| The
Piggy Back Event
Food
for thought:
If you don't have a well thought out fundraising plan, you will likely
burn out the very people your group can't live without, the givers and
the askers. This month we look at the piggy back event.
If your not ready yet to stage your own fundraising event, or if you
want to add another fundraising event to your schedule but don't have
the time or people power to produce the event, then consider the piggy
back event. With the piggy back event all your group does is sell tickets
for an event someone else does all the production work for. It's a win-win
situation for both groups.
As many of you
have experienced, having to produce the actual event itself is hard
enough already with out the additional burden of selling tickets. By
the time you plan the event and stage the event you may have used up
most of your experienced volunteers. Ticket sales (and event profits)
will suffer if you can't sell enough tickets. So forget producing the
event and just sell tickets for someone else's event.
The beauty of the
piggy back event is this - You can't loose money. If you don't sell
as many tickets as you thought you could, your group won't loose money.
The danger of the
piggy back event is this - If the event has an
embarrassing moment or an outright failure, you will in some way be
associated with it. Pick your piggy back events carefully!
Many producers
of events not only want you to sell tickets, but are happy to have you
sell them and make money for your group. Here is a short list of typical
events that you can sell tickets for:
Theater Companies,
Orchestras, Ballet and Dance Companies- Many of these best selling performances
have charity nights. Often they will offer blocks of tickets to sell
for performances that they know will most likely not sell out. Week
day afternoon matinees and middle of the weeknite performances are good
examples.
Movie Distributors
and Movie Theaters are also open to booster clubs hosting a gala opening
night for a new film. Another technique is hosting a showing of an older
film (a series of nights featuring the Indiana Jones Trilogy is a popular
one) or the re-release of an Oscar winning or nominated film.
Restaurants also
participate in charity nights. Generally these fall into two categories.
The first is when a new or remodeled restaurant hosts a charity night
before they open to the general public. This event lets the restaurant
work out the kinks before they start serving the paying public and attracts
potential customers that might not otherwise come. The second is a charity
night during the slow season or days for a restaurant. They sell blocks
of meal vouchers for nights they know will be slow ones, guaranteeing
more business for themselves. MacDonalds is a favorite for letting nonprofits
host a night where the booster clubs volunteers work the dinning room
as hosts and clean up personnel and take home a percentage of the gross
receipts for the night.
Piggy back events
work best if there is some relationship or tie in between the nonprofit
and the event but can also be successful even if there is no connection
at all.
Piggy back events
also open up the door for better publicity for the event. When a local
booster club and a well known business team up to raise funds it makes
for a more news worthy event. Depending on the event you may even be
able to attract a sponsor to pay for the advertising.
Now all you have
to do is sell tickets. To be successful make sure your group puts all
it's energies into ticket sales.
|
