By Planning a fundraising event at home can seem like a pretty daunting task. There can be a certain internal pressure to make sure all the logistics are in place and your guests feel welcomed and have a good time. However, planning an event at home doesn’t have to be stressful. Event planning can actually be very fun and rewarding with a few easy tips!
We recently held a fundraiser in our home for our local Opera Company where about 50 guests came and listened to a live concert in our living room. It was a blast! Here I’m going to show you the steps I took to make sure that the event was enjoyable for everyone involved!
Before you begin:
Think about what you would like your event to accomplish. Do you want to raise awareness to a particular cause? Do you want to raise funds in support of a charity? If your answer it the latter, it is really important to draw up an event budget and itemize all of your costs versus your ticket price and projected attendance. You want to make sure that running the event will cost less than you hope to earn from the proceeds, otherwise you would be better off just writing a check to donate to the charity of your choice.
Two weeks before the event
Think about your theme. What is the purpose of your fundraiser? Browse Pinterest and the Internet and collect images and save what inspires you according to your theme. I love using Amazon.for sourcing my decorations. I chose to go with a forest theme for our event since it was musical event set in the Dark Ages of Northern Europe. I was able to secure all of these items off Amazon (apart from a few tree branches from outside) and use my imagination to make my ideas come to life!
Two weeks before the event I also secured wait staff to serve champagne and small nibbles and a make up artist to do my make up before the event. The businesses I worked with were phenomenal and took pressure off me for the entire evening so I was really able to enjoy myself. Never underestimate the power of a good team behind you!
Basically running a good event comes down to two things: planning and execution. If you have a good plan and come up with a to-do list and timeline of when you’d like to get things sorted, you’ll be guaranteed to have a wonderful event. You know the old saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
One week before the event:
Secure your catering. We were astonished with the prices of private catering from a few local venues so we decided to cut out the middleman and go with one of our local high-end supermarkets who provide catering through the specialist gourmet catering services onsite. This way we were able to order a nice sampling of small hors d’oeuvres as well as platters stationary to the table for fraction of the cost!
Our guests all had a great time and it was a fabulous event!
If you would like to find out more about how I planned and decorated for our event check out my video below.
Until next time!
Mrs of The Home By Christina Elizabeth 