Raising awareness is easily one of the most important goals for a nonprofit. When attempting to do so, many nonprofits turn towards events. Events can be a great way for you to raise awareness of your nonprofit within your community or state.
However, if not done properly, events can be time-consuming and a waste of much needed resources. If you’re going to utilize events for the strict purpose to raise awareness, make sure you follow these rules.
- Decide on the type of event you’d like to hold and go from there – Planning a business development event will be much different than planning a happy hour at a community favorite restaurant. For awareness types purposes, decide on an event that YOU would like to go to, without an necessary knowledge about your nonprofit
- Provide an offer – No one wants to take time out of their busy day for nothing. To increase visitors, provide the attendee’s with something. Maybe the first 10 people receive a free t-shirt, or your offering free hors d'oeuvres. Whatever it is, be sure to promote that when marketing your event.
- Utilize social – In one way or another, you’re going to have to use social media to raise awareness through your event. Promote on social before the event, create an event specific hashtag, maybe utilize geofilters, engage attendee’s with social media during the event, use Facebook Live during the event and/or thank your attendee’s for attending post event. The opportunities here are endless.
- Make time for fun – While this event does have its purpose (to raise awareness, duh), you need to save some time for fun. Maybe a half hour networking or cocktail session afterwards? Or a quick game in between informational sessions. This will provide attendee’s with the opportunity to talk to each other… hopefully about your nonprofit.
- Facetime is key – Have some employees of your nonprofit strictly mingle throughout the event.. Have them talk to people, receive feedback on the event and begin to build relationships. These people are your potential next volunteers and donors who have already to begun to show interest in your mission.
- Engage with attendee’s post event – Going off of the last rule, make sure you have a way to engage with these people post event; email being the easiest. Communicate with them after the event, send out a satisfaction survey, and begin nurturing these people into the advocates that your nonprofit needs! This will greatly impact your nonprofits awareness.
If event planning isn’t quite your thing, don’t worry about it. We’ve got event marketing experts on our team ready to walk you through it.
