Hi,
I've been tasked with researching and probably creating a new (for us) fundraising event. My instinct is that new events may have a poor ROI in initial years but as awareness increases the ROI improves. Is this accurate?
Does anybody have any case studies about starting a new event that they'd be happy to share? What sort of financial investment did you need? Staff investment? Time investment? Input from non-fundraising staff, volunteers, etc, etc. Were you happy with the income? Would you do it again? What are the pitfalls? What about attracting sponsorship.
Sorry to be asking so many questions but maybe you only have an answer to one and someone else can answer the others?
I know questions about starting a new event (without being 100% sure of the type of event) are 'how long is a piece of string?' type question - but you never know!
Also any good books you could point me in the direction of for this type of thing?
Is there an active yahoo group for this topic? Can someone share the name/URL please?
Thank you
Shona
Books on fundraising events
There are a range of books on fundraising events, some of which might have the content you're looking for. We list lots of them at
www.fundraising.co.uk/books/events
There is also the Event Managers' Forum at
http://the-emf.org.uk/
which is "an informal group of people directly involved in charity fundraising through events. We meet six times a year to discuss a topic of interest to our members."
New Events Programme
Hi, Shona
One small point to share - the event will work best if you involve your target market (donors) in the planning. An event conceived and planned as a desk exercise by staff is almost guaranteed to fail!
Unless, of course, you have a group of committed staff who are committed to the format. For instance, a dinner-dance will have a much higher chance of success if you have a caucus of ballroom enthusiasts on tap.
Received wisdom is that you MAY break even in year one, and if you include the staff time, the event in isolation may never make a profit - many of these events work very well in terms of cementing relationships with key donors or constituencies - but are, effectively loss leaders.
Of course, if you can get a volunteer committee to run your event...
Hope this helps
Cheers
Gerry
Gerry Beldon FInstF
Director, 26-01 CIC
www.26-01.com