There are hundreds of charities out there — and dozens of different ways to support them, which is not only an excellent way to help others, but it could also help you build your public profile.
Giving back to their communities is important to advisors, and a significant component of their business, says Rosemary Smyth, a business coach at Rosemary Smyth and Associates in Victoria.
To keep charity events fun, successful and an effective component of your marketing strategy, keep these ideas in mind:
Narrow it down
When deciding on which charity to support, focus on your interests and how you want to be represented in the community. “Just focus on where you want to be in the community that you’re passionate about, or that you have personal connections to,” says Smyth.
Also, use current events to make a fundraiser more relevant and to help bring attention to it. For example, you can organize an event to support recent environmental disasters, says Joshua Zuchter, a business and life coach in Toronto.
That will help raise funds for a good cause and possibly generate media attention. “That would be the ultimate when it comes to raising money for charity, promoting yourself as a business owner and giving something of value to people who are attending,” Zuchter says.
When to hold events
Space out the number of charity events you organize. Zuchter suggests no more than one to three events a year in order to keep them interesting and fresh. “When you have the events annually it’s a really nice thing to come to.”
Time the charity event so as not to interfere with other fundraisers in your area. The last thing you want is to force people to choose between two events, says Smyth. Therefore, it’s important to schedule your event at a different time if you know of another annual charitable event.
Changing charities?
Think about your reasons for supporting a charity when trying to decide if it’s better to stay with the same one or change from year to year. If you have a personal connection to a charity, you will not want to change it, says Zuchter: “The benefit of that is each year it becomes known. It’s an annual event and each year it can become bigger and bigger.”
On the other hand, if your goal is to meet prospective clients, a new charity each year will raise the potential of a different crowd. “If you switch it up each year, you may attract new individuals to it who want to support the new charity,” says Zuchter. “Therefore, you attract new clients and new energy to your business.”
Focus on the cause
Remember: even if you’re hoping to gain a few referrals from the event, keep the focus on the charity. By doing so, you will maintain the event’s integrity as well as your own. “Put about 90%-95% of your conversation toward the charity and then the other 5%-10% of your discussion would be your business and that’s it,” says Zuchter.
This is the first of two articles on advisors and charities. Tomorrow: Different ways of raising funds
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