20th Annual Breakfast

EVENT OVERVIEW:

On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle hosted their 20th Annual Breakfast: ‘Era of Essential Service’! Due to restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the organization's first virtual iteration of their signature event.

The Annual Breakfast is a celebration of the essential programming and services ULMS provides to the community in the focus areas of health, housing, entrepreneurship, advocacy, education, and workforce development. The 2021 event included a special emphasis on the agency's immediate COVID-19 response as first-responders in the community.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Event Date: 11/30/2021
Total Guest Count: 262 virtual attendees
Total Event Sponsors: 23
Total Dollars Raised: $430k

MY ROLE:

For this event, I served as event lead. My direct responsibilities included the following:

Establish the event aesthetic, including the overall look and feel of the event (color scheme, font selections, backgrounds, and other key design elements).
Create all accompanying digital assets including the official invitation, sponsorship packet, live presentation slides, post-event survey, social media ads, & the official event landing webpage.
Create VIP gift boxes to mail out to special VIP guests and sponsor table captains.
Draft and send all event related communication to partners, sponsors, and community members including initial press release, invitations to returning/new potential event sponsors, sponsorship follow-ups, event updates, registration reminders, and post-event thank you correspondence.
Solicit and track event sponsorship commitments, invoices, payments, and guest registrations.
Learn and oversee the virtual event management software, OneCause.
Oversee the production of video assets created for the event, including storyboarding, filming coordination with honorees, final review, and approval.
Create and manage the official event run of show and detailed on-stage script.
Launch the live event using the OneCause platform on the day of the event and monitor virtual commentary to respond for engagement.

Official Invitation

Finalized invitations I created to establish the look and feel of the event. The first version of the invitation was used as a 'save the date'. The second version was used as the official invitation to promote the event.

Program Book

Here is the 43-page program book I created for the event. Each attendee received a digital copy to download before the event. The purpose of the program book was to highlight recently established essential programs and services the agency implemented to navigate emerging community needs caused by the pandemic.

View the Full Program Book

Sponsorship Packet

This is the document I created to solicit sponsorships for the event.

PRESENTATION SLIDES

Here are the images I created to uses as slides to accompany the run of show. These were added to the virtual event video and included on the OneCause platform as a reference for attendees.

EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE

Here are a few of the emails that I wrote, sent and followed up with throughout the planning process and after the conclusion of the live event. These emails included:

INVITE TO RETURNING SPONSORS: This was the first email I sent to solicit sponsorship from previous sponsors of the event. There was no annual breakfast in 2020, therefore the emphasis on these emails in 2021 was to encourage them to 'come back' and join us after not seeing one another in over a year.
INVITATION TEMPLATE FOR BOARD MEMBER USE: This was an email copy I wrote to assist board members with inviting their networks to join us and register for the virtual event.
INVITE TO NEW SPONSORS: This was a version of the invitation copy I wrote to returning sponsors, but with new sponsors as the audience instead.
DAY BEFORE REMINDER: This email was sent the day before the event to encourage and remind folks to register and tune in virtually.
VIRTUAL SURVEY: This email was sent during the pre-planning phase of the event to gauge what our audience did/did not like about virtual events. We ended up using the data collected from the survey to format and structure this event.
NEXT STEPS: This is an email I drafted to explain 'next steps' after sponsorship for the event was confirmed. I wrote 4 versions of this email (one for each sponsorship tier).