GET STARTED | Committee Recruitment

Putting together a successful committee requires finding the right chairs.

We suggest throwing a recruitment party.

Invite any and all people (the target is about 50 people to get the word out). About half will sign up for the committee. We have used this Paperless Post design to invite prospective members to kick-off parties. 

Sample invitation copy: We invite you to kick up your heels as we kick around some ideas for Wine Women & Shoes [your city and date] benefitting [your charity]. Bring  your [your city] sole sisters and wear your favorite shoes as we sip & share to make sure next year’s fundraiser is the BEST event yet! For more Clever Copy ideas, click here.

For a sample reply form, click here.

For a video to inspire the involvement of your guests, click here.

For photos of recruitment parties, click here.

For a Power Point Presentation to share, click here.

To view the Charity Reel, click here.

To download the Charity Reel, click here.

When you’ve got your group recruited:
Assign committee roles. Read the committee descriptions to see who might fit each role. People should take on committees for which they have a passion or talent—in other words, don’t assign an introvert to the PR committee. Keep in mind that all committees can have co-chairs. One person need not shoulder all the work.

Committee chairs must read and sign an agreement. Please click here.

For the Committee Descriptions Document, click here.

For a pdf of the Committee Organization Chart, click here.

The Honorary Committee:

The Honorary Committee is very different from the working committees. If you decide to have an Honorary Committee for your event, you will go about recruiting them separately from your working committees and probably earlier.

An Honorary Committee benefits the charity in a few key ways. First, you will invite 20-40 known charity donors, as high profile as possible, to contribute to the event in order to be part of the Honorary Committee, usually a $500-$1,500 donation. After you subtract the cost of their complimentary VIP tickets, you've potentially brought in $5,000 to $50,000 before the event has even started!

Second, invitations to potential Honorary Committee members could go to inactive charity donors, potentially reinvigorating their involvement in the charity. Since they will also receive one VIP ticket, it is very likely that they will promote the event and invite their friends to join them at the VIP level. This potential pendulum swing toward more VIP ticket sales can obviously increase revenue for the charity.

Third, these tastemaker Honorary Committee members will talk up your event within their own social networks, potentially increasing both buzz and ticket sales.

For a sample Honorary Chair recruitment letter, click here. Of course, every charity and Event Chair can customize their invite and decide what the Honorary Committee member donation should be, as well as the perks that go with it. A personal, handwritten note at the bottom of the letter is a nice touch that can be very effective.