Customer Reviews

How to Produce Fabulous Fundraising Events: Reap Remarkable Returns with Minimal Effort (Book & Diskette)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am an executive in the financial services industry and have participated with many nonprofits. This book should be required reading for board members, as well as for staff. In particular, the chapter "Choosing the Right Event" is worth the price of the book. It provides valuable guidance on selecting a fundraiser that fits with your community and yields the most revenue for your organization. Don't even think about your next fundraiser until you read this book.

How to Produce Fabulous Fundraising Events is a wonderful tool for schools or any organization attempting to raise funds. The book includes all the essential elements for effective fundraising: setting goals and choosing, staffing, planning, promoting, staging and evaluating the event. In addition, step-by-step guides are provided for different events and different steps in the fundraising process. Written by full-time volunteers and international trainers, this book is a must-have for anyone dealing with fundraising. Even more time and effort can be saved with the computer disk that contains event forms, letters, lists, budgets, and more needed by fundraising organizations. Truly, this book will pay for itself way before your next event is finished! From The Science Spiders Newsletter, January 2000.

This is a fabulous book for any nonprofit group who wants to raise money, involve volunteers, and create community awareness for their cause. The easy to read, step-by-step guide gives the reader confidence and knowledge to easily implement a profitable fundraiser. The book details a dinner event that can be adapted for all nonprofit groups from grassroots efforts to schools, churches, membership and professional associations and large, established agencies. After reading the book, I was excited to organize our organization's Dynamite Dinner Event!

I have read many books about fundraising events but this one is THE BEST!!

My organization has spent countless hours trying to raise money for worthy causes in our community. Before reading "How to Produce Fabulous Fundraising Events", our results were mediocre at best. Now my organization has completely changed how we select, market and produce our events. It was the perfect way to rid our organization of the "sacred cow events" that had long outlived their value.

The disk containing sample forms was invaluable and alone worth the purchase price. Every fundraising coordinator should have a copy of this book!

This book and accompanying disk is a tremendous help to board members and volunteers who are perplexed about which event is the right one for their organization to sponsor. So many times well meaning volunteers and staff come up with event ideas that are not the best use of valuable volunteer and staff time. The comprehensive criteria in Chapter 2 helps lead organizations' leaders to either say, "Yes! Let's do the suggested event -- or Let's go back to the drawing board." An extra bonus is the information about a great event that has been proven to raise NEW money.

I bought this guide thinking that it would be a general, all-purpose book giving advice on fundraising. Unfortunately, it is really a blueprint for a specific fund raising event that the authors have conducted successfully. Their event, "A Dinner with Celebrity Waiters," is not an event that I can reproduce here in Mexico.

Although some of the advice is transferable to any event, it is too specific to be the all-around guide that I had hoped to receive. The advertising copy and "experts" quoted on the back cover re-inforced this expectation.

In addition, the supplemental disk is a floppy, which can not be used is some of the newer computers. Finally, I would say that this paperback book is definitely not worth the inflated price.

I should probably add that I have been head of fund-raising for a very large charitable organization, so I bought this book thinking that it could be used by people in my small, non-profit organization that do not have my background. It was not a correct assumption.

I bought this book after struggling with the fundraising events for our schools. It has helped tremendously. Now we're much more successful at raising needed money with less effort-just as the title indicates. I have recommended this helpful book to many of my acquaintances and have gotten several thank you's.

I am involved as a volunteer with many nonprofit organizations. I wish I had had this book years ago. It would have saved hours of time selecting the right event for our organization. The criteria to use for selecting the right event is worth the price of the book alone. When you are doing the right event for an organization, amazing things happen. I highly recommend this book for any board member or any fundraising committee attempting to effectively utilize volunteers time in staging an event. We have tried our own version of the perfect event that is featured in the book. It was the most successful event we have ever had! Thank you. Thank you!!!

I just finished reading this fabulous book and I can't wait to take it to our next board meeting to share the criteria for selecting the RIGHT event for our organization. I can now understand why so many newsletters and magazines such as The Grantsmanship Center Magazine have chosen to write about this book. I enthusiastically recommend it to all organizations who need to understand how to truly make events work for an organization!!!

This is a great book with a detailed approach to planning their special event, complete with celebrity waiters. If you are looking to plan a different type of formal gala, or any other fundraiser, there are tips and suggestions that you will still find helpful. The authors include some amazing budget sheets, sample letters, timelines and other info to help the fundraising group.
No, you are not required to do things exactly as they say. Use the book as a tool to make your OWN gala!