TaylorMade Best Practices

September 17, 2015
in TaylorMade Best Practices, Tips for Nonprofit Fundraising

Whether you’re looking to increase donations, sales, exposure, or your guest list, holding an engaging event is your ticket to success. Your guests want to be immersed in an experience. They want to enjoy a night that’s inspiring and invigorating—they want to walk away from the event feeling like they’ve gained a lot just by attending. So, how do you provide your guests with an exciting and engaging experience that will increase donations or ROI? Start with the following: Know your audience This is the number-one, hands-down, most important aspect to throwing a fabulous event....

September 10, 2015
in Events, TaylorMade Best Practices

There are a million details involved with planning an event—from booking the venue in advance to sending thank-you notes to your guests. However, with so many moving pieces to manage, it’s easy to overlook a few crucial details. Specifically, there are five major—yet easily avoidable—mistakes you could make during your next event. Making these mistakes could cost you attendee engagement, exposure and awareness, donations, or ROI. If you want your next event to be a smashing success, then you’ll want to prevent the following mistakes from ever happening: Not including a testimonial For non-profits,...

August 20, 2015
in Events, Lessons Learned, TaylorMade Best Practices

Whether you’re a corporation or a non-profit organization, annual events are a key component to your company’s success. Before we dive into the importance of why you need to have annual events, let’s talk about the why they need to happen annually. While we understand an event takes time, energy, and resources, it is vital to have one at least once a year—especially for non-profits. Here’s why: You want to stay in front of your customers and donors.  If you hold bi-annual events, you run the risk of donors or customers forgetting...

February 3, 2015
in Events, TaylorMade Best Practices

1. Who are you? Description of organization and fund use. This is key for new prospects but is also a good reminder to your existing donor base. To both new and current contacts, this description answers the “Why?” question – why should I support this organization? This is your opportunity to share your mission, key programs, and the anticipated use of funds received as a result of your fundraising efforts. This is also your chance to use logic or if you’re a non-profit an emotional appeal to pull on the heart strings...

September 23, 2014
in TaylorMade Best Practices, The TME Team

Hello Everyone! My name is Mary Iafelice (pronounced “Eye-Fell-Eese” in English, “Ya-Fell-E-Chay” in Italian), and I am pleased to introduce myself to you as a TaylorMade Experience Event Coordinator! Better late than never, right? (Enjoying some Cava in Barcelona, Spain) How is it that a philosophy major with her roots in New England ended up in Events Management in the D.C. area? Well, I will admit that back in college I was dead-set on staying in academia for my whole career. But life, as it is known to do, threw me a curveball...

September 17, 2014
in Culture, Lessons Learned, TaylorMade Best Practices

The summer sadly has come to an end; all of us are back into our routines. Regardless of whether or not you have kids, you were once a kid. The practice, preparation, and simultaneous joy and anticipation associated with back to school can be translated into the following lessons that can be applied at work, both within corporations and nonprofit organizations. Jump back in with both feet – All major cities tend to have a lull in the summer; business slows and vacations are in full effect. Just like being a...

August 11, 2014
in Events, Lessons Learned, TaylorMade Best Practices

Are you getting a lackluster performance out of your board or event committee? Are you not producing the results you had desired? Are you rallying the teams and just not getting anyone to bite? We feel your pain! Effective boards and event committees are essential in creating outreach lists for invitations, sponsorships, and cultivating new donors, so their lack of involvement can be a significant problem to your bottom line. Whether your board or event committee is uninvolved, hard to engage and excite, or just totally unresponsive, there are several ways...

August 5, 2014
in Events, Social Media, TaylorMade Best Practices

Our previous post on social media for events took us through the “5 W’s” – who, what, when, where, and why. This follow-up post will expand on the much-related “how” of social media for events. Now that you have answered your “W” questions, the how includes the all-important action items needed to maximize your social media integration efforts. Here are a few of TME’s best practices: Persevere. Many organizations utilize social media for their general mission and organization, but quite a few do not carry this over to their events, creating a...

July 31, 2014
in Above and Beyond, Lessons Learned, TaylorMade Best Practices

As the fall season of events approaches, it’s important to appreciate those who helped you achieve your event’s success, and amongst the mountain of wrap-up post-event, remembering to express gratitude and appreciation by saying “thank you” is an important post-event to do item. It sounds like a simple reminder, but it is often a forgotten art. Public thank you’s to donors, sponsors and guests is certainly well-deserved and should be a priority, but don’t forget to thank the rest of the team that put in a great effort. For any event...

July 22, 2014
in Events, Social Media, TaylorMade Best Practices

Think back to English class in grade school. You may remember hearing some form of litany from your teacher on the “5 W’s” of good writing and he or she might even have thrown in an “H” for good measure. Hopefully those lessons stuck with you, because we’re going to use them today to share our brief commentary on the intersection of audience engagement and social media. What? Interaction, engagement, excitement, enthusiasm, camaraderie – these are all words that could be used to describe the vibrant nature of well planned events.  What...