The meeting and event planning business is a multi-billion dollar industry, and ranks in the top 25 contributors to the GDP. With millions of people attending meetings and events every year, there are countless opportunities to use your meeting or event to give back to the community while raising awareness of various issues.
Most people, when prompted, are more than happy to do a little something to help others. With just a little bit of creativity and the smallest amount of effort, you can make a very big difference.
Here are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Think of something that your group, client, or target market stand for, believe in, or are known for; the possibilities are endless!
Canned Food Drive: If you are hosting a local event, put in your promotional material that you will be collecting canned food for a local food bank. Place large boxes at the entrances and have volunteers encouraging donations of food or money.
Donate Money with Jeans Day!:
This works with any type of meeting of any size, although it makes a better impact with larger meetings.
The attire for most business meetings is "business casual," but we all know everyone would rather be in jeans.
On the final day, have optional "Jeans Day." The trick? You must donate $5 in order to wear your jeans.
Have people with collection boxes standing at the doors of General Session as they walk in, and encourage your on-site staff to participate.
Note: in order for this to work, you must promote this in your pre-trip material or emails; so that people know to pack their jeans.
Pick a local charity in the city in which your meeting is being held and donate the proceeds to them.
If you have a meeting of 2,000 people and 1800 of them wear jeans, you will make at least $9,000! (I say "at least" because many people use this opportunity to give more than the requested $5). That is $9,000 to a local charity that desperately needs it, with hardly any effort on anyone's part!
Competitions: Most companies, when put against each other's internal divisions in competitions, become very competitive. Use this competitiveness for good!
See which region can bring in the most children's books, and donate them to an inner city school.
See which district can bring in the most stuffed animals, and donate them to a local children's hospital.
The possibilities are endless!
Team Building Activities: Many meetings want to do a "team building activity" at some point during the program to build up company morale and motivate the employees. This can easily be turned into a charity event as well.
Buy a bunch of children's bicycles that are still in the box and need assembled. Buy one in each color, and both boys' and girls' bikes; and remove the instruction packets. Divide up the attendees by teams, and let them go at it!
It is best, in this scenario, to assign one objective person to each team to refer to the instructions so that the bicycles are built safely. The first team done with no leftover parts wins. Then, donate the bicycles to a local children's charity.
You can do any variation of this idea; using anything that needs basic assembly.
Set up a large ballroom with backpacks, pencils, paper, and countless school supplies. The first team to correctly assemble the most backpacks with the appropriate supplies wins. The stuffed backpacks can then be donated to a local school in need.
Find a school, church, or neighborhood that needs a little help; or work with Habitat for Humanity. Assemble teams and give them different assignments such as painting, construction, planting, etc. Arrange for motor coaches and take the company out for the day to help out the local community.
We did this for a company that was hosting a meeting in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina. We assembled 2,000 people and spent the day helping a school and a church fix and paint the buildings, plant new flowers, and all-around maintenance. It was very rewarding for the attendees, and the community benefitted as well.
Things to Keep in Mind: With each and every activity, two things are important:
Research your charities ahead of time. Make contact with them and see what their needs are. Never assume they are in need of something. Also, check for any rules or restrictions. Many children's hospitals, for example, have restrictions on what toys you can donate, so that germs can't be passed on to sensitive immune systems.
Promote your activity well in advance with the attendees. In the example above, if people are traveling across the country to a sales meeting, they need to know in advance to pack jeans for Jeans Day or bring a stuffed animal or book.
As you can see, you, as a planner, hold a lot of power to do a lot of good. Get motivated, get creative, and do some good!
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