Week 1: An evening of worldly wines and fashion
Week 2: Gardening is golden
Week 3: Conducting a retirement management summit
Week 4: Spreading the cheer — a holiday charity event held at a local children’s hospital
The challenge: Holding a client-appreciation event at the end of the year that makes an impact. So many dinners and parties are planned for November and December that your dinner or party may be ignored — or even seen as a burden.
The solution: Break the mold and create a memorable and rewarding client appreciation event that gives back to the community. Such an event can be held anytime, but we suggest the third weekend of November to tie in with Thanksgiving. This breaks through the Christmas clutter and sets you apart from other advisers. But you have to start planning it now.
The event: A two-hour Thanksgiving party at a local hospital where your clients pitch in and serve as volunteers to help the patients. The goal is to bring your top clients together to provide an opportunity for them to give back to the community. They will feel great about their participation because you are taking care of all the organizational responsibilities. All they have to do is show up, help out for a few hours with tasks you’ll assign, and feel good about themselves. They’ll walk away believing that you are a thoughtful, caring professional — as will their friends, whom you can invite to help out as well. This will become an annual event that everyone will remember and look forward to.
The time commitment: It will take about three months to plan the event, but you may find that your local hospital has a volunteer planning team to assist you or another similar event that you can tie into. Make sure your guests will feel they are involved in a special, uncrowded event, as this will be replacing your year-end client appreciation dinner.
Approximate budget Plan for about $20 to $30 per person for a breakfast or lunch you will host before or after volunteering at the hospital. If the volunteer time runs later in the afternoon, you may want to hold an informal dinner afterwards. For that, budget about $60 per person with drinks. If a mix of 50 clients and their friends or family members attend, this translates to about $1,500 for the breakfast or lunch and about $3,000 for dinner. Also plan for a few extras, such as a clown or other entertainment for children and token gifts to the patients.
Getting Started: Select a local hospital. If many of your clients have a relationship with a hospital, use that one. If not, or if the hospital is unable or unwilling to cooperate, consider a local charity such as a homeless shelter, municipal nursing home, children’s home, soup kitchen, food pantry, woman’s shelter or other similar venue.
Sample invitation:
JOIN US FOR A THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION AT THE
XXX CHILDREN’S CANCER HOSPITAL
The Smith Financial Planning Team supports the (hospital name) children’s cancer center and would like to invite you to join us for an afternoon of reading, singing, and playing with the children as an early Thanksgiving celebration. Many of these children are spending the Thanksgiving holiday at the hospital due to their treatment plan and we want to let them know how special they are and the difference they make.
We will be meeting at 1:00 pm in the hospital lobby and the staff has arranged for us to work with several key areas at the hospital. We will be doing a range of activities ranging from rocking babies to reading stories to the younger children to challenging the 12- to 14-year-olds in a game of ping-pong. You are welcome to bring your family or a friend. We will be hosting a lunch immediately following to give thanks to our volunteers.
Date Saturday, Month and Year
Time: 1 PM - 3 PM (meet in the hospital lobby at 12:45 PM)
Location: Hospital Address
Lunch: 3:15 PM – Immediately following you are invited to a Thanksgiving lunch at the (restaurant name and address) to thank you for making a difference with the children and helping this wonderful hospital.
RSVP: Please call John at our office at XXX-XXX-XXXX to volunteer and select an area you would like work in.
These children are battling a range of cancers and your time and talent will make their day!
Event planning checklist
Two to three months ahead.
- Select your charity, create the invitation (see above), and consider inviting a surprise guest (e.g. a clown or magician for a children’s hospital). Have clients hold the date to build up excitement.
- Confirm a nearby restaurant for the breakfast, lunch or dinner. We suggest dining after the event, so clients can share their stories and enjoy the group.
- Pre-select a menu and ask for group tables of eight.
- Meet with your internal team to confirm the event goals and date, responsibilities and the checklist for the person tracking attendees and meal requests (create a spread sheet the team can share).
-Send out your invitation with the event and restaurant information. Have an e-mail confirmation sent with the date and food choices immediately.
One month ahead:
- Check in with your assistant on the count and be sure the confirmation e-mails have been sent.
- Call the restaurant with a preliminary count and confirm food choices, time and room setup.
- Make arrangements for a projector for a slide show if you are planning to take pictures at the event and show them at the restaurant when guests arrive. This is a nice touch and is sure to assign someone to take the pictures and download them onto a computer for the show.
- Call the event contact to confirm the date and time your group is coming, areas to volunteer in and if a guest entertainer is coming.
- Have your assistant resend the confirmation e-mail with the event information and food choices selected. Build up the excitement and If possible include pictures of the event location and members. Often you can copy the pictures right from their website.
One Week Ahead (delegate to your assistant):
- Call the restaurant for a final count with menu choices, starting time, and beverages.
- Print name tags for the volunteers with their assigned area or team name if needed.
- Call each attendee to confirm attendance, any family or guests joining them and their meal choice.
- Prepare your follow-up e-mail and have it approved by compliance.
The day of the event:
- Bring nametags and arrive one hour early to be sure everything is set.
- Stop by the restaurant or have your assistant stop by the restaurant to check the room setup, meet the servers, confirm the meals and serving time. Don’t use place cards – it will feel too formal.
- Welcome guests right away, introduce the team (five minutes) and share one or two success stories you observed. Try not to use a microphone unless it is over 50 guests so it feels informal. This is not a presentation or business meeting.
- Have the slide show playing as a great icebreaker; it ties your clients together.
- Close the session while they are finishing dessert and announce the date for next year’s event. It may be easiest to say mid-November in case of conflicts.
Follow-up after the event:
- Send an e-mail to thank your volunteers for their help and again, have a few pictures for the day on the e-mail. This could be in an HTML format or an attachment. If you are working from a Word document, just paste the picture on.
- Consider a follow-up phone call to guests with your contact information.
- Call each of your clients personally and thank them.
Total planning time: About 20-25 hours with planning the meetings, e-mails and menu tracking.
Next month: Creating service levels for your practice.
Read our weekly online columns:
MONDAY:
IN Practice by Maureen Wilke
TUESDAY: Tax INsite, starting TOMORROW, July 29
WEDNESDAY:
OpINion Online by Evan Cooper
THURSDAY:
IN Retirement
FRIDAY:
Tech Bits by Davis. D. Janowski
