Running A Successful CHARITABLE EVENT
Running A Successful Charitable Event
Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (APSS) ran a 1 day event March 1st titled, “Raising Your Game, The Turnaround Is Here!”. The purpose was three fold:
1. We wanted to help local businesses... our clients, stop thinking recession and start thinking growth, success, profits.
2. We wanted to conduct the first ASR in Asia (Association Social Responsibility
- I think we coined the term). Our lofty goal was to raise $50,000 for cancer care, not research but helping victims of cancer cope with the disease. This would be our way of giving back to the community that we work in and which supports us.
- I think we coined the term). Our lofty goal was to raise $50,000 for cancer care, not research but helping victims of cancer cope with the disease. This would be our way of giving back to the community that we work in and which supports us.
3. To create a greater awareness of the profession of speaking and our association as the premier group to contact if you need a speaker or trainer.
We dug in and with the goal to give 100% of every dollar collected to charity, we got EVERYTHING donated or sponsored including our 198 seat auditorium, Web site, design work for sites / eDMs (we had speakers, bookstores, jobs boards e-blast for us over 500k names) / printing / banners sponsored, banners and programme, lunch, tea breaks, goodie bags, florists to fill the auditorium stage, speaker’s products for sale (we sold 40 sets of our Success Package at $150 each), lucky draw and raffle prizes including a $3,000 holiday for 4, diamond bracelet, make-overs, seminar seats, a party afterward for our volunteers and 30+ volunteers. For the FEW misc. expenses, we sold exhibit tables and had a sponsor give us $800 cash.
Results: We had a packed auditorium with extra seats in back that still were SRO. We made over $40,000 which we donated to an APSS member with cancer, the Singapore Cancer Society (SCS) and the Breast Cancer Foundation. Human Resource magazine attended and recorded several speakers videos which are now posted on the Web and all 7 speakers donating speeches and 2 emcees were cross exposed to each other’s clients. We even got a new member to sign up at the event and got many others interested in coming to our meetings.
Lessons learned:
1. MORE TIME to prepare (we knew this going into it) We started in December with our first meeting and pulled it off March 1st in spite of Christmas holidays, New Years and Chinese New Years where all 3 times, business shuts down for 2 weeks.
2. Updates to the Action Team (not committee) were sent through a BCC group so people cannot hit ‘Reply All’. I have 1,446 emails RECEIVED as of today in my inbox related to this project. This would have KILLED many people’s enthusiasm.
3. Get CLEAR commitments from the BOD and Action Team up-front not only for what they ‘say’ they will do but specific times and dates. As usual, many are NATO (No Action, Talk Only). Interesting that 60% of the paid attendees came from 3 databases, Shirley Taylor’s, David Lim’s and mine.
4. Make it clear how money will get collected. We had a system worked out and then it imploded when SCS went back on a signed agreement as legally they could not collect money for a services they were not delivering. Suddenly, we had to work out another arrangement.
5. Know the laws in your country for dealing with a charity and charitable giving. It may be NOTHING like running your own business or association.
6. ASK! You’d be surprised what people will give if they have an affinity for the charitable cause you choose.
7. Have a detail person(s) to back up the chair otherwise things will fall through the cracks. Shirley Taylor and her team were AMAZING and David Lim CSP interfaced with the charity and APSS BOD for us.
8. Let people get credit to grow their businesses! The Web site was on Shirley Taylor’s URL, the eDMs were sent from the speakers and sponsors themselves and the banners and posters on the walls all featured the sponsors and speakers as Diamond, Platinum, Gold or Silver Sponsors.
9. FEW meetings, many updates. We only had 3 two-hour meetings prior to the event with the Action Team and 1 with just emcees and Shirley’s team for setting up the final run-sheet.
10. We should have taken Ron Kaufman’s advice and had a professional AV group helping us. It all worked out but was a lot more stressful.
Kudos to President Nishant Kasibhatla, the Action Team and the APSS BOD.
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