Community Ownership Is Key to Event Success: Redefine your committee & let your community lead the way.

When you’re creating your event experiences, do you involve other people in the planning and delivery?  I don’t mean people from your event team, I mean people from outside your immediate circle, maybe even people that have no event experience? 

One thing I have learnt from producing community events and festivals is that involving people who care about what you are creating, can add so much depth and experience to your event.   

In community events and festivals, it’s not uncommon to call out for volunteers from within the community, to help shape, plan and deliver a community event.  Sometimes the entire event is owned by the community and someone like me just coordinates all the elements together. 

In October last year the ABC ran a story about community events collapsing as volunteer numbers struggle around the country.  The training program that I offer now, was a seed of an idea from nearly 15 years ago when I noticed community festivals folding due to unsustainable practices, along with no knowledge transfer system, and lack of volunteers. 

While the ABC article offers valid reasons for the closure of many of these events and festivals, in my view the Treasurer of the Longreach Lions Club hits the nail on the head. 

“It comes down to volunteer fatigue” she said. 

So, with all the tools and all the connections, how do you avoid volunteer fatigue?  Well, the simple answer of course is to get more volunteers, but again the article offers an insight into what’s really going on.   

“At Theodore, Ms Poole said myths about volunteering had left some residents reluctant to commit, for fear of signing up for a “life sentence”.” 

I like how she claims it’s a “myth”.  I think we’ve all felt like we stayed on that committee too long, or we were being taken advantage of and feeling like we are the only ones doing any work.  I know I’ve been on committees where I’ve felt like it’s a life sentence and there was no myth about it!

But I’ve also been on committees and lead committees where it’s been an absolute joy and the reward I get to experience every day, I get to share with the people on the committees I represent. That’s because I think the solution is in the structure. 

Committees are typically made up of a President, a Treasurer, a Secretary and maybe an Administrator.  Then there’s a whole bunch of people that love to come to meetings and throw ideas at the wall and take all the glory when some of them stick.  You know the ones – they’re typically found swanning around the event telling anyone who will listen (mainly politicians) what a challenge it was to put it all together, but it was so worth it for the community (blah, blah, blah). 

So how do you fix it?  I still think the volunteer strategy is ideal, but the structure needs to change.  We still need the leaders, we still need someone to look after the finances, we still need someone to make sure all the compliance is taken care of. But instead of then allocating someone to marketing, someone to logistics, someone to infrastructure, etc.,  

what if you created project titles instead of job titles? 

Engage people to work on projects, not in roles.  Projects have outcomes, results, successes and failures. People know what is expected of them and whether they’re getting it right.  And most importantly, the end!  They’re short term, documented and can involve project teams.  This is my favourite way of working. 

What if instead of tasking operations with booking food trucks, coffee vans and fairy floss machines, you invited people to join the Food & Beverage Project Team with the responsibility of designing, sourcing and promoting your event’s food & beverage offering.  (side note on this – not enough festivals are “designing” food experiences). 

Or instead of calling for a social media volunteer, you created an Online Community Creation Project with the responsibility of building and engaging an online community that you ultimately bring together in person at the festival. 

Or instead of engaging a site manager to scope and build the event site, you created a Precinct or Village Project Team with the responsibility of sourcing, designing and building an environment that connected the community with each other. 

What are some projects you can come up with for your event or festival Sally?  Do you think this is a strategy that might keep your volunteers engaged for longer?  I would love to hear if you’ve done this before, or if you have other ideas on how you keep volunteers engaged on your events.  I know what an absolute joy it is to see an event or festival come to life, and I’m determined to help more people experience the same. 

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Don’t forget, the 8 Week Event Plan starts in 2 weeks Sally so if you were thinking of enrolling or know someone who should, now would be a good time to join.  One of the bonus modules is Your Volunteer Strategy and includes a bunch of resources to attract and retain volunteers, so if you found yourself reading this email and asking yourself "how", let's have a chat.

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