Events

I’ve been working on a few events with a well-known charity recently and it made me realise what a specific science event planning and hosting is.  Having organised event for years, I almost take for granted the various stages which are critical to ensuring success but meeting with less experienced folks was a wake up call. We often invest significant sums of money and time in events programmes so getting it right is crucial.

For all those amongst you who can’t quite see how social media can help short-term fundraising efforts, I present the following tale.

A recent issue of PR week from across the Atlantic (thanks to Andrew Ballenthin for the tip) covered the story of a record-breaking fundraising campaign which used twitter and other social media as it’s starting focus. 

According to various sources, a 'tweetup' is a physical meeting of those within the twitter community or who would like to know more about how to engage and hopefully benefit their not for profit organisations (the nfp bit).

There are lots of stories in the press about charity events struggling in the current economic climate, but does it depend on the type of charity event and who is running it?

I’ve just finished reading an article in The Telegraph that describes a report by Dr Steve Boorman, an occupational health expert, for the Department of Health suggesting that NHS staff should be ch

I once saw an extremely funny American comedian who explained that the only way you could ever hope to be cured of a major disease was if someone famous also had it. 

Recent research from the University of Kent has suggested that some of the techniques we might associate with the more cheesy end of consumer advertising might actually help to support fundraising campaigns.

The serious stuff about Alan Clayton’s session on events fundraising was in my previous post. This is the lighter stuff.

Speaking at the event we hosted, Al’s colleague Alex Brooks-Johnson, suggest a couple of new event ideas.

First was the ‘Real Three Peaks’ challenge, because Scotland has the three largest mountains in the UK so what currently passes for the three peaks challenges – taking in Snowdon and whatever that hill in the Pennines is called – is a bit of a poor substitute.

You’re almost guaranteed to discover something new when you attend one of Alan Clayton’s presentations.

Alan’s speciality is donor motivations and at a seminar tis week hosted by Relationship Marketing, he presented for the first time his thoughts on what drives people to take part in challenge events. He detailed a psychographic segmentation of challenge eventers, listed into eight categories – including ‘life changers’, ‘fun seekers’ and ‘excuse needers’ – and spoke about how to communicate with each type of eventer.

Shouldn’t really use the blog for a plug, but when you’ve got Alan Clayton delivering a seminar in your offices to Scottish fundraisers it’s hard to resist the temptation.

Alan has just launched a new events company and will presenting his new ideas on how to read the motivations of challenge events to Scottish fundraisers at a seminar next week (Tuesday 20 April).