Fundraising event planning

How to create a fundraising event project in Asana

There are a few ways to create your event project. To get started quickly:

1. Start with our fundraising event template and customize it for your organization’s needs.
2. Import an existing spreadsheet where you currently manage events.

How to access all Asana templates

Planning multiple fundraising events at once?

If you’re using our template:

1. Duplicate the [EXAMPLE TASK] in the template, rename it, and convert it into a project.
2. Then add these projects to a portfolio to help you manage and monitor all your fundraising events in one place.

Working with vendors, agencies, or contractors?

Tracking deadlines, assets, and conversations across multiple third parties via email adds complexity. Instead, consider inviting any third parties as guests into your project. That way, they can see your plans and you can set clear deadlines and keep track of deliverables.

Need to keep other event work private? You can still invite third parties to Asana, but set your project to private and only add them as task followers. They will only be able to see that task.

Tips for managing and doing event work

Now that you’ve built your fundraising event planning project, these tips will help you manage and track every detail as work gets underway.

1. Map out your event plan (and adjust as things come up) with Timeline

Most event plans have critical deadlines and dependencies leading up to the big day. Timeline helps you map these out in your plan before you start to ensure all the pieces fit together for a seamless event.

How to create your plan with Timeline:

1. Schedule tasks by drag and dropping them onto the timeline. If you spot timing conflicts, drag and drop tasks to reschedule them.
2. Extend the task date ranges so the assignee can better budget their time to work on it leading up to the deadline.
3. If tasks need to be completed in a certain order, create dependencies between them by hovering over a task, then dragging the dot to a related task.

Once work is underway, Timeline can also help you adapt your plan. For example, if booking your venue takes longer than expected, you can shift deadlines and see how that impacts your plan overall with Timeline.

2. Keep track of important emails (while spending less time in your inbox) with email integrations

You can always invite vendors to your event project, but if you communicate via email, try the Asana for Gmail, Outlook, or other email client integrations. When you get emails with important documents or actionable work, you can add them to Asana right from your inbox to assign them as a task, add to your event project, and more. Key planning details and to-dos won’t keep getting lost in email (and you don’t have to spend so much time organizing your inbox.)

3. Create actionable feedback directly on fundraiser event assets with proofing

Being able to provide and incorporate feedback on event assets (like email invitations or event posters) can be the difference between shouting in the dark and going viral. Proofing in Asana makes it easy for reviewers to comment directly on assets so feedback is provided in context. Each comment turns into an actionable subtask that the creator can then decide how to incorporate.

When you're brainstorming assets or creative ideas for your event, create a task per asset/idea and use the like button to vote amongst your team.

Tips for managing day-of event work

1. Work on the go on and offline with Asana’s mobile apps

If your team is onsite preparing, it can be hard to access key details and see what's left on the to-do list. Asana’s mobile app keeps your team connected to the event plan (even if you’re offline) before, during, and after the event.

2. Keep real time conversations actionable with the Slack integration

Many teams use both Asana and Slack to coordinate and communicate about work—especially when it’s go time for an event. Instead of picking one tool or the other, teams can use them together with the Asana for Slack integration.

If a teammate asks for some feedback on their keynote presentation, but you’re running another errand for the event, you can create an Asana task right from the Slack conversation so you don’t forget and have all the original context.

Tips for reporting on event work and progress

1. Communicate across your team (without more meetings)

Rather than calling a meeting to check the status of a task or to provide an update to your team, there are a number of ways to do so in Asana:

• Comment on a task to give an update on task progress, provide feedback, or ask a question.
• Use project status updates (via the Progress tab in your project) to communicate the most important updates about project progress, like hitting milestones, deadlines, or anything at-risk.
• @mention your colleagues, relevant tasks, projects, or conversations to directly link to them in any description or comment.
  
  

2. Monitor progress and manage staffing across multiple events with Portfolios and Workload

To understand event progress and gauge team bandwidth, event planners usually piece together information in meetings, emails, or spreadsheets, which can be time consuming and inaccurate. Instead, create a project portfolio with all your event plans to see real-time progress, event dates, and priority all in one place.

Then use the Workload tab to visualize your team’s capacity across events based on tasks they’re already assigned in Asana. Workload helps you make informed staffing decisions to keep workloads balanced and events on track.