Myth Busters
Are you unsure whether it’s time to hire a professional planner to help your event grow? Let’s take a moment and do a little “myth-busting”.
A few high fives are given at the City Year Ripples of Hope 2025 event held at the Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion. Photo by Danny Ngan
“We don’t need an outside event planner, we have a very creative committee working on the event!”
Gosh, we hate to be a wet blanket … but if volunteers are organizing the event and they make problematic, illogical or needlessly expensive choices along the way, they could be very easily be costing much more than you are saving. We’ve picked up the pieces after a committee has run an event into the ground (and burned themselves out in the process) FAR too many times!
Smart organizations keep their committees focused on building relationships and filling the room, while bringing in seasoned experts to pull the event together.
The Synchronicity team (from Left to Right: Event Producer Meera Bhardwaj, Owner Alex Martin and Production Specialist Dasha Denger) prepares everything before doors open at the City Year’s Ripples of Hope 2025 event. Giant letters onstage provided by Energia Events. Photo by Danny Ngan
“We don’t need an outside event planner, we have a really big staff!”
True story: several of our long-standing clients are organizations with 10+ fundraising professionals on staff … but when none of those people were specifically hired with event production as their area of expertise, Synchronicity is still vital to the process! In these cases, there’s one org staff person assigned as the “event coordinator” to help organize the internal workings between departments: communications, corporate partnerships, individual giving, office of the CEO, board members, and major donor team. In a large organization, the busy team has their hands completely full, and it’s a true blessing to have an expert partner pulling all the production elements together.
“This year is full of uncertainty, so we can’t bring in outside help. We need to run a tight ship. We’ll just produce the event ourselves!”
Yeah, the future is hard to predict. But one thing is certain: fostering burnout on your team is not worth the dollars you will save by skimping on event production support.
Synchronicity Event Producer Rocio Miranda working together with the First 5 Fundamentals team at the Inspire Breakfast “Origins” held at the Historic 1625 Tacoma Place. Photo by Merissa Humes
“We can’t afford an outside event planner, we’re just a small development shop!”
Here’s another true story: many of our clients have only one 1 or 2 FTEs devoted to development – and often that small crew is handling all of the organization’s communications as well. Our project management support allows your small team to cut out extraneous tasks, work smarter-not-harder, and stay laser-focused on developing all the vital relationships that will give your event impact for years after the event-night sequins are a distant memory. Don’t bury your staff team in event details when they could be engaging with your community, your partners and your donors!
“Our budget is shrinking, so there’s no way we can afford to add the cost of an event planner this year!”
At Synchronicity, we absolutely love the challenge of helping you shrink your budget. Finding sales tax advantages, invisible income streams, industry and planner discounts, and just plain old trimming and simplifying (without removing the soul and authenticity of your event) is where we thrive.
Head over to our contact page and let’s get started booking your event. We’re booking now for all of 2026, but some months are starting to fill up (we’re looking at you, May)!
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