The value of nonprofit events can’t be understated. If you’re looking to forge stronger relationships with donors and partners, raise awareness and important funds, or build a community, there’s no substitute for an event. Hosting events also affords the chance to collect and update important donor data, such as contact information, communication preferences, and interests, that help improve donation appeals.
Indeed, events are a valuable part of a nonprofit’s portfolio. However, these events are truly only effective and worth the time and effort if they further your nonprofit’s mission in some way. These tips will help solve any disconnect between your slate of events and the mission you’re working towards and ensure any future event moves your mission forward.
1. Clearly Define Your Event’s Objectives
Setting clear and measurable objectives for your event at the outset of planning will help create guardrails that ensure the event moves your mission forward. Consider the following sample objects and key questions to consider with your staff, board, or planning team:
- Event Purpose. What is the end goal of the event? Do we want to simply raise awareness? Is the event aiming to increase donations? Do we want to recruit volunteers? Or are we hoping to accomplish something else? Understanding what you want the event to do is step one in keeping it on track to support your mission.
- Event Theme & Focus Activities. What will be the main activity of the event? What other activities will be part of it? Who is the target audience? Why would these folks want to attend? What types of businesses would want to sponsor the event? For example, if you choose to host a charity golf tournament, think about the audience golf events typically attract and how you can use those demographics to sell sponsorships.
- Success Metrics. What does success mean for this event? How will you measure success? Some common success metrics might be the number of people attending, total dollars raised, number of volunteers recruited, or number of new donors. It’s a good idea to focus some of your success metrics around engagement with your mission, whether that looks like visits to your “About Us” page on your website, purchases from your charity auction, or people signed up to volunteer at your next meal packing event.
2. Include Your Mission in the Event’s Branding
You know how important branding is to your nonprofit as a whole, in terms of organizational awareness and donor conversions. It’s just as important to integrate your mission into your event’s marketing materials so you attract the right people to the event. You can do so in the following ways:
- Imagery. Choose imagery for your event’s marketing materials that are related to your mission in some way. The imagery could be incorporated into the event’s logo, signage, or event website.
- Mission Statement. Include your mission statement in event marketing materials to raise additional awareness about your cause. If it’s not practical to include the entire mission statement, incorporate elements of it into any slogans or descriptive text. Bottom line, you want to ensure the event is consistent with your mission statement.
- Brand & Voice Guidelines. While your event’s branding doesn’t have to mirror the brand guidelines for your organization as a whole, it’s a good idea not to significantly stray from your nonprofit’s overall brand.
You might consider testing different versions of branding and promotion to help you collect data on which materials resonate the most with your event’s target audience.
3. Engage Stakeholders in the Planning Process
Your nonprofit’s stakeholders—staff members, board members, longtime donors, or dedicated volunteers—can be valuable assets for your events in many ways, not the least of which is making sure the event is consistent with your mission. How? Simply ask them!
- Send Surveys. Send a survey to an active subset of your supporter base with specific questions asking if your organization’s events have hit or missed the mark in terms of your mission. You’re likely to get a better response by singling out those who have actively supported your organization in the recent past.
- Have a Conversation. Engage attendees at the event or immediately after with a phone call or a conversation over coffee to garner their feedback. Take this opportunity to ask them if they have specific ideas to boost your mission’s role in events.
- Poll Beneficiaries. After all, your nonprofit’s beneficiaries are at the heart of your mission. Reach out to beneficiaries, particularly those who have been present at events, if those events have been focused on their journeys, as opposed to that of the nonprofit. This is a crucial touchpoint, because they’re story is the most important part of what you do.
You might also invite these folks to be part of your planning team. They bring a unique perspective to event planning as stakeholders, and can leverage their connections and networks to promote the event, sell sponsorships, and attract attendees. Plus, they’ll keep you on track in making sure the event both aligns and furthers your mission.
4. Choose Themes & Activities That Connect to Your Cause
One easy way to use your event to move your mission forward is to include themes and/or activities on the event that relate to your cause. For instance, if you’re holding a charity golf tournament, there are a number of ways to build cause connection into the event to help folks better understand what they’re supporting.
- Golf Tournament Games. These fun tournament add-ons make the tournament more exciting, and better yet, boost fundraising. GolfStatus recommends contests or games that relate back to your mission. If you work with the visually-impaired, you could have a blind putt hole, where golfers wear sleep shades to get an idea of the challenges those with vision impairment face. Or if your nonprofit builds homes for low-income community members, have a putting contest using building tools like sledgehammers and levels.
- Beneficiary Testimonials. Invite beneficiaries to speak at the tournament’s kickoff or post-round gathering to share the impact your nonprofit has had on them. Alternatively, create video content to share with beneficiaries who aren’t able to make it. Plus this doubles as compelling social media content.
- Push Notifications. Use your golf event management platform to send push notifications to golfers throughout the day that share information about your work, programs, and the impact of the golf tournament. You might also make a donation appeal.
These ideas can be adapted for any type of nonprofit event, with the goal of deepening the connection your supporters already have with your organization and furthering your mission.
Wrapping Up
As you embark on planning your next nonprofit event, whether it’s a conference, gala, workshop, or other event, use these tips to make your mission a central part of the event. And once your event is over, be sure to thank attendees for their participation and report on the event’s impact. Your supporters will be excited to be part of your mission!
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Written by Logan Foote, Sales and Education Manager, GolfStatus
Logan Foote has been around the game of golf nearly his entire life. He first picked up a club at the age of four, and despite thousands of attempts, he’s never had a hole-in-one. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and pursued a career in sales. Logan came to GolfStatus in 2017, where he channels his passion for golf to help nonprofits raise money through the game. As Sales and Education Manager, Logan oversees a team that works with thousands of nonprofit clients to maximize their golf fundraisers with the GolfStatus platform, and shares his golf fundraising expertise through GolfStatus’s free educational webinars. He lives and golfs in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and three sons.
