Fundraising events can raise public awareness as well as money.
Nonprofit groups with few sources of income commonly organize fundraising events to help support themselves. People sympathetic to the goals of the group can usually be counted on to support the nonprofit by attending. But, with careful planning and a bit of work, a well-promoted and enjoyable event can engage people simply looking for a good time who can also become interested in the cause.
Instructions
Plan Ahead
1. Recruit as many people as possible to help you plan your nonprofit fundraising event. There will be a lot of details to take care of, and a well organized team will be needed to complete them all before the event.
2. Decide on a venue and reserve it well in advance. If you are planning a large event, you will need an easily accessible public location, and good venues are usually quite popular and, consequently, often unavailable. So, choose your event date several months in advance and reserve your venue.
3. Contact performers several months in advance to request their participation if your event involves entertainment. Just as with venues, more popular and successful performers are more in demand. If you try to recruit talent at the last minute, you may find yourself with performers who don't help draw a crowd.
4. Include as much information as possible in your print and broadcast advertising. This is another advantage of booking entertainers early. If your promotional materials can name the entertainment scheduled, you will draw fans of those entertainers as well as supporters of your cause and hopefully gain more supporters as a result.
Advertise Widely
5. Utilize as many forms of public advertising as you can think of and afford, including newspapers, magazines, billboards, posters, internet, radio and TV. The downfall of many fundraising events is lack of advertising; people who support your cause won't show up for the fundraiser if they don't know about it.
6. Produce creative radio advertisements with a few friends, using drama and humor to draw people. If there is a college radio station in your town, approach the staff and ask about availability of free airtime for your nonprofit group.
7. Use online social networking sites such as Facebook to spread the word about your event. More and more people are using these websites for such purposes, and they will pay more attention to a notice that is forwarded to them by someone they know than to a poster on a billboard.
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