susan: hi everyone.welcome to our techsoup 30, how to plan your first nonprofitevent. this is the first in a series of nonprofit event webinars thatwe’ll hold over the next few weeks. my name is susan hope bard and i’mgoing to be your host for today’s event. you are in our learning managementsystem in techsoup courses
Non Profit Web Hosting, inside of our techsoup 30. so ourtechsoup 30’s are a series of webinars, 30 minute quick events. you can watchthem at your leisure at any time. so you can just go to the month,and the week, and the topic, and you can watch the recording,access all of the resources
that we have available for you. sometimesthere is a downloadable powerpoint or resources where you can furtheryour learning on that particular topic. i will be adding some resourcesand chatting them out today during ale’s webinar about the first, how toreally host and build your first nonprofit event. so ale, i’m ready to turn it overto you. are you ready? all right. ale: hi everyone. thankssusan. my name is ale bezdikian. i am the interactive events andvideo producer here at techsoup. i will be talking to you todayabout how to get started with hosting some of your events in a feweasy steps. so let’s get rolling.
let me just share myscreen with you all. there we go. so like i said, this is meant to be ageneral overview of where you should start and how to think about planninginteractive and engaging events. this is only the beginning, so pleasedo come back for our future event to go into more detailon some of these sections. so whether your events are fund-raising,educational, or perhaps celebratory gatherings, we’ll go through some of the basicconsiderations you should have when thinking about planning andpreparation. so together today
what i’d like to do is discuss the who,what, where, when, and why of event planning. i personally think that event planningcan be easy and fun if you put the time and effort to think things through before hand. sohopefully you will have fun in the process as well. let’s start with the “why.†so you decidedto host and event which is great to hear. events can be a very rewarding andinteractive way to engage with your community. the first thing you need to ask yourself atthis point is “why do i want to have an event?†so if you are actually in the process, oreven thinking about proposing to plan an event, you really need to stick with thinkingabout your event’s main purpose and thinking about the type of event youwant to host. i’ll ask you to share out
some of your ideas at the end. but reallythink about what would be your goal? are you trying to raise money? are youtrying to rarely support for a cause? are you trying to celebrate a milestone? do youhave a campaign to promote engagement around? you should have a clear objective for hosting yourevent, otherwise you might put in a ton of work without a whole lot of return for yourorganization. so this thinking about “why†really becomes the cornerstone fromwhich you plan the rest of your event. let’s go into the “who.†who is youraudience? if you know that a specific segment of your audience is particularly engaged withone issue area, market your event to them. get them in a room. are these yourbiggest supporters, ambassadors, or donors,
or perhaps they are some of your boardmembers? really thinking about the audience will help you cater that event to youraudience. when you identify who you want to be in the room, it becomes much easier to programmaterial to their interests, needs or desires. so for example, many of theslides that are in this deck are pulled from a storytellingevent hosting guide that i wrote. and this slide in particularlists some of the questions we ask of some of the members andparticipants at our events, just really to get to know them abit, as well as kind of get a sense of their levels ofexperience with storytelling,
so that once these folks are all in aroom, we know how to cater the experience and program to their levels of interest. these are also really good conversationprompts during the event, by the way, which i will get into a bit later. butbetter knowing your audience makes it easier to prompt a collective action to take.and it’s really this collective action that should be the backbone of your event.it’s really the reason for your event. the “why†and that “who†informthe “what, where,†and “when.†so once you have a reason or that main objectivefor your event, plus the audience in mind, you can really start to beginprogramming and planning the run of show
for the date of your event. so forexample, typically for a techsoup event we begin by budgeting,or budget considerations because after we know how much money wehave to spend, then you can go down the line and secure a location, nail down a date, recruitexpert guests, invite a cosponsor for example, to provide food and drinks if thatis something you wanted to offer. and then begin marketing and promotions. now the run of show on the day of really,really depends on the type of event you are hosting and how youwant to frame your event. so the question i asked at the beginningwhich was, what sort of events can you see you
and your organization running? the day of willreally depend on what that main objective is. so for example, if we takeone of our storytelling events, we do everything in the leading up sectionon the slide that we just went through. and then on the day of, what we do is we gothrough a checklist that includes for example, setting up a table with name tags and a signin sheet. we make sure all the technology is in order and running. so that means ifyou are going to use laptops or a projector, or everything from making sure the wi-fiworks. make sure all those tech pieces are working and are in order. we also makesure that if we did have an event sponsor for the food and drinks for example,that we would have created signs
that give thanks to the sponsor or shout outthanking them. as well as putting up signs that mention any social media hashtags tofollow or whatever that call to action is you want them to take, make that frontand center. make that visible somewhere in the event space. so once you are considering framingyour event, you should really think about engaging the audience in activitiesthat heighten their senses, and really aim at connecting them tospecific tools or actions like i mentioned. like i mentioned earlier for example, havinga set of conversation and discussions starters or prompts is a really excellent and engagingway to narrow down the focus of the conversation,
and really just to get people talking toeach other. i mean one of our main objectives at techsoup is that one-on-oneconnection to peers and colleagues, and really amplifying thelearnings from the group. so also think about innovativeways to incorporate opportunities for spontaneous storytelling atyour event to capture the engagement. so you can consider for example, promptingaudience members to update their facebook status in unison with a specific message. orperhaps you want everyone in your audience to create a quick video story on instagram,whatever that is, have them pull out their phones, create and tags their stories usinga common hashtag, in real time.
so really what i’m getting at is thatthe more interactive, the more engaging your event will be, the more memorable itwill be, and the more likely the individuals in attendance will be to take thataction that you set out for them to take. and don’t forget to document your event. you have the opportunity of having all ofthese engaged individuals in a room together. take photos. follow the hashtag you created.see what people are saying, and sharing, and maintain that conversation online. rememberat the beginning, you would have collected the emails of those in attendance from the signin sheet by your table. so make use of that. send out a follow-up email. if you have theirsocial media postings and social media handles
from the interactive posting experience, keepin touch with them. keep the conversation going. so i asked you guys at the beginningto think about what sort of events you are interested in hosting.are those fundraising events? are those networking opportunities? arethose related to campaign engagements? are those end-of-the-yearfestivities, or celebratory events? share those out in the commentsand susan will let me know. in the meantime, there are some helpfulresources from techsoup that you should check out. the event hosting guide for one that imentioned, and the check list that i spoke about that we use internally here at techsoup,both of which will be downloadable from,
we have an annual storytellingcampaign that we engage in annually. and on that contest page, the story makerscontest page we will have those two downloadables. so look for that to go live next month. the event guide in particular,includes prepackaged resources, many of the conversation startersthat you saw in this presentation, and suggested activities meant really tocapture kind of like the maker spirit experience that we hope to cultivate duringthose face-to-face meet ups. we encourage two tracks of engagement,one that is more workshop style, hands-on, and the other which is morediscussion based put on by a panel.
or we oftentimes have a slide deckmade to hand off. but both of the tracks are meant to like i said, capture themaker spirit and really spark the creativity of the guests and members in theaudience when it comes to your event. and really like i said earlier, it’s aboutgetting them to take a specific action that you would haveidentified for your event. and then we have our social media starter kitwhich can help with your own promotion efforts. it’s a really helpful guide in taking a lookat how to strategize your social media promotion and marketing efforts. it’s downloadableand susan will chat out the link to that. and then if you are looking to host an eventbut still aren’t quite sure how to pull it off,
network for good has a really excellent eventmanagement tool that can be helpful to you. susan will share thelink out to that as well. so if there are any questions, i wouldbe very glad to take those from you. i’d like to also see what you have in mindwhen it comes to creating your own event, and maybe we can start an engageddiscussion in the comments. so please do take the opportunityto chat some of your ideas, and maybe where you are in hosting anevent. and i would love to speak to those. susan: thanks ale. it does look like – i have a questionhere about what exactly would be your first step? you talked a little bit about thinking,and thinking on how to approach your first,
but how did you do your first nonprofit eventwhen you got started maybe here at techsoup? i think it would be helpful to understandhow you got started and maybe even some of the lessons learned, and what not to dobecause that is often as helpful as the things to do. ale: yeah, both of those arereally great questions susan. okay so how i personally have runevents for techsoup specifically, is i pinpoint a topic based onwhat i want from the community. so for example, let’s take storytellingbecause a lot of the events i program are around storytelling. if my primaryobjective is for techsoup members to be in the same room and meet each other,i’m going to create a space for them to do that.
and that will be the primary objective of myevent. so the thematic focus of that objective would speak to that. so i wouldhave for example, a meet and greet. i would create an agenda that includes a meetand greet. you know, turn to your neighbor and introduce yourselves. tell themabout the organization that you are from. if that’s the level of engagement thati want, it will be baked into the program that i’m putting together. now some othertips that i would give, just from experience, i do think it’s important to on one handprocure a sponsorship for food and drink because oftentimes it’s a draw.it will get more people in the room if they know that’s available,especially if it is open to the community
which a lot of our events are open to thecommunity. however, if you are not very strategic in your outreach, if you’re not incontrol of who will walk into the a door, sometimes you will get random people atyour events that have found your listing on whatever event hosting sitethat you put your event on, whether that is eventbrite or meetup.com,or wherever you sent your promotions out to on the internet. you will have people cominginto your doors that you don’t necessarily know, or have control over. so i would really makesure that if you are opening your event up to a certain degree, try to have a certain senseof control over where you are posting your event. susan: great, thank you. andthat’s kind of the lesson learned.
sometimes the folks may not be as preparedto enter the event as you had hoped, and sometimes those folksget those random messages. and i think you spoke a little bitabout having a plan, a social media plan to promote the event andother types of promotion. have you found that there are certainchannels, or certain social media channels, or even print channels that work better orgetting these folks to come to your events? ale: yeah. i mean the two thati mentioned just a second ago, meetup.com and eventbrite are really good.they are not only event hosting websites, but they are good in promoting events as well.that’s outside of your circle of influence.
so meaning, to a certain degree you controlthe promotion to for example, your members, your community. that outreach you arecontrol of, your social media channels. then you can widen that pool by researchingother relevant communication threads on social media. so on facebook for example,what sort of groups are working in the space that touches on your event topic for example?you can send a message to the group leader or post on that facebook group’swall. on twitter you can create lists based on segmenting the audience in theconversation. you can message the list. you have to a certain degree the ability tosegment your audience and invite the people that you want to invite. obviously, the moretraditional means of marketing, email marketing,
newsletter marketing, those are all veryeffective and direct means by which to invite and share your members. you can also, dependingon the scale of your event for example, if it’s an end of year or celebratory eventand you are going to for example host a gala, and you want to invite your board membersor “celebrities†in your community, you may want to go the traditionalway of sending paper invites. you can even think about publicity. if yourevent is to that degree in your community that warrants, or the impact warrantsmedia publicity. who can you get involved? who do you know? can you getyourself on tv or in the newspaper? only you define the scaleof your organization’s event,
but depending on how you areframing your event, the outreach, there are so many differentways to do effective outreach. susan: thanks ale. another question as we lead tointo the other event topics for the next few weeks, such as facebook live events, and other inperson meet ups, and we’ll talk more specifically about the needs of those particular style events.you’ve talked a lot about the preproduction, like the planning of it. one part of that isdeveloping an agenda. do you have any tips for folks in terms of creating an agenda thatencourages interaction, or less passive and more active and interactiveinteractions i guess i would say? ale: yeah, absolutely. once again itdepends on the objective of your event.
if one of your objectives is interactivityor engagement, a few of these suggestions that i mentioned in the presentationwhich were collectively, spontaneously take a specific action whether that ispost a status update on twitter or facebook, or take a group selfie and post it to instagram.or for example, for our storytelling events may be the exercise is an exercisein putting together a creative story and publishing it to youtube using your smartphone. you know, i can imagine that for example, at a fundraising event in the event itself you canprogram opportunities to allow people to donate. like you have 30 seconds to maximize thistime, and let’s see if we can exceed this goal and really kind of funnel people towardthat action that you want them to take.
susan: one last question, how you measure thesuccess of your event when you’re planning it? ale: yeah, well, all events should be measurable.your goals should tie to measurable outcomes. so again, it kind of depends on thetype of event that your putting together. i know susan you love that. if it’s a fundraising event for example,the success of your event can be measured depending on the criteria that you put inplace. if that success looks like dollar signs, then obviously the more you get your membersto donate the more successful your campaign is going to be. if your measure of success isthe number of people that walk through the door, and not the amount of money that you raise, butjust bringing that community of people together,
then your measure of success issomething completely different. but it is important to havewhatever your measure of success be, be communicated internally to all internalstakeholders and all parts of the team and management so that someone doesn’t cometo you and say, this was a fundraising event and we didn’t hit x dollars. in theirmind, they saw success as something else, but perhaps may be that was not how you werethinking about it as you programmed the event or planned the event. so communicatingthat to internal stakeholders and management is also an important key for success,so that everyone is on the same page and working together towards whatevergoals and objectives you set forward.
susan: thanks, that was a perfect answer,because measuring outcomes is important. and as you move to create different typesof events whether it’s like a facebook live, which we will be talking aboutlater on this month or in august, or like ale was talking about our story makerscampaign, it is important to set up your objectives in advance so you can measurethem, and iterate on that event. especially if it is your first time youare going to learn from your mistakes. and i think it’s okay. and i know molly oursocial media manager and ale both agree with this. sometimes you have to do things acouple of times to really get it right. that’s why collecting the data helps you then iterateon what you did and what things you could do better,
or differently. and to that end, idid want to share my screen with you. ale, if you had any othercomments before i share my screen. i wanted to let folks know that are on thewebinar today there is going to be a little bit of tunnel vision for a second. and you are seeing our live event. butwithin techsoup 30 everyone should know that you can view all of our past events and ourupcoming events just by clicking on the module. i’ve curated april and may so thatall of the events are under one module. but you can simply click on the tab orthe module. we have the recording for you, any sorts of templates, or resources.we’ve posted everything in the course.
so i want to remind folks that this courseisn’t just for the individual live event, but it is an ongoingcurated series to help you. and we also do ask that you complete our surveyat the end, because then that helps us know what we can do differently or better. i willbe posting a recording of this event right here sometime today or this afternoon. andthen resources that ale has provided to us will be in this final column. and then oursurvey, you can complete the survey right here. it’s been embedded in the module.we do want to have your feedback so we can continue to provide contentthat’s relevant to your nonprofit or library. so i encourage you to do that. i alsoencourage you to chat with us in the platform.
some of you already know, becausewe have been exchanging private chat. i was able to chat withsome of our attendees today. but you can also chat with other learnersin the platform through our news feed. and you can also communicate directly withus here that manage all of these courses and give us feedback. one otherquick thing i did want to show case because ale is our video productionmanager and she is like phenomenal. and all of the stuff that she has puttogether for the story makers campaign has come to fruition in a course that sheworked very hard on. it’s a free course, so any of you that are interested in digitalstorytelling, if you go to our story makers course,
you can register for the course.you can take a pre-course assessment to kind of access where you are attoday. and then you can take the modules of preproduction,production, postproduction, and then learn all about all of our resourcesfor creating those compelling digital stories. and in october ale will be hostingthe story makers campaign event. and we hope you join us then. soi’m going to stop sharing my desktop. and i want to thank everyone for theirtime. and i also want to thank ale. she is producing videos every day, butshe found the time to put this together. her and our social media team will alsobe delivering some additional content
on other special events in the comingweeks. and our friends at caravan will also be here to talkabout events that they host. so we hope to see you then. andhave a great rest of your week. bye-bye.
0 Response to "Non Profit Web Hosting"
Posting Komentar