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How to use Asana for fundraising event planning

In This Article

Planning nonprofit fundraising events involves managing multiple elements like volunteer coordination, budgeting, promotion, and attendee satisfaction. This demands streamlined communication, efficient task management, and real-time updates. This article explains how Asana can streamline your event planning process.

Getting started with your fundraising event project

  1. Get started quickly by using our free event planning template. You can customize this template to suit your team’s needs.

  2. If you currently track event planning in a spreadsheet, import that data into an Asana project using the CSV importer. This is a good starting point to build out your project.

  3. Manually create a new project in Asana by following the steps outlined here. Title the project based on the name of your event, for example "Annual Fundraising Gala." You might like to convert that project into a template to save you time when planning your next event.

  4. Organize your tasks using drag and drop in timeline view, setting start and due dates, and highlighting dependencies to ensure everything runs seamlessly. Once work is underway, the timeline view can 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.

  5. Customize sections to match your event planning phases such as Pre-event planning, Marketing and outreach, Venue logistics, and Post-event follow-up.

Optimizing resource management

  1. Add custom fields to track important event details like budget, venue options, or sponsorship status.
    1. Use status fields to monitor progress of different event components.
    2. Add priority fields to highlight critical tasks.
  2. Create task templates for standard activities like "Volunteer Coordination".
  3. Monitor progress with real-time dashboards and adjust budgets or task allocations as necessary.
  4. Allow Asana AI to suggest task optimizations, such as reordering tasks based on priority or predicting due dates based on historical data.

Managing communication and feedback

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

Integrate with email

  1. You can always invite vendors as guests to your event project as outlined above, 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. 

  2. Integrating Asana with email helps keep all event-related communication in one place and ensures no important details get lost in email threads.

Review event materials

  1. Use proofing to provide feedback directly on event materials. Proofing makes it easy for reviewers to comment directly on assets so feedback is provided in context. 

  2. Each comment turns into an actionable subtask that the creator can then decide how to incorporate.

  3. Track approval status of marketing materials, presentations, and other event assets using the approval feature.

Note iconNote

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

Coordinating with stakeholders

Manage team workload

  1. Use workload view to ensure balanced task distribution.

  2. Identify potential bottlenecks before they impact the event timeline.

  3. Adjust assignments based on team capacity.

Real-time collaboration

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

  2. If a teammate seeks feedback on their keynote presentation while you're occupied with another event task, you can swiftly create an Asana task from the Slack chat to retain the original context and ensure you don't forget.

  3. Use the mobile app for on-the-go access to event details.

  4. Work offline when needed with automatic syncing once back online.

Day-of event coordination

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.

  1. Download the Asana mobile app for real-time task management during the event.

  2. Access event schedules, vendor contacts, and setup instructions offline.

  3. Update task status and communicate with team members on-site.

Post-event analysis

Tracking metrics and reporting

  1. Add a form to your project to collect post-event feedback. Share the form link with your team to have feedback submitted directly into your Asana project as new tasks.

  2. Use portfolios if monitoring multiple events to compare performance. A portfolio can help you manage and monitor all your fundraising events in one place.

  3. Generate comprehensive status updates for stakeholders. Use Asana AI features to speed up this process with Smart status.

  4. Document lessons learned for future events, make tweaks and consider turning your fundraising event planning project into a template to use for future fundraisers.

Leverage Asana AI capabilities

  1. Use Smart chat to quickly find information about your event.

  2. Generate task summaries and recommendations with Smart summaries.

  3. Automate routine tasks by creating rules with Smart rule creator.

By leveraging these Asana features, non-profit organizations can transform fundraising event planning into a seamless and efficient process, ultimately leading to more successful events and greater impact.

Additional resources

  1. Use our nonprofit fundraising event planning template to get your project off the ground.
  2. See how Special Olympics, The Young Survival Coalition, Together We Rise and NTEN plan events with Asana.
  3. Visit the Asana Academy to register for a live training or take one of our on-demand courses.

 

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Streamline Your Fundraising Event Planning with Asana