Another question that came up during my presentation at Craigslist boot camp was, "How do I find those event planning templates that you talk about during your 10 Nonprofit Operations Success Steps?" Well here they are...
Aspiration has become fairly well known in the nonprofit tech world for our unique event planning and facilitation methods. I think it helps that we have Allen Gunn a super and amazing facilitator leading our organization. (I'm not biased, really I'm not :) Anyway, we have created a set of event planning templates and materials so we can easily replicate our events. Nonprofits and Foundations even hire us to plan and facilitate events for them and its a lot of fun since we have streamlined the process.
Here are the materials we use.
1. Our event planning checklist/timeline template helps us step-by-step plan each event.
2. We also created a wiki which describes all aspects about planning a successful event.
3. Collaborative and participatory events are very important to us, so we have created a set of facilitator guidelines as well as participant guidelines to follow at the event.