach a specific financial goal.

Having a set budget helps you invest your resources wisely and get the best return on investment possible. The return on investment (ROI) is the amount of money (or revenue) generated from the event, minus the event's costs. It's critical to have more income than the event costs, and a budget will help you achieve that.

Some nonprofits also rely on the "Return on Objective" (ROO) metric. This is a more flexible measurement that tracks the overall benefits from the event, not just financial metrics (like brand awareness, new donors, face-time with current donors, etc.).

Using both the ROI and ROO metrics can help you determine the true success of each nonprofit event, even when the goals aren't necessarily related to finances.

5) Choose your nonprofit event type

Now that you understand your goals, target audience, and budget, it's time to start getting into the "meat" of event planning. First, choose a type of event that best fits your organization and your specific goals.

Choosing the right type of event can also help with effective branding, and your audience will better understand your mission. Ultimately, inviting the right audience to the right event can help more people get involved and donate to your cause.

6) Start planning your event specifics

All the previous steps help you lay a strong foundation for your nonprofit event. Now it's time to start putting together the event itself. There are loads of details to iron out, but that's ok! You've got a top-notch event planning committee to divide and conquer.

Here's a list of essential details to get started, though each event will be slightly different:

• Choose your date: most experts recommend picking a date 4 to 6 months out to give plenty of time to plan well.
• Book your venue
• Obtain any necessary permits or licenses.
• Identify a theme and begin creating promotional and marketing materials.
• Prepare sponsorship packages and gather corporate or individual sponsors for your event.
• Invite guest speakers or book entertainment, depending on the type of event you're planning.
• Advertise your event on social media and include details about the upcoming event in any communications with current and potential donors. If applicable, send personal invitations to your ideal audience.
• Create a custom online donation page for the event so attendees and supporters who are unable to attend can still donate to the cause.
• Make tickets available online: whether you're selling tickets or hosting a free event, it's valuable to have attendees register online. That way, you can gather contact information before the event and get a more accurate guest list beforehand.
• Organize your event volunteers and staff: make sure everyone understands their responsibilities at the event itself. This will prevent details from slipping through the cracks or costly miscommunication.

7) Create a follow-up plan for your nonprofit event

Even after the event is over and everything is cleaned up, your job isn't quite finished. It's time to send thank you notes, get feedback from guests, and begin building relationships with new potential donors you met. Adding this step to the event planning list ensures your team is prepped and ready for stellar follow-up.

Many nonprofits add to their follow-up strategy an event survey to gather feedback from attendees. Learning what people enjoyed, what might be improved for future events, and allowing supporters to share feedback will help you improve future nonprofit events and fundraisers. The Soapbox Engage Forms app makes this step a breeze for your team.

It's also essential to get feedback from your volunteers and planning committee that made the event possible so you can improve the organization and planning process for future events.

Planning an event of any kind can be overwhelming and exhausting, but following these steps will help you stay on top of things and execute a fantastic nonprofit event!

Now that planning events is a breeze, here are three more resources to help boost your fundraising strategies and efforts!

• How to Write Event Descriptions for Your Fundraisers and Nonprofit Events: A good event description is critical to attracting people to your nonprofit events. With a bit of understanding of your ideal audience and what details to highlight, you'll be able to write an event description that has people lined up for your next event!
• 9 Steps to Plan and Host a Virtual Fundraiser: Even though the COVID-19 restrictions are easing up in many areas, nonprofits continue to explore the benefits of virtual fundraisers. The benefits of virtual fundraisers will most certainly keep them around for a long time, and this blog will help you plan and host a fantastic virtual fundraiser!
• The Nonprofit Marketing Guide for Busy Fundraisers: The internet is flooded with marketing strategies and tips to market your organization. But what you need most is easy, efficient, and effective online marketing solutions that you can put in place for your nonprofit. The great news is you're probably doing most of the things you should be doing--and this blog will help you bring those things together into one cohesive marketing strategy!