How to Organise a Charity Ball
Organising a ball is a great way to raise money and awareness while making sure that your guests have a night to remember! Large events like these are always incredibly rewarding for both yourself and the charity, more so because of all the hard work and effort that goes into organising them and making sure they run like clockwork.
Planning and Organising a Charity Ball
The most important part of organising any event is to have a schedule. Know what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. So one of the first things to do is to decide what date the ball will take place on.
You’ll want to make sure that this is a date that most of your target audience can make so try to avoid major clashes with any sporting, local or school events. We’d also recommend that you give yourself at least 3 months to prepare so start planning as early as possible because we all know how time can fly by!
Having a timetable will be invaluable to keeping you and your event on track and making sure that no detail, however small, gets forgotten. If you stay motivated and passionate about the cause, then everyone on your team is much more likely to stay upbeat and committed – even when your to – do list seems to stretch from here to the moon!
It’s also a good idea to have a clear set of objectives that you want to achieve that you can always keep in mind throughout every organisational aspect.
For example, you might want to:
- raise as much money as possibly for my chosen charity
- raise the profile of my chosen charity within my local community
- have a great time and ensure that all my attendees have an amazing time too
Choosing a Venue
This is an area where people often overspend so it’s a good idea to do lots of research before selecting a venue. You want somewhere that is going to tick all the boxes with facilities for the guests (having a quick look at the loos is always a good shout!), catering facilities (if you’re planning on having a sit – down dinner you’ll want to check the kitchen facilities out) and ask about their PA and sound system. It’s always a good idea to make sure that the venue knows you are putting on an event for charity when asking for quotes as lots of places will offer you a discount when they know that it’s for a good cause! If the venue would like proof that you’re a fundraiser, we can always send out an authorisation letter for you which will prove that we have approved your fundraising event.
A few other things to keep in mind are:
- The location – is it near to public transport and are there adequate parking facilities onsite or nearby?
- The feel – whilst having a look around try to imagine what it would like decorated and full of people. Can you see yourself and your friends having a great time there?
- The cancellation policy – how much of your deposit will you lose if you don’t sell as many tickets as you’d hoped and have to postpone or cancel your event?
- Are there any extra venue costs?
One last tip is to have a look at places like local town halls, church halls, community centre and hotels as they will often let you have rooms that are heavily discounted and the staff will also have lots of experience in putting on events.
Additional Help
Roping in all the friends and family you have to help you is a sure fire way of turning your event into a success! They will be invaluable in selling tickets at their various workplaces and to all their friends and they can also help you out on the day by acting as auctioneer if you’re planning a raffle, acting as the MC, or you could even rope them in to act as waiters for the night! Make use of all of their various contacts to see if you could get any sponsors for the food, drink or entertainment aspect of the event or perhaps they could help you approach businesses to convince them to give you raffle prizes.
Tickets Sales and Donations
When deciding on the price of the ticket, consider what the guests will be getting for that price. You want them to spend lots of money on drinks, raffles and auctions during the night as well as hopefully making some extra contributions to the charity so it’s best not to price the ticket too high. You don’t want to lose money on food and entertainment so work out what you think people should reasonably contribute to this and then add a ticket price of £5 - £10 on top of this. Remember – you are hoping to make a good profit to donate to charity but people won’t come if the price is too high!
Food and Drink
Although it’s tempting to put a varied menu together in order to justify people paying for a ticket, it’s a sensible idea to keep the options as simple and cost-effective as possible. Choosing just one meat, fish and vegetable option should ensure that everyone will be able to pick a meal to suit their dietary requirements and chicken and salmon are always big crowd pleasers.
If you are including a complementary drink with your food then it’s worth asking a local business, such as a wine merchant or even a local pub if you have a good relationship with the owner, to sponsor the event by providing a few bottles of free wine for the tables or perhaps something fizzy for a drinks reception.
Prizes
An auction or raffle is a great way to generate more funds for charity and can be very cost – effective as many businesses, friends and colleagues will happily donate prizes to go towards this.
A great way to get members of the local community involved is to ask them to offer vouchers for their services. For example you could ask someone to offer an hour of their time as a gardener, hair dresser, or beauty therapist which is not only a lovely prize to win, but will also provide free advertising for a local business.
It is a lot of work to put together and run a ball or dinner so make sure that you make the most of this by asking your local press to come down to record the big event! You should get as much credit as you deserve for putting a successful event together. Overall the most important thing to remember is to have fun and make sure that all your attendees do too!