CNOY Essentials: Gather Your Team

Picture this: you’re at your first CNOY Lead Team meeting, and there’s a list of tasks that need doing. Which of these makes you shoot your hand high and say “pick me, pick me”?

• Taking notes and sending meeting follow-ups to the team
• Creating a Team Captain Prospect list to draw on your community connections
• Encouraging your team members by sending them personal notes reminding them of the importance of their roles
• Planning out the campaign’s maps, permits, and insurance needs
• Taking a look at last year’s results to project potential outcomes for 2025

All of these are important tasks with meaningful payoffs for your campaign, and while some take precedence at various points in your CNOY journey, none is exponentially more important than the rest. In fact, you need people who can fill all of these shoes on your team.

Based on your choice above, here’s your extremely-scientifically-measured Lead Team type:

• The Organizer shows up on time, does what they say and always (always) finishes what they started. 
• The Networker shows up with a miles-long list of people and businesses who they know personally. 
• The Cheerleader shows up with every ounce of their enthusiastic being. 
• The Risk Manager shows up with a thoughtful, critical eye on plans, strategy and risk management. 
• The Number Cruncher shows up with Excel loaded up and a great handle of stats and projections. 

Other types include the The Do-It-Your-Selfer, Collaborator, and always-on Promoter. The point is, great teams are almost always made up of different types of people with their own unique personalities. A P2P fundraising event team will likely require team members who, collectively, have all of these skills and abilities. As Event Director your goal in this first week of your campaign is to strategically assemble the best possible team. 

So without further ado, here’s what you need to do:

Gather Your Team

Do it soon. Ask staff, high-capacity volunteers, Board Members, or former event participants. Invite people with different gifts, skills, and backgrounds. People love to be needed, so don’t hesitate.

Once they agree, set a weekly or bi-weekly meeting schedule to gather (or zoom), plan, and execute your recruitment and fundraising plan. The more often you meet and the more accountable you are to each other and to your plan, the more successful you’ll be.

Make a Plan

The best part about a great CNOY plan? The fact that you don’t have to create it all from scratch. Our CNOY Guide (in WAVES) takes you through the planning process, step by chilly step. As regards your Lead Team – here are four planning tips to guide your way:

1. Set your fundraising goal using expected number of team captains as your guide—for every 10 teams you expect to recruit, add $15,000, and always set your public goal 15-20% less than your private goal. 
2. Prioritize team captain and sponsorship recruitment in every meeting. Tackle these tasks first before anything else.
3. Have everyone on your team responsible for asking 2-3 prospects. Own the recruitment responsibility together. 
4. Make sure your meetings are fun so that, you know, people actually come to them. You’ll need to pull hard together from November through February, so make it a fun and exciting experience for your team members, not a never-ending grind.
   
   

Key Takeaway

Don’t try to do this alone. Gather a team around you, make a plan, meet regularly and have everyone on your team contribute in the recruiting of your team captains and sponsors.