The Ultimate Guide to Nonprofit Event Planning

Most nonprofits start event planning with good intentions. After all, it’s a great way to raise funds for your organization while celebrating your collective impact with your community.

However, if you’re not careful, your event can quickly go off the rails, costing you and your organization way more than you’d planned.

That’s why we’re sharing a step-by-step guide for planning nonprofits events that get a good return on investment.

Sound good? Let’s jump in!

Nonprofit events can be a fantastic way to bring your community of donors, community partners, beneficiaries, employees, and volunteers all together.

With events, you can:

• Raise Money: Events are a great way to generate revenue for your nonprofit. Common ways to do this are through ticket sales, sponsorships, silent auctions, drawings, and more. These offset the cost of the event and the excess funds your programming.
• Build Relationships: Events provide a captive opportunity for you to engage with your guests and supporters. The personal connections built through events are invaluable.
• Showcase Impact: Events can help you tell your story and showcase your impact in unique ways. They’re likely one of the few times your donors and funders can experience your work in action.

Events can help your nonprofit shine, but only if they’re done right. Nonprofit events should be carefully curated, and every detail should be planned to help you manage costs. Keep reading, and we’ll share more about how you can effectively plan your event.

You can host the most beautiful event, but if it costs more than you raise, you’ve got a big problem on your hands.

To make sure you don’t overspend, you’ll need to make careful plans—and stick to them. Here are seven steps to help you through the planning process and host an impactful—and financially successful—event.

1. Identify Your Goals

One of the worst things you can do is host an event because you always have. That’s not a good enough reason to invest the time and resources.

If that sounds like you, take a step back. It may be time to shake up your event strategy and set new goals.

Start by answering the following questions:

• How much do you want to raise? Whether you’re targeting a specific program or trying to close a funding gap, you should have a clear goal of how much you want to raise from your event.
• What else do you want to accomplish with this event? Are you trying to raise awareness? Showcase impact? Steward major donors? The more clear you can be with your secondary goals, the better.
• What engagement are you hoping for? Do you want to measure the number of attendees? Social media engagement post-event? What about your attendee-to-donation ratio? These metrics can help you determine whether your event was a success.

Challenge yourself to get to the heart of why you want to host the event. This will help you better identify and set your goals.

2. Create Your Guest List

Next, get a sense of who you want to attend your event. Your guest list will determine the type of event that you plan, as well as the space that you can host it in.

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you create your guest list.

• Start big: You can always scale back, but start by including everyone you want to begin.
• Consider a diverse mix of attendees: Invite donors, funders, community partners, local companies, and more to help maximize networking opportunities.
• Don’t forget those you serve: Be sure to invite the individuals and communities who benefit from your services to attend and speak.

Jacob B Chase, CEO at Chase Consulting Solutions, believes deeply that these moments drive deep engagement with your funders and event attendees:
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“This firsthand experience allows them to see the organization's work in action and strengthens their connection to your mission.”

Remember, you can always adjust your guest list as needed, but starting with a clear number in mind before you plan is essential. It ensures you’re picking appropriate spaces that fit your event needs rather than scaling your event to fit the venue minimums.

3. Set a Budget

Now that you know the size of your event, you can start creating a budget.

According to IRS guidelines, 20% of the total funds raised from your event should cover the cost of the event, and the remaining 80% should be invested back into your nonprofit to support charitable funding. For example, if your goal is to raise $50,000, you should spend no more than $10,000 on the event.

What you need to budget for will depend on the type of event you are throwing. Galas have different needs than 5ks, so your budget shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all.

Common event budget line items include:

• Venue costs
• Staffing needs
• AV and technology
• Food and beverage
• Giveaways
• Event collateral (invitations, signage)
• Photographer
• Miscellaneous

Leave room for incidentals within your budget. That way, if unexpected or unplanned costs arise, it will not sink your planning.

You should also have a team member review your budget to ensure you’re not missing anything, or consult with a board member who may have experience in this space.

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Google offers a great free event budget template that you can use to get started. Once you set your budget, you should do your best to stick to it at all costs. Otherwise, your best-laid plans can quickly go astray.

4. Create Fundraising Plans to Offset Costs

With your fundraising goal and budget in hand, you should now be ready to create a fundraising plan to offset the event costs.

Ways you can do this include:

• Tickets: Sell tickets to help recover the cost of the venue. If you’re not sure what to charge per ticket, look around at other similar events, ask other nonprofits, or consult with the venue.
• Sponsorships: Sponsorships are a great way to engage companies and foundations. You can create different levels of sponsorships with different perks, including branding, speaking opportunities, premier seating, and more.
• Silent Auction and Raffles: These are great opportunities to solicit in-kind donations from your guests. If they don’t have a lot of discretionary income, they can still help the cause with in-kind donations that you can auction or raffle off to raise funds.

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Inroads outlines their sponsorship levels on their website, providing a visual representation of the different elements sponsors will receive at each level. At the bottom, they provide a clear call to action on how to become a sponsor.

5. Bring the Event to Life

Now that you know your budget, how you will offset the costs through fundraising, and an approximate guest number, it’s time to start bringing the event to life!

• Pick a venue: Shop around for different prices, styles, and more. You can use your own organization’s space for the most cost-effective method, but it may limit the number of guests you can house.
• Choose programming: Are you going to have guest speakers? Are you honoring a particular community partner or program? As a general rule, programming should be around 30 minutes. Anything more may start to drag for guests.
• Identify activities: Do you want to have a silent auction? Drawing? Live auction? Will there be photo booths? Do you want tables with information about your nonprofit?
• Select giveaways: Do you want to include favors for guests to take home? These can be printed materials, products, food items, and more.
• Recruit volunteers: Ask for volunteers to help staff the event. They can greet guests, direct traffic, staff tables, and more.

Be creative and challenge yourself to do things you’ve never done before. You want your event to be fresh for your guests each year.

6. Send Invitations

Once most of the details are ironed out, it’s time to start inviting guests!

You can use print or digital invitations—or a mixture of both! Just make sure it’s clear how people RSVP, whether it’s by emailing you, sending back the response card, or visiting a registration website.

Typically, invitations should be sent at least six weeks before an event to help people plan, but you can always tease what’s coming with a save-the-date. For those you haven’t heard from, you can follow up with an event reminder, personalized email, or phone call.

Be aware that many venues require you to turn in your final counts for food and beverage two weeks before the event, but this varies.

7. Execute

After months of planning, it’s go-time! As you execute your event, keep the following in mind.

• Assign a point of contact: No matter how well you plan, things always happen—and that’s okay! Make sure there’s a clear point of contact for the day who can help troubleshoot, address issues, and manage anything that comes up.
• Create a war room: This is where the magic happens behind the scenes. Have blank name tags, notecards, and anything else that can help in a pinch. Your war room is command central for the event and volunteer staff.
• Have fun: Enjoy the moment and recognize the impact that you’re going to have as a result of this event. It’s easy to get lost in the details, but step back and appreciate your accomplishments.

Be flexible and stay calm under pressure. Events can be stressful, but rest assured your guests won’t recognize minor hiccups along the way.

Instrumentl has several features in place that can help support you throughout the event planning process.

• Contact lists: Export your funder contact lists to get a jump start on your guest list.
• Identify giving capacity: Use Instrumentl to help identify potential sponsors. You can use their 990 insights to understand their giving capacity, focus areas, and more. View key contacts to see if you have mutual connections to help open the door.
• Track outreach: Make note of what funders you reached out to, if they responded, and other communications in funder profiles to help track your overall outreach. You don’t want to overextend asks to funders in a short period of time.

While there are features that can help with event planning, Instrumentl shines as a one-stop shop for all your grant management needs. From prospecting to applying to post-award management, we’ve got you covered at every step of the way.

Sign up today for a free 14-day trial to see what Instrumentl can offer you and how our tools and resources can help transform your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy.