Four Questions for Event Success
We are glad you have decided to host a Zero Tolerance event! That is the first step toward impacting the careers and futures of the women around you. In order to ensure the greatest success possible for your event, the event planner(s) should know the answers to the following four questions. Since success is defined differently for each event, considering these points should help you narrow your focus and plan accordingly.
1. Whom do you want in your audience?
Usually, our program audiences and sponsors have consisted of bar associations and law firms. You may wish to present the Zero Tolerance Program to your employees or students, in which case marketing should be much more straightforward and you will focus more on inclusion than “curating” your audience to contain more varied perspectives. You may also wish to focus your presentation by age group, legal practice area, or type of legal workplace (large firm, solo practitioner, in-house counsel), to name a few. The benefit of a more homogenous group is that you can customize your presentation to address the needs of that specific group. However, you’ll lose the more robust discussion that comes with diversity of thought. If you do wish to “curate” for diversity, meaning ensure that your attendees are well balanced by gender, race, sexual orientation, age, type of practice, et cetera, you will need to allocate more time, money, and energy to promoting your event to each type of attendee you wish to attract. It will also be imperative to keep intersectionality in mind. Do your attendees need a lower price point because many of them come from low-revenue practice areas? Would your event be more attractive if you provided a sign language interpreter or on-site childcare? Of course, your venue should always be accessible to people with mobility impairments.
2. What key takeaways do you want your attendees to learn?
If your goal is simply to make attendees aware of the challenges victims of sexual harassment – and their organizations - face, and how to overcome them, the standard presentation materials in our toolkit will accomplish that perfectly. But it is important to think about what beyond the basics you may hope your attendees learn. If, for example, your event is geared towards managing partners, it may be helpful to go deeper on creating a solid policy that gets buy-in from the other attorneys, or preparing the appropriate management response for various scenarios. Know on what topics you would like to dive deeper at the outset of event planning, so you can keep that in mind as you solicit speakers and tailor programming.
3. How large do you want your event to be?
Keep in mind that a larger event does not necessarily equal better, depending on your goals and resources. A ballroom full of 200 people may be an appropriate goal if you are interested in having your event covered in your local law journal, demonstrating that a significant population cares about ending sexual harassment in the legal profession and/or inspiring many people to join your organization. But to attain that number of attendees, it is important to have a high-profile speaker with a large audience draw. This means you must budget more for your speaker’s expenses & may need to plan your event much further in advance. You will also need a higher budget for the venue, materials, et cetera. On the other extreme, an in-depth round table of ten people is an appropriate choice if you desire to clarify why some perpetrators believe their behavior is welcome, debate new initiatives related to ending sexual harassment in your organization, and/or empower each person to share her own story and ask as many questions of the speaker as he or she would like. In this case, you can plan for a shorter time frame and smaller budget, but you must ensure that your speaker and staff are well-versed in small-group facilitation. Along the spectrum could be events targeting twenty to 100 people, all of which will have different planning needs.
4. How do you want your attendees to interact with you in the future?
Much meaningful work and learning can happen at a “one and done-"” event. This may even be ideal for your target audience, as lawyers, on the whole, tend to be extremely busy. But if you are hoping for further engagement post-event, this is helpful to know when designing the event. For example, using the Zero Tolerance Program as a launch for a monthly brunch providing a community to women who hope to attain partnership could be an extremely attractive selling point for these women, who often report feeling frustrated with a lack of resources on advancing to the next level. You may also want to list your upcoming relevant events at the end of the Zero Tolerance Program materials you hand out or ask attendees to “opt-in” to your newsletters or promotional emails as part of the registration process. If you do want to promote engagement, both among attendees and between your attendees and your organization, scheduling some time out from the presentation for them to network and make introductions will be great at facilitating this.
For further guidance on building the perfect event for your goals, please contact Madeline Amonick, Program Specialist for the Commission.