Friday, December 13, 2013

Post Christmas Party

After 2 months of vague planning, our holiday fundraising party officially launched last night. My friends Maryanne and Elizabeth co-headed the party with me -including the planning process. It was pretty easy to secure speakers: 3 (one from each cause we'd been raising funds for throughout the year) and 1 comedian/magician who I met through Toastmasters. The venue was the biggest concern for us. Luckily a my friend Sherrie suggested her friend's Greek bistro that he'd just opened and we booked the room for 20-30 people. 

Then came Jos' paranoia. Jos founded the women's group so she's paranoid when it comes to planning most things about it, but she was really worried attendance would be next-to-nothing for this party. We had one non-business-related event that focused on women's health and only 10 people showed up. We've had events with 20-40 people on average, so Jos was worried only 5 people would show up for our non-business, non-profit party. Even if it was the holidays. 

I on the other hand had faith. I knew at least 20 people would show up -especially my friends. Emailing people was less successful than I'd hoped though. Many of my friends either never responded or they messaged back that they had other plans that Thursday night. I started emailing people about a week or 2 before the event. The frustrating part was that on Meetup.com it only showed 15 people who'd signed up the day before the event. But 25 people ended up coming. It's really hard to gauge how many people will come. We've also had past events where 30 people say they'll come and only 10 people end up going.

The event itself went well. We initially tried to stick to the schedule/agenda, but it was mostly used as a guideline to make sure the event Ended on time and we had enough time to say what we wanted to. Everything balanced itself out. Our opening speaker took longer than expected and some of the other speakers were shorted than expected. The comedian/magician was hilarious and entertaining though. Everyone had a great time. 

My goal at the beginning of the year was to raise $1000 to be split among the 3 non-profits we were supporting. Until this event we were at $650. Then some people pre-paid online for the event and we were at $820. Then we had people pay at the door and buy raffle tickets. The money needs to be counted, but I think we made the $1000 goal!!! 

*Update: We officially made $1200 in funds for the 3 causes!

No comments:

Post a Comment