Building Community through Participation: Events & Activities

Description

Don't let social distancing stop organizing! From the very basics of creating a meeting activity through the intricacies of organizing a team to do phone outreach and generating reports of attendance, Building Community through Participation will cover everything you need to know about event organizing. The course combines the technical with political analysis, facilitation tips and discussion around building an inclusive and respectful meeting culture both online and in-person.

Agenda

Training materials, including login information on the training database will be sent to everyone who is registered.

Day 1: Activities!

12:00 pm Central Time (approximately 120 minutes)

• Community Agreements and Introductions - A
• Orientation - N
  • Review agenda
  • Introduce network site and training site
• Logging in and getting around: Hand out usernames and passwords - J
• Why use events when you can use activities? - J
  • Demonstrate creating a "Meeting" activity with multiple contacts and a date - screen cast
  • How do you find people who have a meeting activity?
  • For simple meetings, use this approach!
  • But wait, there are some problems:
    • Can't search by event name - you have to search by date only (or depend on activity subject)
    • You want to charge for the ticket
    • You want people to register themselves for the event
    • You want to track who attended the event, who registered but did not how and who cancelled (could use event status but gets tricky)
• Introduce assignment: For tomorrow, you will setup your own event and register people for your event. Users with numbers between 1 and 10: setup an event of the type Workshop, 11 - 20 setup a Direct Action. - N
• Demo how to setup an event - N: screen cast
  • Online registration
  • Default profile only
  • Multiple registrations
  • How to find the registration link
  • (We will cover fees, scheduled reminders, editing profiles later)
  • Screen casts
    • How to Create a basic online registration - screen cast
    • How to get the online registration link and testing live event registration - screen cast
    • How to set up an online event to take multiple registrations - screen cast
• Demo: how to register for event: - N
  • Register for for event anonymously to test event and get event registration link - screen cast
  • Registering when logged in to manually add participants - screen cast
• Practice time

Homework:

• Create an event in the training database and register some people for your event. Users with numbers between 1 and 10: setup an event of the type Workshop, 11 - 20 setup a Direct Action. Make your event page beautiful!

Day 2: Tracking event registration, attendance and engagement

12:00 pm Central Time (approximately 120 minutes)

• Quick Check in; Review previous assignment, show and tell events created - 2-3 volunteers - N
• Tracking registrations: - A
  • Create a registration report: include basics of report creation (columns, filters, saving) - screen cast
  • Make it a dashlet and add a menu item - (report being its own menu item on create report) - screen cast
• Taking attendance: multiple methods - A
  • Tracking attendance after event is over by updating the Participant's Status: Search for participants in an event and then: Actions -> Update status - screen cast
  • Manually take attendance during the event (also helpful for offline events) - using "Event -> Register Event Participant" screen cast
    • taking attendance from a group or selected contacts using "Advanced Search -> use search criteria to find your group of contacts -> click Actions drop down menu -> Register Participants for Event" screen cast
  • CiviMobile - take attendance during an event on mobile device - screen cast
  • Using QR Codes to take attendance - tip sheet
  • Other Resources for alternative methods to track attendance:
    • Alternative to Paper Sign-in Sheets via Webform - screen cast
      • Tip sheet on webforms
    • Importing sign-in spreadsheets for an event - screen cast
• Practice Taking attendance and/or tracking registrations on own event - A
• Putting it all together for engagement: - J
  • Find everyone who has attended an event in the last year - screen cast
    • Enter in Chat: How many people have either registered or attended in the last year?
    • Enter in Chat: How many people have attended an event in the last 90 days?
  • Search for everyone who has attended more than 2 events in the last year (Event count) - screen cast
    • Enter in Chat: How many people have attended more than two events in the last 12 months?
    • Enter in Chat: Has anyone attended 2 or more events of the type Direct Action?
  • Better option: Do both searches via searchkit - screen cast
  • Create a report that shows attendance by event - screen cast
  • Why event types are useful and configuring Summary Fields to make track engagement - screen cast
• Introduce next assignment: Create a new event for a workshop that you will charge for, including a discount on early registration. - A
• Demonstration of event fees: -
  • Simple method: use whenever possible! - A
    • Built-in price options - screen cast
    • Early registration or "early bird" discount using the built in early registration discount set - screen cast

Homework

• Create a new event for a workshop that you will charge for, including a discount on early registration.

Day 3: Re-imagining our meetings

12:00 pm Central Time (approximately 120 minutes)

• Review questions from homework or from yesterday, show and tell a couple of examples - A
• Profiles - N
  • Need more info from participants? Let's talk about profiles! - screen cast
  • Tip sheet on working with profiles
• Practice time with Profiles - N
  • Add a CUSTOM FIELD to the field set called DAY 3 CUSTOM FIELD PRACTICE TIME
    • Hint: ADMINISTER > CUSTOMIZE DATA AND SCREENS > CUSTOM FIELDS > Day 3 Custom Field Practice Time > Add new field
    • Use your name in your custom field name so you can find it again
  • Add your new custom field to a new PROFILE
    • Hint: ADMINISTER > CUSTOMIZE DATA AND SCREENS > PROFILES > ADD PROFILE
  • Add your new PROFILE to your Event (in the ONLINE REGISTRATION section)
• Event Fees - Complex method: use when you need it! - J
  • But... What if your event has multiple paid parts - for example, a fee for optional dinner? What if you want to offer folks the chance to make an optional donation in addition to the registration fee? What if you want folks to buy more than one ticket? See tip sheet on sponsorships and tables
  • Pricesets to the rescue! - screen cast
• A few more helpful features with Events: - N
  • Don't forget! Scheduled Reminders - screen cast
  • Not again! Event templates vs. copying existing events - screen cast
  • Yet here we go again! Recurring Events - screen cast
• Event Turnout: how to assign phone calls to your staff and track who says they will come - screen cast - J
• Evaluations - N
• Practice: Choose your own adventure! - A
  • Scenario 1: Create an event with price sets that require one of four different entry prices along with one of two main dish prices that are optional.
  • Scenario 2: Create a price set with four different entry prices plus an optional donation
  • Scenario 3: Via the backend, register three people for the event. Then, find them and update their status from registered to attended.
  • Scenario 4: Assign a meeting activity to multiple people in the database.
• Wrap-up and Final Questions - A

Additional Resources

• Read Evelyn Arrellano of Aspiration Tech's "Power Dynamics and Inclusion in Virtual Meeting"