Breast cancer fundraising events are a fantastic way to show support for someone you know who has breast cancer, or support awareness breast cancer awareness and research. Like most events, fundraising for breast cancer requires these important event planning steps:

1. Organizing
2. Preparing
3. Hosting

However, unlike most events, breast cancer fundraising requires a few key, specific steps for raising money and registering your event with the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

(By the way, if you’re looking for breast cancer fundraising ideas, we recently wrote 10 things you can do to fundraise for breast cancer.)

In this post, we’ll cover the event planning steps you need to follow for success, as well as what you must do to properly host a fun breast cancer fundraising event for your friends, family, colleagues, or community!

Organizing

Before you host your event, you should determine the details and tasks required, so you can assign responsibilities accordingly. Some of the questions to answer include:

• Where will the event take place?
• When will the event happen
• Who will you invite?
• What’s your budget?
• How much do you plan to raise? (setting a goal provides a target number to work toward)
• How many people can you accommodate at your event?

After you’ve outlined the specifics of your event, register your breast cancer fundraiser with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF). Registering your event as soon as possible allows the Community Fundraising Team have plenty of time to help you. This team is a free resource from the NBCF, so it would be smart to take advantage of it!

Before moving onto the next step, preparing for your event, make a checklist of all the things that need to be done. This way, you can mark off tasks as you complete them.

Preparing

Once you have all roles assigned, a clear vision of your event, and a list of tasks required, it’s time to prepare for your breast cancer fundraising event. During preparation, your role is to keep everything running smoothly. Make sure the people you choose to help you don’t have any problems with completing their duties.

Another major thing to considering during preparation of a breast cancer event is promotion. Tap into friends and family networks to get the word out. Call local media outlets and local businesses for free promotion. Many local businesses will support your event and give you free promotion in their newsletters or regularly scheduled announcements.

Lastly, you can make it easy for people to make a donation by setting up an online donation page. The National Breast Cancer Foundation provides instructions on how to set up a webpage for donations do so here.

Hosting

As the host of the event, people will look to you for information. This is why it’s important to educate yourself on breast cancer prior to your gathering. The NBCF site has everything you should know about breast cancer, including the latest research, statistics, and news.

Be sure to thank everyone who shows up in person. They’ve taken the time out of their day or evening to come to your event — let them know how much that means to you!

To collect donations, you may want to put a note near the donation area (or include something in the announcements) that says any donation over $2 is tax-deductible, and you will provide them a receipt upon request.

If you follow these guidelines, your event will be a success!

Let us know if you have any questions, or if you’d like us to promote your next Charleston area event in our newsletter!