Before the Ball Begins: Asking the Big Questions Before the Contract is Signed

We’ve been doing a lot of special events “pre-counseling” these days – helping groups figure out if they should do their annual event, what they could get out of it, and what, exactly, would make the effort worth it in these times.

In fact, we’ve been having these conversations so often, we created a list of 10 questions every group should ask as part of this assessment process.

What I want to talk about here is getting to that dialogue – having the guts to back away from the “peach vs. plum-colored tablecloths” discussions, or even from the fascination of “let’s-have–chicken-this-year-because-it’s-cheaper-than-salmon.”

Events bring out the detail-oriented dog-with-a-bone in each of us.  In fact, often the most valuable board or committee member on event duty is someone who relishes wrestling with the details, creating the total picture, tracking all the micro-decisions that add up to a really fabulous event.

And although that kind of person will sigh at the inception of yet another event, they truly love getting down in the muck and making it happen.  So even in these times, they’re ready to work twice as hard to pull your event off.

But sometimes, and especially in these times, that kind of “put-your-head-down-and-get-to-work” stance isn’t what’s called for.

With events, it’s all too easy to lose your shirt if you don’t get it right.  And that “it” is not just the hula hoop versus karaoke machine details of event production – it’s the match of audience, activity, and goals. 

That’s the conversation that has to happen this year.

Every year – good to have.

This year – essential.

Special Events: Full Speed Ahead or Reverse Course?

I received this plaint in my inbox last week…

“When and how do you determine at what point you call off a fundraiser?  Our event is scheduled for a month from now, but our board hasn’t secured any sponsors yet and our main fundraiser on the board is caught up in a new venture at work and hasn’t done anything so far…

Can you give me some guidance that I could present to my board tomorrow night? “

Signed,

Miss Yes-I-Know-I-Need-New-Board-Members!

That’s a good question, and one that more nonprofits should be asking themselves these days, I fear.

The answer, quite frankly, comes down to a cost benefit analysis.

As with so many difficult decisions, a chart can  help to weigh a few options.

If you create a spreadsheet where the first column is the original goals for the event – whatever you hoped you would accomplish with the event when you first started out; the second column is likely results in each area; and the third column is minimum results in each area that would make it worth it – you’ve got your projected benefits.

Now, at the bottom of this spreadsheet (or you can do it on a separate tab if you like), list the costs – what it's costing your agency both in real dollars, in staff/board time and attention (don’t skip this critical component), and the opportunity costs of what you aren't able to go after because of focus on this event.

Then think about if there's any possible way to boost the LIKELY projected benefits, and to reduce the costs in these areas.

And then, in a cold, hard calculation, you need to determine whether the benefits are worth the cost.

And finally, if they're not, how you can reverse course with minimum damage – if that's even possible.

So whether you should (cancel) is not always synonymous with whether you could, or whether you'd lose more from canceling than going ahead.

This is a complex conversation, and a difficult process to take your board through.  It helps a lot to have an ally on the board going in to a meeting like this – because special events are so totemic.

Canceling feels like failing, in a very public way – and it’s hard to have the courage to do so.

Fundraising Projections: A Sleep-At-Night Primer

Once again, the gap between “thought it would happen” and “here are the numbers” is looming large. 

Some organizations are finding, with sighs of relief, that fall fundraising income isn’t coming in as badly as they’d feared.

Others are finding that huge sums they’d been assuming were theirs, are not.

In volatile times, those with strong stomachs start discounting.  It’s not for the faint of heart.

I went back to the Cause Effective archives for an old chestnut we wrote in 2005 to help a client understand how to create fundraising projections, called “The Sleep-At-Night Short Primer on Financial/Fundraising Planning.” 

Sleep at night?  Doesn’t that sound good?  But I digress…

The idea is to create a LIKELY scenario – and a probable scenario. These days, one can slide between the likely, the probable, and even the worst case, on a week-by-week basis. 

But isn’t it better to have these scenarios, and understand how they run together, than to simply react as your organization is acted upon?