Elk NetworkPutting on a Ladies Event with Style

Volunteer News | September 23, 2021

The Treasure Valley Chapter Committee in Boise, Idaho, knows how to pull out all the stops for an event. Wade Richards, Monica Reese, Marcene Taylor and Windy Richards rented 19 palm trees, ran a disco-themed live auction and served Cuban food at their “Havana Nights” themed Lady’s event. Attendees dressed to the nines. They sold their head table at next year’s event for a whopping $3,700, and even held a dessert auction where fancy desserts sold for upwards of $700 each.

How did they do it? They passed out 100 fliers advertising their event, focusing their flyers on police stations and fire houses because they’d received a lot of interest from people in those professions at an earlier event. They worked with local businesses to recieve donations and sponsorships. Their efforts paid off in spades. Last year’s event drew around 180 attendees and grossed $67,000. This year’s event drew just over 200 people and grossed $110,000, netting $60,000. Here are tips from committee member Windy Richards for any volunteers trying to put on one of these lady’s events:

  1. Make sure you have 3-5 extremely dedicated committee members who can push the event forward and work well together
  2. Work on your donations: create relationships with local businesses who will donate each year. We have five businesses who have donated every year and sponsor games at the event.
  3. Make sure to acknowledge the donors and volunteers during the event. Thank people for their support.
  4. Know your audience and make sure they remember your cause throughout the event: for our lady’s event, we know many of our guests are more interested in the conservation work that RMEF does rather than hunting. We have one of our committee members who has never picked up a rifle talk to the participants about why she gives. Members of our chapter volunteered both years for the Hiawatha wire pull project, and we publicize that as well.
  5. Fully utilize games and raffles. For example, to encourage people to play the games, we used BUGLE cards. Each of the five games is assigned a letter in the word “bugle.” During each game, the card with the letter used receives a stamp. If the participants play all five games, they get a stamp on each letter of their “BUGLE” card, and they are entered into a special drawing for a large-ticket item.