Five Fundraising Tips: Creating a Budget
Event Planning, Quick Tips 1 CommentWhile you’re planning your charitable event, a multitude of aspects could be flying through your brain at any given minute: the venue, the attendance, the food, the date, the entertainment… But what underlies each of these factors?
The budget.
While it may not be the most glamorous part of an event, it really is the bottom line. So what can you do to make sure your event accomplishes its purpose as a fundraiser?1. If the fundraiser has been conducted before, review expenses and revenue for the past 3 years to distinguish trends and blips.
2. If the event has not been done previously, air on the side of conservative in terms of revenue and expenses.
3. Look for budgets and revenue of similar events in the area in the past few years.
4. Establish your goal before you set up a budget. Your budget is a recipe for how to spend your money, but what you hope to accomplish should be what dictates everything else.
5. Remember, even if you budget a particular dollar amount for an expense, it does NOT mean you have to spend it. Always better to be under budget than over.
What other budget tips do you have?
Please comment below or email them to teamviva@vivanista.com
Here’s a ticket pricing rule of thumb as it pertains to the run-of-the-mill charity auctions.
The ticket price needs to cover your event expenses. So take the costs of your event (food … venue … band … auctioneer … décor …), divide it by the number of people coming, and you’ve got your starting ticket price. (Or your final ticket price, depending on what that number looks like and the goals of your event.)
Beyond that, assume you do the math and the price looks cheap. Bump it up to match the perceived value.
Or on the flip side, assume you’ve got a pricey entertainer booked. You realize there’s no way you can cover your costs from the ticket price. In that case, you need to get some underwriters involved.
The goal here is to be able to say to everyone who arrives for your auction that everything they spend that night is going straight to the charity.