I recently had a meeting with a group of community minded individuals that had come together to plan an event to raise funds for a local community project.

There enthusiasm was overwhelming but they were uncertain whether they had made the right decisions in the process so far. During that discussion we found that some basic fundamental planning steps had been overlooked due to those individuals not being aware of the event management process.

I will summarise some of those steps that were overlooked if case it will assist those that are about to plan an event.

The first was the legal set up of the group. As a group of individuals, who takes the financial risk on the event? It should not be one person, but until that group of individuals become a legally constituted body, each person is liable for loss, injury and damage. They were advised to become an Incorporated Association under the Victorian Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012. This will immediately provided protection for each person and also provide a legal identify for companies who agreed to sponsorships and grants.

The second was that responsibilities had not been properly allocated with sufficient monitoring, so when questioned on what was happen with marketing, budget management and fund raising eyes were being rolled and names seem to be mentioned without any idea of where a particular task was at. No matter how large or small an event is there must be one person who has the overall responsibility to manage the process, to understand where each task is at and what the eventual outcome will be. This will keep your event on track and also overcome duplication of tasks which often happens.

The third was budget and financial projections. After the discussion it was my belief that not enough work had been done on the profit and loss side of the budget. Just exactly are our costs of the event....what was the income needed to break even....what was our profit target?

STOP. You need to look at all the possible financial outcomes before you start your planning to make sure that it will be worthwhile.

So in summary:

Make sure your group is legally instituted.Make sure that responsibilities are properly allocated and there is one person in charge.Make sure that you have looked at all the financial scenarios to make sure that your efforts will be rewarded.