Thank you for offering to host an event to benefit the LGBT Community Center. Volunteer fundraising helps keep our doors open, so that we can provide free space and services to LGBTQ and allied people. So, thanks a lot and we hope you have a great time!
Here are a few tips to throw a successful event.
Promotion Let people know! Use Facebook, e-mail, or old fashioned post to invite folks to your event.
- If your event is open to the public, make sure to let us know so we can cross-promote it via Facebook and our e-mail list. Send a link to the Facebook invite / E-vite to info@lgbtnola.com and we’ll do the rest.
- Feel free to use our logo in your promotional materials, but please use it correctly. Here is a version in full color with black text. If you need a different version (larger, with a transparent background, or in white font for a dark background, etc.), e-mail us.
Raising Funds Let’s talk about the money, honey. Be clear with us and your audience, is this an event to benefit the Center? If you promote an event as a benefit for the Center, please share the proceeds or collect donations for us- however you choose to do so.
- You can collect cash donations, checks made out to the LGBTCCNO, or borrow our DipJar to take credit cards. If you want to use the DipJar, please contact info@lgbtnola.com to schedule pickup & drop off ASAP.
- If you accept cash or check donations, please contact us within 24 hours after your event to let us know how much you raised and get our sincerest thanks! We’ll schedule pickup at a time that’s convenient for you.
- The Ask- how do you ask someone for money? The best way to appeal to your audience for donations is to tell them how and and why you are involved with the Center. What do you like about us? What do we provide for your community? The community as a whole? Here is a sample ask from our friend Victoria:
My name is Victoria and I got involved with the LGBT Center because I know that coming up queer in the South would have been so much easier if I had had a place like this to grow up. And I want the path to be easier for young people now. In fact, in the past year, the Center has seen a threefold increase in demand for space and resources! Did you know they host not only the youth group, but also LGBT start ups like Queer Former Fundies and LOUD? The Center needs to do even more to serve and preserve LGBT New Orleans and I know with your help they can be here for another 25 years to serve yet another generation.