Over the past two decades of operating a non-profit environmental organization in Northern California, co-founders Pamela Posey and Allen Harthorn encountered a common problem among their board members each spring: the quality of planning and promoting of the annual fundraising event, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival.

Some years, the film festival would be a mega-hit: sold out tickets, an awesome auction, and local sponsors to foot the bill for venue, food and beverage. The event planners--consisting of the co-founders, Board of Directors, and volunteers--would cheers to a job well done. Other years: a trickle of tickets, poor publicity and key planning responsibilities fallen through the cracks. The planners would grimace, point fingers, quit, and a low morale would ensue.

And, the stakes couldn't be higher: the film festival is the main breadwinner for the organization's budget for the following year. In order for this non-profit to continue its environmental services to the community, a much more organized and systematic process had to be created for its event planners.

I ANALYZED the gaps as follows:

1. The organization is hoping to grow and potentially double in size within the next year, as a series of new and exciting environmental service opportunities have presented themselves.

2. The organization's annual film festival serves several functions: to raise community awareness of its mission, recruit new members, and raise funds via ticket sales, and both individual donations and corporate sponsorships.

3. Without meeting fundraising goals via the annual film festival, the organization cannot take advantage of upcoming, new service opportunities.

4. The organization does not currently have any formal instructional training system in place to ensure that new and returning members of the Board of Directors, partners, and volunteers become knowledgeable of best methods when planning a fundraising event. Typically, new members to the organization are offered some informal training on site by older members offering impromptu responses to questions and concerns. The founders have identified this manner of instruction as being ineffective for the current and future needs of their organization.

5. There are currently no formal instructional training systems or materials in place to meet any of the goals described above. Therefore, the need exists to create new instructional materials for new and returning members of the Board of Directors, partners, and volunteers on an as-needed basis.

Thus, I DESIGNED a consecutive series of LEARNING OBJECTIVES to meet the instructional NEEDS by DEVELOPING an eLearning course consisting of five sections, plus an introduction and a conclusion, with accompanying Job Aids for reference:

Section 1

• • Define the purpose of the event and desired outcome.

  • Develop event goals using S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely.

Section 2

• • Organize a team of volunteers.

  • Find coalition partners or sponsors who share a similar mission.

  • Find a suitable place, time, and date for the event to take place.

Section 3

• • Brand and market the event using local media, social media, email blasts and word of mouth.

Section 4

• • Plan the logistics and flow of the event by distributing responsibilities among volunteers.

  • Establish a budget of expected costs.

Section 5

• • Follow up with participants and record attendance.

  • Evaluate if you met the goals of the event.

The training solution was IMPLEMENTED over several years, and I EVALUATED the rate of success with the organization's co-founders. As of today [{{INSERT TESTIMONIALS HERE]}]

5. Created a prototype for the eLearning course: slide layouts, visual design elements, interactions, illustrations, colors and fonts.

7. Lastly, a Job Aid was designed and developed in Canva and exported as a PDF for the learners to use as a reference after the course.

CLICK IMAGES TO EXPLORE JOB AIDS

Not featured: Section 5