Experiences with special events....
So I figured I would share this story with you all in an effort to show that special events aren't the greatest tactic to pursue, but they do have their places in nonprofits.
When I was coordinating the national Toys for Tots campaign, we were doing nationwide "first toy donation" days where city mayors were making the first official donations of toys to the campaign to kick it off in late October. Well, everything was going quite well until the mayor of an unnamed Michigan town (think the Tigers) said that he would be glad to participate. Then, shortly thereafter, his press secretary calls us to ask if he needed to buy his own toy to donate or if we would be providing one. Okay, that's a legitimate question. So we say that it would be preferrable if the mayor would make a genuine charitable contribution during the event just in case the media found out we provided the toy. She agreed. Then, two hours later, we got another phone call "should the toy be for a boy or for a girl?" We discussed beanie babies and all sorts of new, fun toys that were either "too expensive" or "not flashy enough." What took 30 minutes to set up with other cities wound up taking 4 days to finally get things approved with this administration. And, to top it all off, the mayor was late---but at least the toy wasn't forgotten. So I guess it could've been worse.
Anyone else have any special event stories--positive or negative--that they'd like to share? Run-in's with volunteers, carefree caterers?
When I was coordinating the national Toys for Tots campaign, we were doing nationwide "first toy donation" days where city mayors were making the first official donations of toys to the campaign to kick it off in late October. Well, everything was going quite well until the mayor of an unnamed Michigan town (think the Tigers) said that he would be glad to participate. Then, shortly thereafter, his press secretary calls us to ask if he needed to buy his own toy to donate or if we would be providing one. Okay, that's a legitimate question. So we say that it would be preferrable if the mayor would make a genuine charitable contribution during the event just in case the media found out we provided the toy. She agreed. Then, two hours later, we got another phone call "should the toy be for a boy or for a girl?" We discussed beanie babies and all sorts of new, fun toys that were either "too expensive" or "not flashy enough." What took 30 minutes to set up with other cities wound up taking 4 days to finally get things approved with this administration. And, to top it all off, the mayor was late---but at least the toy wasn't forgotten. So I guess it could've been worse.
Anyone else have any special event stories--positive or negative--that they'd like to share? Run-in's with volunteers, carefree caterers?
posted by Richard @ 5:11 PM
4 Comments:
At 5:48 PM, October 15, 2006,
Giselle said…
Oh, the horror stories....
-We were co-hosting an event with the local Rotary Club at a multi-million dollar home, and one of our staff members got drunk, somehow got into the main house and set off the alarm, which brought the cops out to the home, crashed the event, and royally pissed off the host (I think my organization is still apologizing to him for that, and it's been 2 years...)
-A patron attending our celebrity memorabilia auction threatened to sue us because he didn't think a game-worn World Series jersey he'd bought (for $20,000) was properly authenticated, which mattered to him b/c he put it up on eBay within hours of winning it...
-Another staff member being so rude to an entire event committee that they all threatened to quit, and myself and my exec. director having to beg and plead with them all to stay
-A member of the auction committee dropping a donated Emmy award and breaking it in half an hour before the auction, and trying to come up with ways to discreetly put the Emmy back together until we could send it off to be repaired(we were somewhat successful with gold foil gift wrap and cardboard)
I'm sure I have more, but these are the ones that stick out vividly in my mind!
At 10:55 AM, October 16, 2006,
Evelyn said…
Special events consume so much time! That’s all I remember from them! So many things to organize, so many details to follow up!
When you see the events from the event planner side that’s another story… I remember I was in charged of this event for a non-profit (I preferred not to mention the name), the event was for 1 week with members of the board you know important people. We had ceremonies, training session you know all kinds of activities. Oh my … there were so many details to care of! For example from a group of 50 people about 10 of them had personalized special diets because of allergies, cholesterol, whatever, you name it!! If the chef screwed it, one of our customers could have died. Fortunately we did not have any incidents that kill anyone.
This group was time consuming, but the worst part was that they wanted all of these personalized diets and all the luxury but did not want to pay, so they were bargaining all the time and that was not nice for us! They tried to sold us the idea of the non-profit but we were like - why do they spend so much money in food? If you are a non-profit you should not do this kind of events. We understood the special diets but they had other activities where they spend a lot. I think that because of the fact that the organization was a non-profit, the organizers always wanted to get big discounts and small businesses can’t give big discounts. This group was really special!
At 1:40 PM, October 16, 2006,
austin said…
From a volunteer's perspective, it is extremely important to inform the volunteers/staff of the event to be informed of what is happening at the event. I was on staff of an event when a television reporter wanted an interview. I had a good idea of what was happening, so I did the interview. The reporter loved my interview, but later I found a piece f key info I gave was incorrect. Luckily the event organizer showed up just after I finished and the reporter was able to get an accurate interview.
From the planner's side, if it seems like a stretch to obtain a high-profile speaker, it might be best to avoid them. I co-organized an event where we needed the president of UF to speak. The president had no relation to the event, except that we were with Student Affairs and it was a good image to have him there. IF it was too much trouble to obtain the president, it definitely would not have been worth it.
At 2:50 PM, October 16, 2006,
Richard said…
(response from Oaklianna):
I do not have much experience with special events, but there was one recommendation in the Volunteer Management Program article that really struck me as odd.
“Assigning one person (eg the Event Coordinator or the Volunteer Coordinator) to recruit, monitor and direct large numbers of volunteers can be both inefficient and ineffective. Rather than one person being responsible for supervising all volunteers, it is better to have small groups of volunteers (work units) reporting to a number of volunteer supervisors. This means that each event subcommittee (eg marketing, finance, catering, facilities and equipment) should have its own supervisor, and volunteers engaged in tasks relevant to that subcommittee should report to that particular supervisor.”
Although it must be the size of an event that would make one volunteer coordinator ineffective, it still seems counterintuitive. When dealing with media relations and crises management, it is better to have one person in charge and giving all the same, consistent information. When it comes to organizing free labor to make an event a success, it seems that one voice would be beneficial.
Does anyone have experience when one person was in charge of all volunteers at an event? Or when each subcommittee had its own volunteers to manage? Which worked better?
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