Once the event has occurred always take a bit of time to formally review it.  This not only relates to the actual day of the event but also the planning stages.  The is important because it helps you to identify what worked well and how to address any problems so they can be resolved the next time the event occurs.

Other issues to include as part of your review should be the budget and whether there were any variations.  As detailed in the previous post, the importance of knowing the basis for the calculation of any costs will make it easier to analyse why variations may have occurred.  Furthermore, this review should include other elements such as the suitability of the venue, catering, timing, location or any other aspects.  Also, depending on the type of event and who attended you could consider obtaining feedback from the people who attended.

In addition, do an assessment and review against the objectives you established for the event.  You may have set targets, for example, such as for attendees, donations, enrolments or new memberships.  Try to identify reasons why the target were not met or were exceeded.  These reasons not apply to the targets not being reached but targets could have been exceeded.  Again, knowing the reasons why means you can try to mitigate the adverse reasons and build on the positive reasons.

As noted in the first post of this series relating to event management, as a small not for profit organisation, running events is an important activity that you should consider undertaking throughout the year.  In addition to raising the profile, donations or awareness, events are also important as they can get the general public to actively participate and help your organisation grow and remain viable.