Here’s a checklist of things to think about in organizing your event. If you are throwing a house party you will have some additional things to consider. Also be sure to check out our Event Resource Page for additional literature, logos, videos, sign and receipt forms.
1. Get Organized
Notify Epic Change
If you’ve just decided to throw a gratitude party for TweetsGiving, submit our Event Organizer Application to let us know about your plans so we can support yo u and connect you with volunteers in your area.
Date and Time
Most events will be held the evenings of November 24th or 25th. If this isn’t feasible for you, feel free to plan something a bit earlier or later in the week.
Venue
Choose a venue to host your gratitude party at. It can be a bar or restaurant, a community center, a hotel, a church or synagogue, or someplace else. If you choose a bar or restaurant, see if you can get the place to agree to share a percentage of the evening’s revenues with the cause.
Team
Recruit some friends to join your organizing efforts. You can search for people among your personal networks, on twitter, and we will send people who volunteer through our website your way so they can join your team locally.
Webpage and Ticketing
We will set up a group in the Epic Change Community for your city or college event. Join the community and then once you join your city or campus group, we will make you an administrator so you can change the event details like the event location, post news of local sponsorships you secure, and email reminders to all group members through the Group Wire feature. We will also set up event ticketing for you through Eventbrite and embed a ticketing widget on the group page for you.
2. Logistics and Program
Food and entertainment
Reach out to local restaurants and catering services to see if they are interested in provide food as an in-kind donation for your event. If you are hosting your event at a restaurant or bar, see if you can arrange a discount with the establishment for your guests.
If you want to have music at your event, there are likely local musicians in your area who would be interested in performing at your event in support of TweetsGiving. Have someone on your team reach out.
Welcome and Registration
Assign one or two people to welcome people as they enter. Depending on your venue this may be difficult, but you can have these people take tickets and accept donations from people who haven’t bought tickets in advance.
Gratitude Activities
You can choose from some of our gratitude ideas, or brainstorm your own activities. TweetsGiving is a great opportunity for creative activities that encourage your guests to reflect about what they are grateful for.
Fundraising
Part of TweetsGiving is about raising money to support a common cause. You don’t have to go overboard, but here are a few ideas you can choose from to raise money.
Sponsors – Reach out to local businesses about sponsoring your TweetsGiving party. You can recognize them at your event and on your Group Page in the Epic Change Community.
Raffles and Auctions – You may find that some businesses that are unable to be formal event sponsors are happy to make items and gift certificates available for you to use as raffle prizes or auction items. You can also raffle off whacky items like a serenade from one of your event organizers or something else creative.
Announcements
It’s a good idea to plan some announcements during your event. Thank all your volunteers, sponsors, and everyone for coming. You can use the opportunity to highlight different activities going on and encourage people to donate if they haven’t already.
Twitter Hashtag
#TweetsGiving is the global hashtag for TweetsGiving overall. If you want a hashtag for your specific event use something like #TweetsGiving.CityName or have guests tag tweets using both #tweetsgiving and #cityname. That way tweets from your event appear in the larger search and on tweetsgiving.org.
Document your event
Take pictures, video, have a guestbook. You can post the content to sites like Flickr and Youtube afterwards. Remember to tag it #TweetsGiving.
3. Promotion
Spread the word
Have your team get the word about your event to all their friends and communities by email, phone, twitter, and carrier pigeon.
Twitter
You may also want to create a Twitter account to use in promoting your event. Consider making the username something like @CityNameTweetsGiving. You also can abbreviate your city name to make it shorter.
Epic Change Community
Your Group Page within the Epic Change online community serves as your event landing page. As an admin of the group you can use the Group Wire feature as your event approaches to send reminders to all members of the group.
Local Host Committee
Ask well connected people in your community to join your host committee. You can list them on your event page and their presence may encourage others to attend.
4. Wrap up
Let us know how your event went!
Email email hidden; JavaScript is required with some info on your event. How many people attended? What worked well and what would you do differently in the future? What interesting things did guests share that they were grateful for?
Submit Funds
Submit all funds raised through sponsorships and in cash at the event. Instructions on how to submit funds are at the top of the event resource page.