Corporate Event Planning Checklist

Does your business or charitable organization need an event planned? This checklist was built to help the manager of a publicity event, a fundraiser or any other kind of organizational event to plan it successfully. This is a big responsibility for a single person, and this checklist is easily customizable if your divide the planning between committees. This checklist will help you with all the steps necessary for the creation of a successful event, and we do hope that you will print it and share it with the other persons involved in its planning.

Tips

Start thinking about your event 6 months in advance; some might even take a year to prepare. We strongly suggest that you start as early as possible; poor planning and last-minute decisions will most likely lead to a hasty, ill-conceived event that will not bring a positive image to your organization. The planning has a very strong grassroots element: you should spend a bit of time reflecting on the goals of the event and its relationship to the goals of your organization. Brainstorming sessions are good for this step.

Your organization might have had previous experience with planning events; if this is the case, then you are at an advantage. You should revisit the previous event and check the organization, the suppliers and the post-event reports to build on good planning and avoid previous mistakes. If your organization already has a good business relationship with providers, it is strongly suggested that you go to them again because you are likely to get good quotes for a major event. If you are not so fortunate, thoroughly research the providers beforehand.

There are many websites that provide business reviews to help you with this step. Don't forget to compare quotes between a few suppliers; sometimes a new supplier who wants to build a client base will give you better prices than well-established ones. Think about hiring a public relations professional will be especially useful if your event requires media coverage, unless your organization already has one on its staff.

This Corporate Event Planning Checklist is for teams that want consistent execution, less rework, and clear ownership.

• Standardize quality - run the same Corporate Event Planning steps every time, regardless of who executes
• Save time - reuse a proven Corporate Event Planning workflow instead of rebuilding processes from scratch
• Improve accountability - assign owners and see what's done vs. what's pending
• Onboard faster - use the Corporate Event Planning checklist as the SOP and training guide
• Coordinate across roles - handoffs are clear and everyone works from the same source of truth