My 100Minds experience was particularly unique, as I got to share it with two other like minded classmates, as a group of three. In our initial brainstorming sessions for fundraising ideas, a night in the laughter lounge wasn't even on our radar. We came up with the idea for DigiTalk (Digital career and information night for students) and outlined how it would enable us to reach our target. Two months to go before DigiTalk, we learned from our confirmed corporate speakers that their companies would not be in the position to support in the manner in which we had hoped. As this would contribute to over 50% of our fundraising target we needed to act fast, luckily for us, time was on our side.

We sat down and discussed alternative ideas and decided that holding a comedy night would be the strongest. We contacted Shane in the Laughter Lounge and his experience with 100minds night was so positive that he was immediately able to facilitate our request and gave us a date. Phew. We would be targeting students for DigiTalk and now working professional for the laughter lounge which was a well rounded balance.

The Power of Facebook!

Facebook was our primary source of promotion. Our initial strategy was to personally message our Dublin based friends and then add them to the Facebook event page once they were interested or confirmed they would be there. While we pushed the online payment its natural that people prefer to pay at the venue so we wanted the numbers on the event page to be as qualified as possible. It was up to ourselves to sell as many tickets as possible as we were given 100 tickets to split three ways.

As we reached two days before the comedy night I rang Shane to confirm numbers and wanted to confirm it was okay to distribute tickets on the door for those who hadn't paid online. He said that wasn't possible, so once again we had to act fast. Never Presume Anything! I searched nearby pubs and hopped on the bus to town to see if I could talk to the pub owner/manager. Thankfully, after a few attempts, Lannigans bar agreed to allow us space to distribute tickets and it couldn't have worked better as it was next door to the venue. Again, this was communicated through Facebook which worked very well.

The event itself went very smoothly and we were delighted to say that we raised €1800 from the night. A very worthwhile improvisation!

A great way to financially maximize any event is to hold a raffle. One of the many advantages from participating in a group is that it increases the network of contacts which we were able to gather some fine prizes from. Originally, we wished to host the raffle in conjunction with the Laughter Lounge event however management would not allow it in the venue, so once again we had to improvise. We took our prizes to college and set up in the main common room for three days and engaged with students/lecturers/visitors. People were really generous and helpful when they learned of the cause and that it was extra-curricular, which was fantastic. Not only had we our prizes, we also had ChildLine merchandise which allowed us to spread awareness.

The Shift

We spent three days at our stall Tuesday to Thursday, setting up before class in the mornings and until the evening classes finished. We then held the raffle on the Friday and had varied winners of students and staff members. We sought the email address from everyone who donated in order to contact the winner. We used mail-chimp to send out a mass email to all those who didn't win but thanked them for their contributions and then more personalised ones to our winners.

We did not expect to make as much from a low priced raffle however we were delighted to announce that we raised over €300 for the three days.

The original "Main Event" proved to be the most rewarding and beneficial of all three in more ways that funding. My group and I are all current digital marketing students. Our aim was to provide attending students with insightful information from three speakers as they begin to tailor themselves towards applying to these and alternative companies. We wanted to create an event that had real value that students can learn and take away from. Here are some of the key areas we were exposed to:

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Venue

First on the list of objectives was to secure a venue for DigiTalk. We became aware through a contact that Qualtrics, a digital and market research company, had a new meeting room and were keen to host events. We made contact with Kate who is the events coordinator at Qualtrics and she was very facilitating and we chose the 12th of April from her available dates. Venue = ✔

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Speakers

Next up was to assign our speakers. Since the event would be held in Qualtrics it would make sense for a member from Qualtrics to introduce the event as not all attendees will be familiar with the company. We got in touch with a sales leader, Ian O'Brien and kindly accepted to speak. Based on the time window that Qualtrics gave us, we had allocations for two more speakers. We discussed and decided that LinkedIn and Google had the most student appeal from our list so we sought to approach speakers. We managed to secure Cliona Moulton, a marketing manager at LinkedIn and Michael O'Shea, a director of SME acquisition at Google. Cliona would deliver a talk on optimising your online profile and Michael would cover A day in the working life of Google and candidate requirements. All speakers had the date free and would attend. Speakers = ✔

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Online Ticket Service

We set up an online ticket purchasing process on Eventbrite. This was the link destination of all our social posts and its was where we would accumulate all our ticket sales from. Ticket Facilitation = ✔

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Online and Offline Promotion

Online and Offline Promotion. We choose Facebook and Twitter as our two social channels to produce content for. We compiled a small budget of our own money towards Facebook ads and post boosting. This allowed us to target a wide variety of our target market at once. Our offline promotion consisted of several in-class presentations to undergraduate classes mainly in the campuses of UCD and IADT Dun Laoighre. Appropriate Promotion = ✔

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Email Marketing

Students who purchased tickets through Eventbrite had to attach their email address which we then used as part of our email marketing campaign. We emailed all the relevant information surrounding the event. Several days before the event we emailed the all purchasers with a price promotion that they could bring a friend for half price, which had a great reaction. Correct use of Email Marketing = ✔

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DigiTalk App

I developed and designed and App for the event. As I am a digital marketing student, I wanted to use this event opportunity to put to practice a lot of what I am currently learning. I wanted us to treat DigiTalk as if it was our own start-up business and that's what we did. The event app which was called DigiTalk was designed as another point of information in conjunction with email and social. As Ireland has an increasing trend of mobile use I wanted us to become a part of that trend. We also used email in conjunction with social to communicate our downloadable App was available. Successful downloads of our DigiTalk app = ✔

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Sponsorship

With the nature of our event and given its student orientation, we felt that approaching student driven companies may entice sponsorship. I contacted JUST EAT and they agreed to send out some vouchers for the event and a 100Minds mentor from Innocent provided juice smoothies for all attending. Adequate Sponsorship = ✔

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Refreshments

We scheduled an interval at the midpoint of the event and felt we needed to provide suitable refreshments. We approached a cafe near the Qualtrics venue and booked a selection of Tea's and Coffees to be delivered and picked up after the event. This worked out very well. Refreshments = ✔

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Event Recording

We debated whether to get the event recorded professionally but opted against and recorded it ourselves. We did this for two reasons, firstly to be able to send it to all attendees days later when we thanked them for attending and secondly for our own records as this was an impressive event that we had organised. Successful Recording = ✔

Summary

The whole experience of DigiTalk was incredibly rewarding, personally. I got exposure to so many areas that I wouldn't have had I not participated. I had to liaise with extremely busy professionals in order to confirm them to speak. I set up my first ticket purchasing page on Eventbrite. I developed content for Facebook and Twitter page and kept it regularly updated. I created an App. I sought sponsorship. I contacted unknown lecturers to arrange an in-class presentation visit. All this replicated the demands of a start-up business and I would be lying if I said it wasn't an exciting process. It seemed that all the speed bumps happened with the other two fundraising events and DigiTalk could not have ran smoother. At times we found it difficult to complete tasks alongside a masters but it was most enjoyable to hear that attending student were delighted they came, that's all that mattered really and it was worth the sacrifices. 100Minds was an incredible journey that I would recommend to everyone to step out of their comfort zone, challenge yourself and grow as a person while doing it for a good cause.

Raise €1000 for ChildLine = Completed ✔ ✔ ✔