Contributing and Benefiting (Part 2)

Contributing and Benefiting

Part 2

Creston is a little city in the heart of the Kootenay Region (of BC Canada) surrounded by a string of small villages, large towns, and several medium sized cities with larger amenities just under 2 hours away. This is a popular area for tourists and being in the centre of this region we get a lot of travellers going from one city to another, back and forth. 

The Kootenays plays host to many popular cyclist and motorbike events, large music and literacy festivals and classic car events in the surrounding area. In fact by watching and increasing our awareness we learned that the region tends to have dozens and dozens of events happening every single week - each with its own special focus and audience. Some will be run by non-profits or on behalf of those non-profits. Some will be created in an effort to support a local school, community garden or neighborhood park. Other events will be smaller yet - such a garage sale raising funds to support a family afflicted by tragedy, a hot dog fundraiser for a local sports team, or an annual garage sale fundraiser to help refugees who moved to the area. Local retailers, too, will often have their own in-house events that they host. Each of these events will involve a unique audience, a distinct focus within a specific location - offering fantastic opportunities to artists and entrepreneurs. 

If this is of interest to you the first tip I have for you is to read newspaper's local event announcements (often in the classifieds) and search for online announcements for everything from "a book under every tree" or "gifts for seniors" events to "feeding the hungry" or supporting the local Special Olympics or animal shelters. Start taking notes now so that next year you know these events will be coming up and can prepare in advance. Once you become attentive to the idea that these events exist, you'll develop a keen eye -or sharp ear - and within a short time you'll find there are hundreds of these activities going on, most of them being annual events. 

With so many things happening in our little city, and surrounding areas, it doesn't take long to find multiple ways of contributing, networking or sponsoring. Set a goal to participate in no more than one of these local events per month maximum, which gives you the time to promote each event, send out notes of appreciation afterwards and any follow up that you may need to do before heading into the next event. 

Within a short time, you will likely find that there are hundreds more events to consider, keep taking notes because you can choose from them next year. The reality is, we couldn't possibly participate in every single event held in one year. We can, however, continue to choose different events each year - which widens our exposure even further due to their unique audience.

How can you participate?

• As an entrepreneur we can give gift certificates to any of our services, or products, to a silent auction fundraiser. 

• We could offer one of our products as a prize for their draw, door prize or contest prize. 

• We could sponsor our staff (pay their wage) while they volunteer for the event. 

• We can share the event's announcements, posters, etc.

• We could offer our products, gift certificates or tchotchkes (promotional bookmarks, key fobs, pens, lighters, chocolates) as items for the conference's gift bags.

Put on that Purple Snowflake Marketing hat and you'll find there are many other ways that we can contribute to the community. 

• If you are a handy-person with a lot of tools, you might be able to donate the use of the tools or equipment for a community project. 

• Perhaps our business service involves landscaping or driveway maintenance - why couldn't we donate those services to nonprofits and do those jobs whenever business is slow? 

• As a musician we might be able to donate a performance to their coffee house fundraiser, to provide acoustic entertainment between the poetry readings of the literacy event, or to perform at the dance.

Once you have a better idea as to the events you plan on participating in, you will also need to have a promotional plan in place. You will need to decide how you will go about letting people know that you participated in the event. With this in mind, it is important to note that your articles, press releases, blog posts, or social networking posts about the event will serve better if you have arranged to have a variety of pictures and copies of the event's images to use. Having a variety of images will reduce the chance of the posts or articles appearing redundant.

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