If your chapter/region is planning on hosting a virtual event, here are a few things to consider before planning:

Before you approach the Event committee

1. Plan with ALL chapters in your region and decide: approach the Event Chair Mr. Prakash Shah for approval of the artist and tentative date

2. Who do you want to host? (artist/singer/dancer,etc)

3. Key point of contacts for the region (you will need ONE person for the following):

   1. 1. Overall team lead:

         • This person will facilitate and keep the timeline for all deliverable from all team leads and communicate with Event team Leads.

      2. IT team lead:

         • This person will work with Ekal IT Lead (Viral & Co) & Netlink to set up the dashboard, flyer and all other IT related items for and during the event. IT-Lead will communicate with Artist to ensure all IT related issues are resolved and ready for the virtual event.

         • This person will work with Ekal IT-Lead and Artist for dry-run, sound, etc.

      3. Point person for the artist:

         • This person will communicate with Artist for the program, selection of theme, timing and online communication during the live program for donation announcements, one liners and resolving any issues during the event.

         • This is a very important position and requires some IT skills. He will have 2 to 3 backup (youngsters) who can see the Live updates and issues on YouTube and site and feed the information to point person for the artist. Only designated point person can communicate with Artist during the program.

         • We will setup a video conference with the point person of a recently held program to fully understand the roles and responsibilities of point person. He may need an assistant with him to provide additional help as needed.

         • Additionally, we will need 3 to 5 people answering phone calls who may call for IT help, how to donate and other issues. We will need a separate contact phone number for each person. Last program had lots of difficulties answering the phone as only one Ekal office contact phone was given and Rashmi, our Event Coordinator, could not handle all calls.

      4. Point person for marketing:

         • This person will be responsible for marketing which includes advertising through Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and all other means that we know.

         • We want to be sure that maximum numbers of people click and see the program. The numbers are increasing with each Ekal show!

         • Ekal has hired a person (Gauri) from India for marketing to help with social media advertisement.

      5. Point person for donor outreach:

         • The point person will be responsible for contacting all donors by phone to tell them about the program, it’s FREE and donate.

         • A complete list of all donors for the last 3 years has been sent to each Chapter President with phone numbers.

         • The point person will divide the list into batches of 50 each and assign one person each to call donors. This should be done in one week.

         • The Point person will keep the score on daily basis for % completion and donation/pledge received. The donation received before the program will be uploaded on dashboard the morning on the program day.

4. From the concept to actual event can take weeks, (unless you are planning with already invited artist for Ekal virtual event), so plan accordingly

5. It is a time consuming work, so the region will need volunteer support for majority of the work and Event team can guide them

Actual planning and steps involved

1. Once your event is approved and finalized, Event chair will appoint ONE member from the event team to be your lead for this event

2. It is IMPORTANT to include this person for ALL event related chatter in the region

3. Event team will help with the setup of digital marketing: This will include your IT team lead along with the Event IT supporter, they are in charge of setting up the Dashboard, template flyer, promo video, FB and other social marketing. Two weeks prior to the event this team will be involved in DAILY conference calls, may need multiple dry runs with the artists (that may occur at early/late hours depending on the time zone so a person with flexible work hours is best)

4. For some of the items listed in #3, the point person (s) from the sound and marketing team will also be involved.

5. Marketing of the event will be aided by the Event team but the region is responsible for propagation of their own event on all social media handles as well

6. Due to the nature of virtual events, DIGITAL marketing is non-negotiable!

7. ALL regional and chapter volunteers need to work during this time to reach out to the donors, promote the event and actively participate in raising funds. (Just hosting the virtual event is NOT enough, the groundwork must still continue!)

8. RP will need to coordinate with the Houston office/Pooja to get accurate funds collected prior to the dashboard set-up

9. Info on the dashboard will NOT reflect donations received prior to the dashboard setup date, there is no way for India/USA tech team to do that, therefore, it will show as the Central region collected $2000 so far as an amount, no names! after the dashboard is setup, it will show Mr. Xyz donated... even if it is $1.00

There is an intranet link to the event page that has dos/don'ts, general guidelines for virtual viewing, IT support number etc, once we set up your dashboard, we will help you with all these resources.

For further questions, please feel free to reach out to the Event Committee at any time. We wish you all the success with your event and hope to help you in any ways we can.

Sincerely,
Ekal Event Committee