Volunteers are the lifeblood of a nonprofit. They provide staffing and labor in areas where nonprofits typically can’t afford to hire staff, especially when it comes to events.

In this episode I share:

• The types of event volunteers you need

• The structure of your planning team

• How to create a volunteer grid for the day of the event

• Why and how you should plan for continuity when changing volunteers

A theme can turn a ho-hum event into a memorable experience. When done well, a theme can seamlessly tie your mission to something fun and interactive.

In this episode I share:

• The purpose of event themes

• The best type of theme for a nonprofit event

• A brainwriting process for coming up with a theme

The Listener Action Item for today's episode has the exact steps for hosting a brain writing session to come up with an event theme.

After a year of producing a large number of events, I hit a wall.  I experienced event burnout.  

I don’t ever want anyone to go through what I did.  While this isn’t a foolproof method for avoiding burnout, it’s a cautionary tale.  

**I am not a therapist or a mental health professional, so if you are feeling there’s something more than just event burnout happening in your life, please seek help from a professional.  

This is an episode called a Planner Pep Talk or PPT.   Planning fundraising events is not easy.  These pep talks are designed to let you know you're not alone with some of the frustrations and conflicts that come with planning events. Whenever you need a little encouragement, check out any of the PPT episodes. 

In today’s PPT we’re going to talk about an inner conflict. The struggle with perfectionism.

Perfectionists have a lot of good qualities and make great event planners.   But perfectionism has its downsides.  It can impact your relationships, self-esteem and lead to burn out.  It can also cause you to procrastinate.    

If you struggle with perfectionism, I want you to know you're to alone. 

Giving someone hope can change their life. The word HOPE, however, should not be part of your event, especially a fundraising event.

Planning an outdoor event comes with its own set of unique challenges and tasks on your to-do list. Learn about the logistical factors you need to consider and how to handle them.

Event strategist Jen Gilhoi talks about why having an external event recap is important, who benefits from it and how to implement it for your next nonprofit event.

This ONE thing is actually several things; systems, processes and procedures. Having processes & procedures for your event can provide clarity, ensure nothings falls through the cracks, create consistency and will help you conserve your time and energy.

Are you the leader of a nonprofit and are looking for someone to chair your next event? Maybe you’ve been asked to lead an event or are thinking about stepping into the event leadership role,

Before you start recruiting or before you say ‘yes’, learn the 7 skills or traits event leaders need.

There are three key areas where you should have firm deadlines when planning a fundraising event; sponsor deliverables, auction donations and event registration. When you don't have deadlines, or worse yet, when you don't stick to your deadlines, you're adding extra work and stress for yourself and the planning team.

Find out why these deadlines are important, why I often get pushback on them and how to kindly but gently stick to your guns on them.

This is an episode called a Planner Pep Talk or PPT. Planning fundraising events is not easy. These pep talks are designed to let you know you're not alone with some of the frustrating aspects of planning an event. Whenever you need a little encouragement, check out any of the PPT episodes. 

Dealing with difficult people is one of the most challenging aspects of planning events. Sometimes it’s not even difficult people, necessarily, but times when people can be difficult. Unless you want to run the event by yourself, you’re going to have to learn to find a way to work with difficult people at some point.  

In this episode I share my strategies for dealing with difficult people. 

You pulled off a successful event.  Now what?  What do you do with your list of donors and supporters?    

Jennifer Dieter has spent most of her fundraising career as a small shop generalist with a love/hate relationship with events. As a fundraising consultant, Jennifer wants to help fundraising professionals develop sustainable solutions that generate the highest return on investment. 

Many planning teams get stuck on finding THE perfect date.  They either overthink it or just don’t know where to start.  

It doesn’t have to be that complicated.  There are 6 factors you need to take into account in order to narrow it down to find the best date options for your event.  

After listening to this episode you’ll understand what those six factors are and how they affect your date options. 

Are you looking to get more people to register or attend your event and think that PR is the best way to do that.  PR is a great way to tell your story and build awareness for your organization. 

Every nonprofit wants PR around their event.  But what's the best way to do that? Kari Logan spent her career in the media and is now focused on helping small senior services organizations to tell their stories. 

For over 25 years, Kari has helped her nonprofit clients reveal words and images to educate, promote, inspire, and call their target market to action.

This is an episode called a Planner Pep Talk or PPT. Planning fundraising events is not easy. These pep talks are designed to build your confidence and let you know you're not alone. Whenever you need a little encouragement, check out any of the PPT episodes.

Today's PPT topic is about doubt and not letting others make you feel "less than".

“How do we utilize board members most effectively at events? How can we train them to know they need to be our best ambassadors instead of guests at the event?”

There are two big mistakes nonprofits make when it comes to planning a fundraising event. One is not leaving enough time to plan the event. Second is not having an event planning timeline. In this episode, host Alicia Baraga talks about how to avoid making these two mistakes.

Technically there’s nothing wrong with calling your gala a gala. The problem is that ‘gala’ has become a generic term, like Kleenex. It is now used to represent almost any kind of fundraising event that isn’t a golf tournament or 5K.

In this episode I talk about why it’s important to have a unique and compelling brand name for your event along with my 6-step process for creating one.

Setting specific goals for your event is SO important. I’m not going to lecture you about SMART goals.  You can find tons of resources on how to do that with a simple online search.  

What I am going to talk about are FAST goals.  These are goals that should be set for any and every nonprofit fundraising or awareness-building event.  Learn about what they are and how to define those goals.

If you’ve ever worked or volunteered at a nonprofit, you’ve likely heard this statement…”We need to raise some money. We should host a_____” and then fill in the blank.

It could be a gala, 5K, golf tournament or any other type of event. And then the planning just begins. This type of planning is backwards. Find out why and what you can do about it in this episode.