Creating Events to Cheer For

 

Many nonprofit organizations create, coordinate and manage events throughout the year. Some are blissfully small and manageable while others are community block-busters (literally) that just seem to grow and grow. 

As a former nonprofit manager I've lamented plenty over the years about the extreme amount of money, energy, and effort coordinating special events takes. It's hard work no matter how you slice it. 

As a management consultant working mainly with nonprofit leaders, I hear all the same laments. 

From the side of the table I'm currently on, the perspective is very different and it has me asking lots of questions and raising several concerns. The big two being:

1. Why are you doing these events?
2. Are they working?

The majority of the people I pose these queries to can't answer them. In most cases the event in question was established before they became involved in the organization and they haven't been tracking any data associated with the event in order to make a determination of success. In some cases the leaders I've worked with have proposed establishing new events in order to solve a short-term challenge. 

If you're considering the latter scenario, I implore you to proceed carefully. How will this new event solve your challenge? In what time frame will it bring resolution? And once it has, will you be discontinuing the event? I ask these questions, because most nonprofit leaders considering establishing new events immediately imagine it to be an annual affair. Meaning that it's now a once-a-year undertaking for the foreseeable future, even after the reason for starting it has perished.

In any case, I recommend nonprofit leaders take a close look at any event they coordinate to determine what the true purpose of that event is. Then take it one step further and ask yourself: is it working? 

If it's a fundraiser - are you raising funds? Does this event turn a profit? Does the event raise enough profit to be worthwhile when taking the resources needed to pull it off into account?

If it's an event to raise awareness for the organization - do more people know about your group now than ever before? If so, how many more people are now aware of you? Aware in what way? Are they getting involved? Volunteering? Donating? Is the interaction gained worth the resources you put into the event?

Let me give you an example from my past career as Executive Director of a Main Street organization. I used to coordinate a monthly event called First Fridays. We shut down Main Street from 5pm through 9:30pm on Friday evenings once a month and brought in music and entertainment, for-profit and nonprofit vendors, artists, wineries and the like and lined them up and down Main Street. The retail businesses along Main Street were continually upset by the disruption to their business by closing the street and by including competing vendors. 

The purpose of this event? To benefit our downtown businesses. Or so we had envisioned.

Several merchants closed early the evenings we held the event. Some supported us and stayed open. Some even planned activities at or in their store the same evenings. None of them ever reported back that they made more sales those evenings or that they saw an increase in new customers following the events. In fact, they were fairly vocal about all the ways they felt the event did NOT serve them.

Not only did our event not serve it's intended purpose, we hadn't create any goals or measurables for the event, so there was no real means of evaluation. 

Here are five purposes a Main Street organization like the one I ran might coordinate a special event and two ways to know if it's working:

• Fundraising
• Profit of the event (dollars brought in less all expenses)
• Average amount per donation
• Downtown Awareness
• Number of attendees
• Increase of public space use over a year / demand for parking increase year over year
• Merchants Showcase
• Increase in sales: comparing that day to another similar day - in $ or %
• # of people who returned to a business at a later date
• Volunteer Prospecting
• # of people attending who are new to the organization
• # of applications received from people with skills and availability meeting your goals
• Streetscape / Beautification / Preservation Project
• # of participants
• completion of the project in a set amount of time

No matter the mission of your nonprofit or the purpose of your event, set distinct goals. What is it you wish to accomplish at the event, exactly? Be as specific as possible and get creative. Here's a short list of less traditional event goals you may wish to consider:

• Obtain XX donors willing to make an annual commitment through our automated system 
• Gain XX testimonials or online reviews from stakeholders
• Decrease set up and tear down times by XX%
• Get XX% of coupons/offers redeemed within 30 days
• Add XX new people to the mailing list
• Get XX people posting, tagging, sharing on social media at the event

There's no shame in finding that your event isn't hitting it's mark. If that happens, I suggest pulling in the stakeholders you expected the event to benefit and get their feedback about what went awry and what suggestions they have for improvement. From there, decide if it's worth it to make changes and try again or to simply focus your efforts elsewhere.