Planning community events is a complicated and lengthy process. 5K runs, bike-a-thons, health and safety fairs, demonstrations, marches, rallies, outdoor festivals, street fairs, and carnivals require extensive planning, permits and organization.
Planning Community Events: the Planning Team
Planning community events is too much work for a single person. A planning committee is necessary to divide the work into manageable portions. A community event planning team is comprised of Chairpersons for the following categories: Overall Event, Logistics, Program/Agenda, Fund-raising, Media/Promotion, Space, Equipment, Food, Setup, Traffic Theme, Length, Speakers, Entertainment, Budget, Sponsors, Promotional Materials, and Media Packets. Each of these chairpersons can select and oversee a team of workers to complete their assigned tasks.
You should select each chairperson based on his or her prior experience, expertise, commitment to the event, willingness to work, and availability.
Planning Community Events: Setting Goals and a Timeline
Next up on the agenda for planning community events is setting your event goals and establishing a time-line. Determine what you wish your event to accomplish and outline clear objectives related to that goal.
Next, you need to establish a time-line for accomplishing each of your objectives. It is not unusual for a community event to take more than one year in the planning phase. It is better to allow enough time for unexpected problems than to push the clock and risk completing tasks poorly or overworking the event committees.
Planning Community Events: Financial Backing and Budgets
For any community event to be a success, solid financial backing must be obtained. This can come from paid advertising, donations, sponsors, or private contributions. You can also plan fundraising events to support your community event. These fundraisers can be held as far in advance as a year before the scheduled event.
Once solid financial backing has been established, a realistic and detailed budget must be created for the event. Setting a budget for a community event can be difficult. Selecting a few financially savvy people to serve on the budget committee can help make this process easier.
Planning Community Events: Management and Overseeing
Managing and overseeing the community events planning process is necessary to ensure that each committee is making adequate process, all permits are obtained, and city ordinances are followed. Overseeing the progress of each committee is the job of the head chairperson. If a committee is struggling with a particular task, extra help may need to be brought in to stay on schedule.
Planning community events is a large task that requires many hands to achieve success. This checklist is a simple guideline for beginning the community events planning process. More detailed information is available from your local library or event planning professional.