You Probably Need an Events Partner
An Event Planner’s Reflection on the Benefits to Organizations
As an event planner working mostly with nonprofits, most of my first conversations with clients are about the benefits of bringing on a partner for their event. So many nonprofits are trying to do more with less while supporting and investing in their own teams through a global pandemic. At first, the thought of bringing on an external event planning team can seem like an unattainable luxury. Yet, I find with most of my clients that the benefits outweigh the costs and many are actually finding financial savings by working with an outside organization. Because so many initial conversations are about this, I wanted to share what I’m learning alongside clients about whether and when it’s beneficial to partner with EOD or another event planner.
First, it’s important to recognize that building meaningful experiences that bring people together takes time, energy, and expertise. If you can’t dedicate or hire the capacity to plan and run a strong event, my recommendation is not to run the event at all. There is always an opportunity cost to events and in my opinion, hosting a mediocre event is not worth the opportunity cost or actual cost.
When you determine that an event is worth pursuing, the next question is who can own the work? To be more specific, this work includes setting a vision and objectives, building the programming, planning logistics, and carefully considering how to engage every participant to build community and culture. Let me be clear, if your organization has this capacity and expertise in house already, great! However, if your organization doesn't have an events team as part of your infrastructure, then you probably need an events partner.
Trying to decide if bringing on an event planner is right for your organization? Here are some scenarios and core benefits of partnering with an event planner…
You Run Seasonal Events - You may need an event planner if your organization runs events for only part of the year. For many organizations, this has traditionally meant hiring a full-time events person who then does “odd jobs” or “special projects” during the off-season. For many clients, hiring an external event planner to coordinate seasonal events has increased the organization’s focus and decreased costs - especially when the partnership renews across multiple years.
You Need Focused Capacity - If your internal event planner is also responsible for twelve other bodies of work, it’s just hard to dedicate the time and focus to the upcoming event before it feels like an emergency - which is often simply too late to build the high quality and inclusive experience that you’re striving for.
You Want to Level Up Internal Events - If your staff convenings and professional development could use a sprucing, consider bringing on an event planning partner. Too often, particularly in social justice nonprofits, we prioritize ourselves last. When it comes to staff convenings and professional development, that deprioritization shows and can lead to staff disengagement. Bringing on a partner with the expertise, network, and capacity to build highly engaging internal events can make a big difference in the events themselves as well as staff engagement and ultimately retention.
You Don’t Have Time To Hire - If you’ve just lost capacity and already have an upcoming event in the works, it may make more sense to bring on an external expert event consultant than to try to hire and onboard a new staff member in time to run the event. Especially in today’s talent market, hiring can take months! Hiring an event management company like, Experiences On Demand, takes 2-3 hours! Give yourself the room to find and carefully onboard a great long-term team member without throwing them immediately into a high pressure situation.
Your New Events Staff Member Needs Support - If you have recently hired a staff member to run events, but don’t have the expertise or experience to train or support them, we can play that role as behind the scenes coaches to help you build up your full-time events capacity as well.
If your organization needs help, here are some of the types of support you could expect from EOD:
Enacting Your Vision - We build an operational plan and system to match the organization and event vision, including a comprehensive planning timeline.
Program Building - From planning a program that meets your objectives to prepping speakers to accessing our network of facilitators, wellness vendors, and conference contributors, we can help you build the program as well as the operations. We bring capacity to research and expertise in adult learning and engagement.
Culture Building - We specialize in building culturally inclusive learning and engagement spaces and provide thought partnership on curating the space. This includes partnership on designing the physical (or virtual) space as well as bringing in wellness activities, energizers, and suggestions for team building activities within session designs.
Virtual Event Expertise - After two years of helping organizations like yours build engaging and successful virtual experiences, we can bring a wealth of knowledge and lessons learned so that you don’t have to start from scratch!
Day Of Operations - We can bring on site event operations support, whether your event is virtual, in-person or both. This way you can enjoy and fully participate in the event and let us play the role of host.