Healthcare Event Planning: 5 Best Practices for Advocacy Events

With corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the rise, one of the ways your healthcare organization can spread the word and generate support is through CSR events—specifically advocacy events!

By partnering with local businesses and other for-profit enterprises looking to make an impact, you’re opening your organization to receiving support and much-needed funds.

Advocacy events are important for your healthcare organization because they help spread awareness of your mission and bring the community together. These events can also double as advertising, making them extremely valuable for your local business partner(s). 

In this article, we’ll cover 5 best practices for running a successful advocacy event for your healthcare organization. Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

1. Set clear goals for your advocacy events
2. Personalize all promotional communications
3. Center the attendee experience
4. Consider virtual or hybrid advocacy events
5. Measure the support generated

Healthcare Events and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Perfect Fit

Did you know that consumers are more likely to purchase goods and services from socially responsible companies? That’s why corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are often used to differentiate businesses from their competitors. 

These initiatives allow businesses to give back to the community, make a difference, and build a positive brand image that resonates with consumers. 

And what’s an initiative that most businesses can get behind? Healthcare. 

So whether your organization has been around for years or it’s just starting out, healthcare event planning can make a huge impact on your fundraising efforts. 

You never know until you ask. Plus, you might be surprised by just how many local businesses are eager to partner with your healthcare organization to create mutual benefit and impact. 

5 Tips for Planning Healthcare Advocacy Events

Convinced that CSR can help your healthcare organization broaden its reach? Here are 5 tips to keep in mind when planning your next advocacy event. 

1.   Set clear goals for your advocacy event

It’s common to set goals for fundraising events and to set additional goals if your event is focused on advocacy. 

Ask yourself the following questions to kickstart the process:

• How many conversions are we aiming for?
• Are we planning on funneling attendees toward becoming donors, volunteers, or both?
• How long do we want our new relationships to last?
• Will there be media coverage, and what do we hope to gain from it?

Consider these goals in the context of the type of event that you plan on hosting. A peer-to-peer event such as a swim-a-thon is suited to advocacy and fundraising, as supporters will share their fundraising pages, spreading awareness and bringing in donations. That means that advocacy goals for this type of event can be higher than those of, for example, a bake sale fundraiser.

You’ll want to communicate with your local business partner about their event goals so that you’re on the same page. 

2.   Personalize all promotional communications

You’ll want to help your local business partner promote your advocacy event by creating promotional communications they can use. These communications can go to their employees and customers, as well as to your organization’s members and their networks. 

You can personalize these messages by:

• Using the recipient’s preferred name. Some individuals want to be addressed by their first name or a nickname, whereas others will be more receptive if you use their title and last name, so make note of these preferences.
• Leveraging employee and customer interests. If your local business partner knows that some of their employees or customers would be particularly interested in an event, make sure to address that in your communications to them.
• Examining the recipient’s advocacy history. If your partner’s employees or customers have a history of volunteering, advocating in the community, donating to healthcare organizations, or attending healthcare fundraising events, they will be more receptive to attending advocacy events for your organization. 

You can make personalization easier by segmenting employees and customers into groups based on common interests and characteristics. This helps you send more targeted communications, resulting in a higher chance of success!

3.   Center the attendee experience

Although the event’s primary goal is to increase awareness of your cause, it’s still important to ensure attendees have a positive experience. Center the attendee experience by doing the following:

• Make registration easy. You’ll want to make event registration simple and convenient to encourage more people to attend. You can make the registration page mobile-friendly and have a simple ticket purchase system.
• Choose an event that supporters would enjoy. Consider both your supporters and your event partner’s employees, and decide on an event that both groups would be happy to attend. You can even survey supporters and employees to determine what events they’d enjoy.
• Keep presentations short and sweet. Presentations are often held at advocacy events to educate attendees on your cause and operations. However, these presentations can distract from the main activities of the event. Keep them concise so attendees can absorb the information and go back to enjoying the event.
• Pick interactive activities. Games, performances, virtual reality experiences, and other interactive activities keep attendees engaged throughout the event!

Remember that just because the event is meant to help your organization doesn’t mean the attendees your event partner brings can’t have a great time. Communicate with your event partner to brainstorm events that all attendees would enjoy and fit into their CSR initiatives.

4.   Consider virtual or hybrid healthcare events

Hybrid and virtual charity events are becoming more popular in today’s increasingly technology-focused world. These events have many benefits when compared to traditional in-person events, such as:

• No distance limitation. Since the event is virtual, supporters from all over the country or world can attend.
• Greater outreach. Because individuals from different locations can attend your virtual event, your local business partner will be able to reach a wider audience.
• Convenience. Supporters can attend your virtual event from their homes, making it a convenient option.

To ensure that attendees have a positive event experience, make sure to add interactive virtual activities, use music to set the mood, and interact with the attendees using the chat function. That way, you get all of the benefits of a hybrid or virtual advocacy event and the connection of an in-person event.

5. Measure support generated

After the event is over, help your local business partner out by measuring the support generated from their employees and customers. With this data, you can help them quantify their impact on your organization—and use this information to improve the future events you run together. 

Take a look at the following metrics:

• Newsletter sign-ups
• Volunteer registrations
• Donations

These metrics all represent some form of conversion from attendee to supporter. By watching these metrics, you’ll be able to assess how successful the event was in advocating for your cause and gaining supporters. You’ll also help your local business partner understand the impact they helped create, which they can use as part of their marketing materials!

Event software for healthcare makes it easy to measure success from pre- to post-event. 

Simplify the Complexity of Managing Your Meetings and Events with a Powerful Suite of Tools

While advocacy events can create a large impact for your healthcare organization, there’s no need to be stressed about making sure that the event runs perfectly. Simply implement the best practices above to make the most of your advocacy events, allowing you to foster a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with your local business partner!

Eager to streamline your healthcare event planning? Look no further than Attendease by Tripleseat. From small to large and complex events, it’s never been simpler to plan and manage all of your events in one flexible platform. Book a call today and discover how Attendease by Tripleseat helps you optimize your event management.

Simplify the Complexity of Managing Your Meetings and Events with a Powerful Suite of Tools

Make your attendees gather with ease. From small to large and complex events – plan and manage all of your events in one flexible platform – Attendease.