Event Planning for Leadership Development

Going through this exercise can help you identify what tasks are essential to event planning and where there is opportunity for skill-building and leadership development. Follow the questions – when done you can appropriately delegate tasks or volunteer for roles based on a sense of the big picture, as well as the opportunities for skill building.

• What is the event you are planning?
• What are the goals of event?
  • include task goals like get 50 people to a city council member as well as process goals, such as giving people a greater understanding of how city laws are passed
  • don’t get too caught into word-smithing or over-thinking your goals
• What are the tasks that are absolutely necessary for the event to happen?
  • match these nuts and bolts tasks with the goals
  • To get a full menu, break-down the large tasks into highly specific sub-tasks
• What would be a great addition to the event, but is not necessarily essential?

You now have a menu of tasks to be performed to carry out the event – with essential versus unessential tasks separated.

Last step is to circle items where there is opportunity within your group for leadership development. This means, if there is a task such as “contacting the media” where specific skills can be gained, circle it. Keep this task list in mind when doing one-on-ones.

An Example Menu of Tasks

Event: The Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony
Goals: Energize membership, celebrate accomplishments, build community

Large Task: Prepare the dinner and all food
Sub-task: Buy paper goods
Sub-task: Buy drinks
Sub-task: Set up tables and chairs on the day
Sub-task: Cook lasagna

Large Task: Sell dinner tickets
Sub-task: Get tickets printed
Sub-task: Sell tickets by phone
Sub-task: Send out dinner flyer announcements
Sub-task: Call membership list about dinner
Sub-task: Stuff envelopes on February 2nd at 8:00pm at the office
Large Task: Awards Ceremony
Sub-task: Get awards speaker to motivate crowd
Sub-task: Get all awards certificates or awards gifts
Sub-task: Design and print award certificates
Sub-task: Notify all people who will get awards to make sure they attend

Large Task: Dinner Programs
Sub-task: Write and print program, with a list of annual accomplishments
Sub-task: Hand out program on night of dinner
Sub-task: Staff sign-in table at dinner

This just includes necessary tasks. The next step would be to circle items especially for leadership development of group members.

Designed by Cory Fischer-Hoffman
Edited by Daniel Hunter, Training for Change
Task list from Building Powerful Community Organizations, by Michael Jacoby Brown

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