Jennifer E Goldman, Nonprofit Consultant

 I spent this past week in Goldsboro, North Carolina for the state's Main Street Conference, (say it with me!) THE LARGEST STATE-WIDE DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION CONFERENCE IN THE COUNTRY! I don't know if they are so proud of it being the largest because of attendance numbers, how many days it spans, or what, but I do know that the quality of what they delivered can't be beat.  This was my first North Carolina Main Street Conference, so I wasn't really sure what to expect when I agreed to come as a speaker. I was unprepared for how incredibly valuable, fun, and engaging it would be. If you ever want to put on a conference, I highly suggest you talk to Liz Parham and her people - they absolutely know what they're doing! They know how to throw a conference like nobody's business. What did I get out of it? Probably way too much to include in a blog post, but I'm going to try. I guess I could summarize it and just say it's all about the people. The people I met ...

And start funding planning for your programs, your overhead, your growth. When I was the Executive Director of a small nonprofit, I can remember feeling like I spent all of my time either fundraising through special events or running the special events. We needed the event to add money to our bank account to keep us afloat until the next special event. Essentially, each event was paying for the overhead and event expenses. It was a vicious (and exhausting) cycle. I’ve been working on two basic things with my clients recently: Proving your value by showing the impact your organization has on its community Raising the funds you need to sustain and grow your nonprofit in a way that allows you to focus on your mission and your programs. By fundraising through events, nonprofits are rarely introducing people to their organization, their mission, their impact and importance. It’s the equivalent of a retail shop having a sale or hosting a pop-up. You may get a bunch of people excite...

There’s nothing worse than setting up a table at an event and watching every single attendee ignore you. Oh, wait – there is. To add insult to injury, most likely you paid for this privilege. As someone who is involved in planning and carrying out large-scale community events, it’s really painful for me to witness this. While I’m grateful for businesses that are willing to pay big price tags to participate in events, I want to see everyone having a great experience and finding it worth their time and money. Some participants just magically know how to engage a crowd and it shows; they’re generally the ones with big groups of people around their table or tent. Some of the most engaging event participants I’ve seen have done things like bring a prize wheel, have really exciting raffle prizes, offer face painting to children, or set up a little table where kids can paint a pumpkin or plant a seed. If your company is participating in events and looking for better ways to engage with the co...

I’m blaming it on summer fun! I’ve been teasing you about the eBook on events that I’m putting together...and it’s not finished yet. :(  So to help ease the pain, I’m going to give you a fun, outside-the-box idea that I’ve come up with that can be a great supplement – or maybe even a substitution - for your nonprofit fundraiser ticketed event. In all honesty, I didn’t invent this – it’s an idea that I heard of several years ago that I believe should become a bigger idea, so I’m adding a new level to it. Back in the day, I caught wind of an organization holding a “plateless” dinner. And, wow, was I jealous! Here I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off organizing a black-tie fundraiser gala - spending more and more hours of my week on just this one thing as the end of September neared – while some genius was raking in the money and planning nothing!? To explain further, the plateless dinner was a fundraiser for this particular nonprofit organization. They sent out fa...