The fundraising program
Specialist · Fundraisers · 15 min
The ask, the paddle raise, live and silent auctions, and the entertainment that keeps donors in the room.
Read moreAcademy
Specialist · Fundraisers
Specialist track: The fundraising program; Sponsorship and table sales; Budgets and net proceeds; Auctions, raffles and Ontario lottery rules.
Specialist · Fundraisers is part of the free Event Planner Academy. It has 5 lessons, about 1.3 hours of study in total, and every lesson comes with a narrated video, a printable worksheet and a short quiz.
How to work through it
- Watch the narrated video at the top of each lesson, then read the lesson itself. The video covers the key points; the page has the tables, examples and checklists.
- Complete the worksheet for your own event, or for the running Harbour Gala example.
- Take the quiz and mark the lesson complete. Your progress is saved in this browser.
- Finish all twelve core modules and pass the final exam to print your free certificate.
Sponsorship and table sales
Specialist · Fundraisers · 15 min
Packages, pricing, the committee, and the 12-week sales calendar.
Read more
Budgets and net proceeds
Specialist · Fundraisers · 15 min
Cost per attendee, break-even, and reporting net to the board.
Read more
Auctions, raffles and Ontario lottery rules
Specialist · Fundraisers · 15 min
AGCO lottery licensing for raffles, auction logistics and payment collection.
Read more
Stewardship after the gala
Specialist · Fundraisers · 15 min
Thank-yous, impact reports, and next year's save-the-date.
Read moreWho this track is for
This specialist track is written for anyone responsible for an event whose purpose is to raise money: development staff at a charity, volunteer committee chairs, school and hospital foundation teams, and independent planners who take on galas for non-profit clients. It assumes you are comfortable with the basics of budgeting and vendor management from the core modules, and focuses on what is different when every decision is measured against net proceeds rather than guest satisfaction alone.
What you will be able to do
By the end of the five lessons you should be able to design a fundraising program with a clear ask, sell sponsorships and tables on a realistic calendar, build a budget that reports net to a board, run auctions and raffles within Ontario's lottery licensing rules, and close the year with stewardship that sets up the next event. The worksheets follow the same running gala example as the core modules, so you can see one event develop from program to thank-you letter.
How the lessons build
The order is deliberate. The fundraising program comes first because the ask shapes everything else, including where entertainment sits and how long dinner can run. Sponsorship and table sales follow, because revenue has to be committed long before the room is dressed. The budget lesson then ties costs to that revenue and introduces break-even. The lottery lesson covers the rules that most often catch volunteer committees out: raffles generally need a licence, issued by the municipality or the AGCO depending on the size of the prize, and the licence has to be in hand before tickets are sold. Stewardship closes the track, because donor retention is where most of next year's money comes from.
Time and connections
Allow about an hour and a quarter for the videos and reading, plus time for the worksheets. Many learners spread the track over a week. It pairs naturally with the marketing module for sponsorship packages and ticketing, and with the legal and permits module for Special Occasion Permits. For the event itself, the gala planning guide and the sponsorship deck template put the lessons into practice.