Invisible Children Heartbeats Dance Marathon

How to Build a Planning Committee

What’s better than planning an awesome Dance Marathon to benefit your favorite organization? Planning one with a group of friends and other passionate people!

We at Invisible Children strongly believe in the power of teamwork and collaboration. We know

that planning an event can be challenging work, and we don’t want you to be alone in these efforts. That’s why, in addition to receiving support from us, we encourage you to gather a group of trustworthy, enthusiastic individuals to help you plan what we know will be the dance party of

the year.

We’ve put together a few tips on how to gather the people you want by your side during the planning process. Let’s get started.

Step One: Gather the Team Whether that’s your school’s Invisible Children Club or a group of your closest friends, you’re going to want people by your side who you can trust and who’ll keep you motivated throughout the planning process. Brainstorm a list of the people you think will be the most pumped to help with this, and recruit away! Step Two: Divide Tasks Once you’ve got your go-to people, the next step is to divide up the tasks you need to complete among the group. We recommend the committee system, where you can assign a specific task or role to each person helping to plan your event. Here are some ideas: o The Advertising Agent – This person is in charge of marketing for the event. This includes creating and hanging up flyers at your school or in the local community, handling social media promotion, etc. o The Planner – This is your go-to person for the logistics of the event. This includes keeping in touch with the owner/manager of the venue where the event will be, seeing if there are rules/restrictions on having EMS or police at your event, and deciding the set up of the event space. Anything logistics-related, this is your person. o The Recruiter – This person will reach out to different clubs and individuals at your school and in your community and get them to sign up for the event. You want someone who is super outgoing and will give their all to recruit 75 (or more!) dancers. o The Supporter – After participants sign up, this person will help support them up until the night of the event. This includes providing encouragement for dancers to reach their fundraising goals and keeping track of those who are having trouble or need an extra push. They can also

help to sign dancers up and be the liaison communicating important updates and information about the event. o The Party Pumper – This person helps put the life and soul into your Dance Marathon. They are in charge of all things entertainment, whether that is finalizing music playlists, coming up with hourly themes, organizing games or competitions at the event, or booking DJs and local dance crews as guest performers. You want a fun, energetic and creative person on top of this role. o The Fundraiser – This is the person coming up with creative fundraising ideas for both the night of the event and leading up to it. We suggest having a few fundraisers at the actual event, such as raffle tables, selling merchandise, and competitions, to help engage participants and raise more money. You can also host a few smaller fundraisers before the event takes place to help you reach your goals. This person will help organize and facilitate these fundraisers and help give participants ideas on how to achieve their goals. (We also have a handy fundraising guide to help you out.) o The Business Person – This person oversees in-kind donation and corporate sponsorship efforts. This includes getting local restaurants or stores to donate food and water, raffle prizes, and anything else you think you might need for the night. We also have a helpful guide on how to go about securing these types of donations. Feel free to be as creative and flexible as you like with these roles! These are just suggestions we think would be helpful when looking at the larger scope of planning your event. Step Three: Decide on weekly meetings/check-ins Once you’ve put your team together and decided who will be in charge of which tasks, it’s time to decide how often you will check in with each other. What’s the easiest mode of communication for you all to keep in touch? If it’s a Facebook group, awesome. If it’s email or Google Docs, even better. Want to throw in weekly meetings to get that face-to-face interaction? We love it. Whatever works best for you and your team, do it. Step Four: Plan an amazing dance marathon! This one is pretty self-explanatory. We know you’re going to kill it and host an event that people will be talking about for years to come. Remember, we’re here for you every step of the way. Happy planning!