Fashion Show Fundraising: Ensure Success With Strategic Event Planning
Many event planners are approached by clients to assist with developing and executing fundraising events throughout the year. Fundraising is more than just a way to raise money; it’s also a critical piece of how to promote the charity, its message, and its goals. People all across the world fundraise for a variety of different reasons, but in the end, the best fundraisers bring people together. When planning a fundraiser, it’s important to decide how to spend your money. This often includes hiring an event professional to ensure a successful event.
In recent months, Wired Production Group has been invited to be a part of multiple fundraising events across the Midwest. Two recent fundraisers have been fundraising fashion shows. After more than 20 years in the event production business, it’s safe to say that fashion show fundraisers are one of the most fun and engaging ways to raise funds for your cause. It can be sized for any charity, and it is natural to make a fashion show fundraiser an annual event.
What to Consider When Planning a Fashion Show Fundraiser
Planning a fashion show fundraiser isn’t something that can be thrown together in just a few weeks. Event planners take months to research, strategize, and execute the plans to develop the most successful fashion show fundraisers for their clients. Here are a few things that event planners consider from day one of the planning stage:
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- – Theme: Choose a theme that best sets the tone for your event and highlights your cause. The more creative, the better!
- – Location: For the best fashion show fundraiser, you want to choose a location that will accommodate your stage, your catwalk, your dressing area, and your audience. Consider a local hotel, theatre, or auditorium that will have the natural space you need. If nothing is available to you, there may be other options to develop a makeshift stage design at your chosen venue.
- – Sponsors: If you are concerned about up-front costs, event planners can help you develop a sponsorship campaign to allow businesses to donate to the event and underwrite the expenses. If you are offering a variety of levels for sponsors to be included, this also encourages more people, businesses, and organizations within the sponsor’s network to get involved in your event.
- – Tickets: Ticket sales are where the majority of your funds will come from. With your demographic in mind, it’s important to price the tickets to be sold at a reasonable price that will enable as many people as possible to attend and still earn you the most money.
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- – Clothing: Depending on your theme, your styled clothing in the fashion show fundraiser will be the most talked about part of the event. Consider working with local clothing stores or fashion designers. Find a style that will reflect your message and your mission to get the audience excited about what they are seeing on stage.
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- – Models: Let’s face it: professional models are expensive. This is an opportunity to involve your community. By including volunteers, friends, and families into the fashion show as models, it brings more emotion into what you are actually raising money for and encourages others to believe in your fundraising cause.
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- – Entertainment: There is a wide variety of entertainment options to incorporate into your fashion show fundraiser. Event planners can help negotiate live entertainers, such as musicians, speakers, or dancers. You can also work within your organization to develop a raffle, silent auction, or a live auction. Depending on the size of the audience you expect in attendance, you will want to choose the best entertainment for your event.
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- – Advertising: From word-of-mouth to social media advertising to printing flyers to creating a video for your local television station, your advertising options are endless…but your budget is not. Event planners have a lot of experience with developing the right advertising campaigns for their events. Once you consider all of the factors (including budget!), there may be preferred advertising options for your fashion show fundraiser.
Fashion Show Fundraisers in the Midwest
Client: ChildServe Bubble Ball with InnovativEvents
In collaboration with event planner Tracy Fuller of InnovativEvents, our creative production team coordinated the staging, lighting, and AV design based on the themed fashion runway show. Since the inception of the Bubble Ball in 2011, more than 100 design professionals come together every year to produce this unique event that raises money for ChildServe. ChildServe is a statewide program that works to improve the health and well-being of children with special healthcare needs. With the funds raised by Bubble Ball, ChildServe is able to provide services and special healthcare facilities to more than 4,000 Iowa families each year.
Client: House of DSM Fashion Show of Support for Dorothy’s House
Wired Production Group has been proud to provide event and video production services for the House of DSM Fashion Show of Support for Dorothy’s House in Des Moines, Iowa in recent years. This one night of fashion celebrates Iowa’s top models wearing apparel from boutiques across the state and emerging fashion designers and bring everyone together with an entertainment you will not forget. All proceeds from the fashion show production benefit Dorothy’s House, which is a safe place for the practice of life for teen survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation. House of DSM is dedicated to educating the community about human sex trafficking and sincerely appreciates community support of this annual event.
If you are looking to explore the opportunity to develop a fashion show fundraiser for your organization, we know just who to call. Contact our event production professionals today to start planning your event today!