The new year calls for new ways to be involved in your funeral home’s community. By hosting community events, your funeral home can exceed your client families’ expectations and build connections with potential client families.

Whether you’ve hosted a few events before or you’re new to event planning, these planning tips will help you put on the perfect event.

Types of Events

When it comes to hosting events, there are several types to consider. Depending on your event planning experience, event goals, and target audience, some types may be better suited than others.

For example, these are a few different types to consider:

• Remembrance dinner, such as seasonal remembrance dinners
• Educational seminar, such as how to preplan a funeral
• Fundraising event, such as a community walk/run to raise funds for an important cause
• Volunteer event, such as volunteering at your local animal shelter
• Holiday remembrance program

Selecting the Date

Select the date for your event well ahead of time so you have time to plan it. And this way, guests are more likely to be free if they have some notice.

Some things to consider when selecting the date are:

• The type of event
• What date/time most people are available
• Any holidays or community events that may overlap with your event
• Availability of your venue/caterer/speakers
• Holidays or occasions that your event needs to be held around

Here’s a 2018 holiday calendar to reference when selecting your event date. But make sure to also check your community’s event calendars, including local school’s event calendars.

Don’t overwhelm your staff or yourself with too many events at once. For example, you can start by planning an educational seminar. Then, once you get more event planning experience, you can host seminars more frequently.

Creating a Schedule

You should delegate positions to your funeral home’s staff, such as an event project manager, marketer, treasurer, photographer, venue/speaker coordinator, and schedule planner. Or, consider hiring an event planning intern. Then, you have some extra help and your staff can focus on helping your families. Your intern also can promote your event and create a Facebook Event so your funeral home reaches a larger audience.

For example, here is a mock event schedule for an educational seminar about preplanning:

Date: Sunday, February 11th from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Schedule:

1 p.m. — welcome announcement, introduce your speaker

1:10 p.m. — speaker begins the first half of presentation

1:40 p.m. — short break

1:50 p.m. — speaker begins the second half of presentation

2:20 p.m. — open the floor for any questions

2:30 p.m. — closing message, invite people to stay after for additional questions

Interested in learning more about event planning? Download our free Event Planning eBook that includes step-by-step guides and checklists for planning your funeral home’s events.