Everyone hates to clean but everyone loves a clean house. Is there a best way to clean your house fast?
Most novices aren’t sure if they should dust or vacuum first. They wonder whether they should clean the kitchen before the bathroom or vice versa.
Follow this step-by-step guide, based on years of hard-earned experience, to make the most of your time and clean your house fast:
Looking for how to plan an event, or advice on event planning?
You’ve come to the right place.
We’ve seen a lot of organizations’ events over the years, and there are ten steps we’ve identified as key to a successful event.
While we can't identify all of the details you’ll need to think about, since much of it will depend on the type of event you are holding, we can suggest some best practices that are important to follow for any event.
We've also put together an easy-to-use checklist so nothing falls through the cracks. To identify the timeline, start by working backwards from your event date. And if you're planning a virtual event rather than a traditional in-person one, we have a downloadable Virtual Event Checklist, as well!
We hope the following provides a starting point for your event planning – and without further ado, here are the ten steps!
The very first step in planning your event is to establish a tangible goal and objectives.
First, start by asking yourself: Why are you organizing this event, and what do you hope to achieve?
If you know your organization’s key goals before planning, you can ensure that every part of your event is optimized for success.
Are you trying to raise awareness for a cause, or collect a predetermined amount of donations for your next project? Are you hoping to attract 50 guests, or 500?
Setting a goal with quantifiable metrics of success will make it easier for your team to ensure that you reach them.
Any event takes a concerted team effort to handle all the details. Consider identifying one key Event Manager or Event Chair as well as individual Chairpersons for subcommittees, such as:
Assigning individual roles to team members creates a system of accountability, as well as preventing tasks from falling to the wayside. Plus, it’ll allow you to delegate – but don’t forget to account for committee meetings in your event plan timing!
Establishing your event’s budget is one of the most important parts of planning an event. I’ve seen many great ideas fall by the wayside because the team who originally came up with it forgot to take their budget into consideration before beginning to plan.
Some of the critical expenses you need to include in your budget are:Even if some of these items aren’t fixed costs yet – for example, if you haven’t yet picked a venue – it's important to keep the maximum that you can afford to spend in mind before making those decisions.
The date might already be pre-set for a recurring event, but if this is a new event, be sure to consider the following before firming up your date:
Once you’ve set the date (and have already outlined your budget), you can start booking any external staff (such as caterers) you need right away.
Once you have a good idea of all the costs and the timeline associated with your event, it’s time to start the real plan! Creating your event master plan will allow you to ensure every aspect remains on track, as well as making it easier to coordinate with volunteers and event committee members.
Your event master plan should encompass all aspects of the event, including:
While planning your event, consider also creating a detailed timeline, so that everything moves smoothly. Include when any permits or insurance policies need to be submitted, when registration ends, and a detailed timeline of the day-of.
Finally, if you or your organization has run previous events of a similar type, reviewing any documentation that exists at this stage can help you ensure you’re not missing anything.
Once you have the date nailed down, it’s key to book your venue as soon as possible. Your event has to have a date and location nailed down before you can begin advertising, so this task needs to be completed as early in the planning period as possible.
(Note that some flexibility around the date might also help you out at this stage and open up a wider variety of venues.)
Some things to consider when picking a venue for your event are:
If you want your event to stand out, you need to choose a timely and compelling theme that sets you apart from your competition. This means that you need to come up with a dynamic overall theme and you need to take great care with the actual name since it can be a key attention-getter, especially in online media.
Once you have your name, tagline, and logo, use it in all your marketing collateral so that people who are unfamiliar with your organization will start recognizing your brand – and remember that the event is happening!
Are there organizations that you could partner with or call on for sponsorships to defray the costs and increase potential participation? Plus, when you involve other people or groups in your event, they have a stake in helping spread the word and making the event a success -- the more the merrier, right?
You might want to consider:
If you’re looking for businesses to sponsor your event, keep in mind that they’ll be more likely to do so if they can see the clear benefit to them. If you’ve had sponsors in the past who are willing to speak up on your behalf, so much the better – but if not, be prepared to craft a compelling case for support when you initially reach out.
Even with the most amazing speaker or entertainment line-up, you need publicity to get people in the door. Event promotion starts with the initial notice or page on your website, note in your newsletter or email to save the date, and then builds to include online and off-line publicity, media relations and on-going outreach to encourage registration.
Some components you might want to include in your plan are:
Finally, no promotional plan is complete without the post-event thank-you’s, sponsor acknowledgements and articles about the event’s key messages or fundraising success.
Once you’ve prepared everything going on around the event, keeping track of the order of the event itself and planning out your program is the next step.
To ensure you’re prepared for anything, prepare an agenda that will walk you through the whole day from setup to cleanup. Including every detail, no matter how small, will help you feel like you have it all under control!
Here’s a quick example of what something like this might look like:
5:00: Drop off silent auction items at the venue (Diana)
6:15: AV setup (Terry, Diana)
7:00: Have quick volunteer coordination meeting (Terry + volunteers)
7:30: Attendees begin arriving
8:00: Hors d’oeuvres served
8:30: Speaker 1 takes the stage
8:45: Break
9:00: Speaker 2 takes the stage
10:00: Awards presented (Diana)
10:30: Mingling, silent auction bidding finishes
11:00: Start clearing tables
11:30: Bar closes
12:00 Event ends; all guests must leave
Identifying just who needs to do what can also ensure that there’s clear accountability leading up to the event.
And as a bonus, you can also use a simplified version of this in any branding materials as your public-facing agenda.
If you're sick of processing event registrations and payments by hand, there's a software that can completely automate the process for you online. It's called Membership Management Software and here's what it can do:
Not only does Membership Management Software take care of all event logistics, it also makes running any sort of membership organization easier, because it automates a number of other administrative tasks such as managing your contacts, website, finances, and email communication.
