The Top Five Key Components of Running a Charity Event

Many successful sports events have been organized to benefit charities. There is a wide selection of topics that fall under running a successful charity competition. The article covers five key components to consider when running a charity event.

#1: Whom Should Your Event Benefit?

The first component may be the most obvious, but is still an important one to consider: What organization or organizations should you team up with when hosting a charity event? There are a whole host of charitable organizations out there that benefit a multitude of causes, and determining whom you would like to raise money for is an important question to start with. In addition, you may want to check out http://www.charitynavigator.com/ to evaluate charities to partner with.

#2: Covering Your Costs

While the main purpose of running a charity event is to raise money for an organization, it is also important to remember that your event should cover the costs of running the event. You should determine how much of the money raised through registration fees or donations should be given to the charity while remembering that you need to hold onto a certain amount in order to actually manage the event. There are a number of ways to do this, whether you hold onto the registration fees and require participants to donate a certain amount to the organization, or collect a portion of the registration fees for yourselves and donate the rest to the charity, make sure that you can cover your costs.

#3: Corporate Sponsorship for Charity Events

Sometimes it may be difficult to find corporate sponsorship for a charity event. It is important to make sure that your sponsors match up with not only the participants in the event, but also the organization that you are benefiting. It is also important to put yourself in the sponsors' shoes and determine how sponsoring your event will help them in reaching their business goals. Sponsors like having their name and products promoted, so make sure that they will receive enough recognition, through snacks, t-shirts, and flyers in order to attract them. More helpful information about this can be found on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/marketing-sales/advertising-promotion/events-marketing/MAR_ADP_EVM/93862-921678?searchIdx=11&sik=1211550622959&goback=%2Easr_2_1211550622959/ and http://www.ehow.com/how_135566_organize-charity-walk.html/

#4: Donating to the Cause Yourself

After reading an article about fund-raising at http://christopherscottblog.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/tips-for-leader.html, I found that the most important tip listed was the one about being the first to donate. Not only does a partnership with a charitable organization help them to raise money for their cause, it is also beneficial to give a donation. This shows the charity that you are truly interested in helping their cause and will also show potential participants that you care and will thus encourage them to sign up for your event and donate themselves. This will lead to a win-win situation for both you and your partnering organization.

#5: The Benefits of Spectators at a Charity Event

It is important to remember how important spectators are to charity events. Typically spectators will attend an event if it is highly publicized and they are interested in helping the charity that is associated with the event. This is important because spectators will increase the fundsraising for your organization and the charity. They will help to ensure that you boost the money earned so that you can cover your costs. The US WindsurfingAssociation has an interesting article about charity events: http://www.uswindsurfing.org/usw_library/other/charity.pdf.

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Note about this article: This article is part of a newsletter series from Compete-At.com. Compete-At provides online event management and online registration software for sports.