Throughout this ongoing pandemic, we’ve all learned to adapt quickly to a new ways of living. During this time, we’ve pivoted the 10×10 model and evolved our traditional live events into digital and hybrid events to accommodate lockdowns and restrictions. It is up to you and your team to decide which format works best for you and your current conditions.

The general 10×10 model’s core goals are:

• each Project Committee member brings 10 people to an event
• event guests will hear pitches from one or three grassroots charities (depending upon your campaign concept)
• raise funds, awareness and volunteers for your chosen charities.

For live (in person) events:

• the Project Committee locks in a venue, canapes and beverages (ideally sponsored/free/low bono rate)
• each guest pays $100 ticket price and receives 2x$50 charity dollar bills upon arrival
• having heard the pitches, each guest nominates where to invest their money, most will purchase extra charity dollars and support them all!
• guests enjoy hospitality, networking, entertainment and the buzz of doing good
• you can also have additional fundraising activities such a raffle, or a live or silent auction

Digital events:

• the Project Committee creates a production that will include entertainment and engaging content (e.g. musicians, magicians, a live auction), all designed around the opportunity to engage with the charities
• the charities present their story to the audience, and you could even have a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the grassroots operations
• the running order emphasises the importance of donations, volunteering and any other means of support for the charities.

Hybrid events:

• pick and choose elements from the live and digital formats above
• this can mean a live event with a digital live stream, or a digital event where each committee member has 10 friends at their home to engage with the event (again, depending on your restrictions)
• for the house party option, each host invites 10 friends and these friends will still buy a ticket to attend and receive charity dollars as they would at a live event. The Project Committee organises hampers filled with (sponsored) canapes, beverages to be delivered to the homes of each host to be served at their event and the guests will join in the live streamed event together
• alternatively, having a live stream option to a live event allows a broader audience to participate – they can ask questions via the chat, bid on the auctions, make donations online etc.
• in both scenarios, the charities will still present their story to the audience
• guests enjoy hospitality, networking, entertainment and the buzz of doing good

Next up, your team should go through your goals and objectives:

1) Project Committee members are clear on their responsibility to each achieve 10 x guests who pledge/donate

2) One or three grassroots charities are chosen to pitch to the audience for funding and volunteering support. Consider the charities’ causes and their importance and relevance to the audience and committee members

3) The overall objective is to attract donations and/or sponsorships for all hard costs and deliver a net-zero cost. This should be the Project Committee’s priority to gain support (sponsors, pro bono, in-kind donors) for a venue, food, beverages, prizes (raffle and auctions), plus additional donor matching (corporate and trusts/foundations) and direct donations in support of the three charities.

Using these core goals, you can work together to identify your objectives, suggestions include:
– an event theme (if you have three charities, then this could be a common cause area to support)
– stretch financial targets
– volunteers
– communications
– engagement
– event attendance objectives: this might include physical and online guests; total funds raised
– tone of the event (e.g. impactful and serious vs. fun and feel good)
– number of communications/interactions from marketing
– the production/presentation features of the event.

Publish your agreed goals to your team communications to keep them top of mind.
If you come up with a great idea for how to present the team objectives and goals, please do let us know and we will create a template for future Project Committees.

One of the first tasks for the group is to organise and assign the various roles. Always remember HQ and your Head of City are here to support you!

These are the key roles and a guide to how many people can take on the role (this is flexible, often people combine and share roles):

1) Project Lead (1) – manage the team and execution of the overall campaign.
2) Charity Lead (1-2) – the team liaison with the beneficiary, manages the charity due diligence, video assets and engagement.
3) Event Lead (1-2) – Venue, Food + Beverage requirements (collaborating with the Sponsor Lead), talent management & on the night logistics.
4) Sponsorship Lead (2-3) – find supporters to contribute donations, matched funding and volunteer hours.
5) Volunteer Lead (1) – manage the strategy to attract vital volunteers to help the charity.
6) Marketing & Communications Leads (2-3) – manage marketing and comms strategies and ideas to promote your campaign.
7) Finance Lead (1)  – manage the reconciliation for the event and monitor costs and incoming donations/sponsorships.

The long form job descriptions are here.

How roles are chosen:

Committees may have more or less than 10 people, so the above is a guide for a team of 10 which can be adjusted accordingly. Roles are decided as a team. When deciding which role to take on, encourage your team to consider their own strengths and weaknesses in order to best contribute to the project, but as well as what they want to gain in terms of skills and experience. If there are too many people interested in the same role, the ultimate decision and role allocation is the responsibility of the Head of City and/or Project Lead.

Once the roles are decided:

• Post the roles in your group’s chosen chat forum (e.g. Google Drive, WhatsApp, Slack etc.)
• Request your team to read the their role’s Unit in the Playbook.
• If your team are sharing roles, ask them to get together to formulate their joint plan.
• Create a timeline and provide an overview of the team with deadlines and milestones.
• At each weekly meeting you should allow for 5-15 mins to discuss and update the team on each role and their current/upcoming tasks.
• Encourage your team to share their ideas and setbacks early so as a team you can achieve and overcome these together.
• If you get stuck, the Head of City and 10x10HQ are here to support you – we’re just an email or call away!

THE FUN PART: creating your project committee team video

Once you have your roles, please send them through to Verina, along with a profile pic and short blurb for each member as to WHY they’ve chosen to take part in a 10×10 project. This is a great piece for your whole team to use on socials to promote what a great thing you’re all doing and to encourage motivation and spread the word to your network. Here are some example videos from previous committees:

Project Committee Volunteer Agreement

Once the roles have been assigned, it is important to discuss with your team that by becoming a 10×10 Volunteer, they agree to a basic code of conduct, are respectful and professional, and are making a commitment to collaborate for optimal outcomes for your event. We ask that all team members please complete this form.

Project Lead & Key Persons

Throughout the campaign you will receive reports and information that includes personal, financial and other information about our donors, attendees, guests, sponsors and supporters. This will include (but not be limited to) donor, registration and other reports spreadsheets and reports containing names and corresponding emails, phone, location and the donation amount – all sensitive data that we are obliged to manage with respect to Privacy Rules and Laws.

Please ensure that you (and anyone else who may need to access sensitive data, e.g. Finance Lead) read and understand the 10×10 Privacy Policy and, in recognition, sign a simple non-disclosure agreement that will ensure the safekeeping of the personal data of your campaign supporters.

When your Project Committee is established, get out the calendar and plot the timeline of activities included in an Operating Guideline. This will include:

1) The kick-off meeting: assignment of roles and responsibilities, set-up and sign-up to the Committee Facebook Group as the key communication and project management tool and briefing the charity nomination and selection process.
2) Regular fortnightly meetings for event planning and management.
3) Charity Selection deadlines.
4) Event Page submission deadlines.
5) Volunteer campaign deadlines.
6) Marketing and communications plans.
7) Weekly meetings in final stages of preparation.
8) Wrap up meeting and post-event processes.

Access and customise the 16 week timeline template here and the shorter 10 week timeline template here.

TIP: Be ready to alter your timeline REGULARLY – one thing is certain in the business of events, being that nothing is certain. Be fluid and adapt to the changing conditions – sometimes things happen fast, oftentimes it all comes together JUST IN TIME. Keep the faith and keep in touch with 10x10HQ if you are feeling stressed by stretching deadlines and milestones.

Aligning 10×10 Philanthropy with grassroots charitable organisations, speakers and Ambassadors is an important part of our work towards the 10×10 mission. Meanwhile, the integrity of the partners who will be part of your 10×10 campaign is very important to our brand and risk mitigation. As such an important process, it is the responsibility of the Project Lead to run Due Diligence on any profiled participant and/or partner, including speakers (MC or other), Shark/Dragon, Ambassador and, most importantly, your Charity Partners, with the support of the Lead specialising in that project area.

The Due Diligence processes follow on from the initial event planning and Charity Research undertaken prior to confirming the selected Partner Charity. This process ensures the charities put forward have solid foundations and good prospects to be sustainable and that no alignments present financial, reputational, or other risks to 10×10 or the community. The Due Diligence process will dig deeper into some of the initial criteria required in the Charity Research as well as assessing some new areas.

To commence, make contact with the chosen charity and provide an Overview of the 10×10 organisation, some examples of campaign outcomes (in your own and other cities) and the various commitments entailed. Explain that the final step prior to gaining an agreement and launching the initiative to raise funds, awareness and volunteers, is to participate in a relatively simple Due Diligence. Arrange time to perform the stages of Due Diligence as follows:

A. Overview of Charity Due Diligence

Click here to download the Due Diligence Guide.

The Charity Due Diligence works in three parts, an interview with scorecard, questionnaire and basic Google search to assess the organisation in the following key areas:

1. Leadership
2. Strategy
3. Financials
4. Measurement and Impact
5. Leverage
6. Brand and Reputation

To get started, make contact with the Charity, provide them with an Overview of 10×10, emphasising the volunteer nature of your team and advise them of their selection as a preferred partner/beneficiary of your campaign. Provide an overview of the Due Diligence process in two parts, a short interview and a questionnaire.

Part One – Interview & Scorecard

You will conduct an interview based upon a list of questions (following) and allocate a score for the key areas and responses. It is important that this scorecard is managed confidentially, for sharing only with 10x10HQ and, where necessary, with the Project Committee. Your responsibility is to score the organisations objectively.

There are no right or wrong answers in this process, and it is important to be considerate of the level of organizational maturity, particularly as we often support start-up NFPs. While the organisation’s inability to adequately answer key questions is a ‘red flag’, this might be explainable. Your objectivity will be as important as your perception and the scoring system is designed to capture both, with the mechanism for allocating scores as follows:

1 – No response or no understanding or evidence to support the metric
2 – Some understanding of metric demonstrated but no evidence available
3 – Satisfactory understanding of metric with some evidence
4 – Quite a good understanding of metric and good evidence available
5 – Great response!

TIP: Pay careful attention to the communication skills of the charity spokesperson/spokespeople – while coaching can be supplied, core presenting skills are necessary to achieve a good outcome from the campaign. Not only will poor presenting cost the charity in funding if they struggle to communicate at the event, guests will not enjoy presenters who aren’t knowledgeable, confident, emotive and impassioned – the overall success of the event relies on good charity communications.

Part Two – Information Request Form

Charity questionnaire –provide a link to the Charity Questionnaire Google Form and request the submission as soon as possible.
TIP: Give the charity a short deadline (7 days max) to get the questionnaire completed – small charities are often busy doing important work delivering community programs and will only respond on deadline.

Part Three – Brand and Reputation

Check the reputation of the Charity to ensure that the charity has a strong and positive reputation. Perform a Google search and check news and public reports. Go at least three pages deep into the search and carefully look for any negative reports to be followed up and cross checked (the charity may be able to explain). Include the Charity key people in your search and pay particular attention to any information on personal, financial and ethical integrity. Capture any links that may be questionable and revert to 10x10HQ with any concerns.

If you are in doubt about a charity qualification, please don’t hesitate to discuss with your Head of City or 10x10HQ. If the prioritised charities clearly do not pass the due diligence process, then notify the Project Committee and proceed to the next charity recorded in the group vote.

B. Overview of the Speaker, Dragon/Shark, Ambassador Due Diligence

The Due Diligence for the Speaker, Dragon/Shark, and Ambassador is designed to check the fit with the 10×10 mission and ethos, also ability to effectively support your campaign. Repeat Part Three of the Charity DD as above and allocate your scores as a cross reference in the last section of the following table.

Upon the successful completion of DD, inform the Charity of next-steps, as the Project Committee formally approve the beneficiary Charity and the handover of the relationship to the Charity Lead to proceed with the Charity Agreement, planning and activation!

Click here to download the Due Diligence Guide.

There will be some necessary admin throughout the campaign and Benita will be in touch regularly with reminders and deadlines, such as:

• Coordinating the submission of content from various stakeholders to 10×10.
• DUE DILIGENCE on the Charity and the Ambassador (following in Unit 1.9).
• Final sign off on the Landing Page and Donation Page.

Plus:

• Ensuring that all Project Committee members add their contact information to the Contact Sheet – save a copy of this form and use it to keep record of all additional contacts that might be useful to the team (sponsors, Charity contacts etc etc) and for diligent record keeping
• Request that all new Project Committee members are subscribed to 10x10HQ for email communications by visiting 10×10’s homepage
• Perform progress checks to share with the Project Committee and 10x10HQ.
• Event reconciliation: work with 10x10HQ on reconciling the campaign after completion to make payment to the beneficiary charity within seven days of the campaign close.

Measuring our impact is almost as important as the campaign itself. 10×10’s (soon to be confirmed) vision to help all emerging grassroots organisations to solve the most difficult and important problems in our regional communities can be achieved as we pursue our mission of empowering the next generation of giving. We need to continually measure, evaluate and report the work of our global network of volunteers to inform future strategy, report to key operational supporters and celebrate together as we achieve great results.

Therefore, the final step in your role as Project Lead is to:

1. Send photos and other records of your team and event to 10x10HQ.
2. Write a report (or ask your comms people to) and submit to your Head of City for their inclusion in their annual report.
3. Complete the Project Evaluation – it’s not ready yet, stay tuned because we’re working on it…