ANYONE can Stir-Up an event. Think about all the events that you have attended over the years: trivia nights, comedy shows, dinners, dances, fashion shows, fairs, etc. If you can get organized and you can recruit some friends to help, YOU can run your own event! How…?
Get a Group
You need friends to help. Unless you want to run around organizing every single aspect of your event, you need to recruit some helpers. So if it’s at school, at church or your neighbor, grab some people from there – anyone willing to give a hand. You can still be in charge, but you will need all the help you can get.
Your Cause: My Father’s House
You need to decide what it is you want your event to achieve. Do you want your event to alert people about families who suffer from poverty and homelessness? Do you want to raise money? An event can do both, but you need to determine this first.
Decide on an event and choose a location On a smaller scale, you could:
- Run a sausage sizzle
- Do a car-wash
- Organize a trivia night at your church and invite friends and family, charging a small fee
- Run an ‘enlightenment’ seminar at your church or school and tell people about homelessness and what they can do to help (no charge for this one).
- Organize a food drive to benefit the homeless families
- Put up a display at your church or school. Have a table with information from My Father’s House and give people suggestions of how they can help.
On a larger scale you could:
- Put on your own fair and charge an entrance fee. This would require LOTS of help, organization and major sponsorship.
- Stage Awareness. Have a night of sleeping on the school or church floor to remind others of how it feels to be homeless.
- Stage a fun-run, where you get people to sponsor you for every mile you run.
- Stage a Trivia Night, Fashion Parade, Dance, Dinner, Comedy Night etc. on a larger scale. Hire a hall (or better still, get one donated for the night), decorate, provide a bit of food and charge at the door.
Remember that you want to keep costs as low as possible, so with determining your location, try to find somewhere cheap or deal with someone that you already know who will be more likely to help you out (i.e. your school principal or pastor).
NOW, you’re ready…Set a date, choose a time and let everyone know!
Your first step should be to contact Cathe or Heather at My Father’s House, so we can make sure a representative of My Father’s House can be there. You’ll likely have lots of questions…and that’s OK! We’ll also make sure you have promotional or printed materials if needed.
What and how you do this will depend on your event, but make sure the time/day will suit those most likely to attend. For example, if it’s going to be an evening event, try and make it on a Friday/Saturday night (if your location is available) so that more people are available. You could:
- Make sure you let everyone know way in advance.
- Phone, email, or write letters if you know who it is you wish to invite.
- Letter-box drop the area – making sure you include all relevant information, including why it is you’re doing this.
- Put posters up around the area, making sure you check with the relevant people first – you don’t want to be charged with littering.
- Hand out fliers at other events or around your area.
If your event is a major one and would warrant media attention, make sure to talk to us about putting out a press release. We’ll take care of that for you! You want as much publicity as possible!
Prepare!!
This will probably involve delegating tasks to others in your group. Make a list of the things that need to be done, and when they need to be completed. Bear in mind that some things need to be organized weeks in advance and others need to be done on the day/night of the event.
Also involved here is perhaps getting some sponsorship. If your event is low cost you may not need it, but if you are running a large scale event you won’t be able to do it all on your own. Remember that you want to be able to charge a reasonable fee for people to attend and you want as much of it as possible to go towards helping My Father’s House.
When approaching people for help, try and think of it from their perspective – why should they help you? So if you’re running a sausage sizzle, try and get the local butcher to donate the sausages; tell him you’ll put a sign up on your stall with the name of his shop. If you want helium balloons, go to a party shop, etc. It makes far more sense to approach people who sell the product that you want to use, rather than just asking people for money, although in some situations, that may work too.
- Email/call My Father’s House for promotional material to hand out at your event.
- Making it happen On the day of the event you will have a million things to do, try and keep these in mind:
- Wear your My Father’s House T-shirts.
- Bring name tags for organizers and VIPs.
- Use banners and have signs up so people remember what you’re about.
- Always have someone manning the door if there is money to be collected.
- If you have another event planned, advertise it to the people at your current one.
- Have a way to get contact details from people who are interested in your cause.
- Stick to a time plan and stay on track.
- Think about refreshments.
Event Time!
Have fun with it! You planned and prepared…now enjoy what you’ve brought together to help homeless families.
Afterward
- Thank everyone who helped (workers, speakers, donors, event staff).
- Contact My Father’s House and let us know how it went.
- Let others know, by writing your story, so we can all be inspired.
- Start planning the next one!
Are you ready to go?
You Can Do Your Own…STIR UP EVENT!
