TAKE OUR ONLINE COURSE - STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO CONDUCTING A VIRTUAL GALA AT HOME

The Event Captain is the Captain of the Ship. This is the person on your team who is in charge of the Virtual Gala. Typically, this is the Executive Director, the Development Director, your Events person or an external Event Planner.

 The Host / Auctioneer is a critical role during your Virtual Gala. This person will be front-and-center and will have a huge impact on the opinion your guests have of the event. A great Host / Auctioneer will be engaging and professional, and will make your event go smoothly. 

 The Credible Leader is someone who is known to the audience, who has instant credibility and who will share the mission of the nonprofit during the Virtual Gala.

The Content Manager is the person who will run the Powerpoint presentations, play the videos, and typically will share the mobile bidding leaderboard screen. This person is the heartbeat of your virtual gala. This needs to be someone who is detailed oriented, organized, focused and calm under pressure.

 The Chat Promoter will make posts in the chat to welcome the guests, encourage the audience to participate, share critical information with the viewers and be the "voice" of the audience.  

 The Social Media Manager will monitor social media to try to capture examples of people using the event hashtag. He or she will also encourage viewers to take fun photos of themselves and email them directly to the Social Media Manager to get them shown on the air during the broadcast. 

You'll need to work with a mobile bidding company to handle bidding and donations for your event. The great news is that Mobile Bidding has been around for years, and most nonprofits were already using at their in-person events. Mobile bidding is tailor-made for a Virtual Gala. The company you hire will either assign a person (or more) to work with you on the night of the event, or they'll teach someone on your team to fill the role.

The person(s) in the Tech Support role should be familiar with Facebook, familiar with Zoom and comfortable answering and/or troubleshooting simple problems that people may bump into. They will not need to provide high level technical advice.