Partying to Change the World

Please excuse my hiatus. My six-week grant proposal writing class took a lot out of me. I never realized that grant proposal writing was so intense! Major props to you grant writers out there! However, I am so glad that I took the class because I learned a lot and also realized that I have a lot more to learn. Thanks to my friend Raysa for letting me hone my grant writing skills by using her work with Invisible Children as the topic of my proposal. Raysa is going to Uganda this summer to teach secondary school kids for the second year in a row and she needs to raise $4,000 to cover airfare and program fees. Let me know if you are interested in supporting her! For more information, check out this link.

Thanks to my amazing friend, Steph, for bringing this article to my attention. Nicholas Kristoff, who I am growing to love, wrote an awesome Op-Ed on making a difference in the world by throwing parties! I got so excited when I saw this. He basically proves my point that when we get together socially, we have the power to make a difference and change the world. For a group of women entrepreneurs in Uganda, partying has made a difference. Last summer, Raysa brought back the beaded necklaces made from scrap paper that Mr. Kristoff refers to, and so I know first hand that they are pretty cool.

Partying to Change the World

Quick Update; Inviting Websites for Party Planners

It's been a busy December. I've been caught up in the typical holiday activities; throw into the mix work events plus my final presentation for class and now I have a cold. Those are the excuses behind my neglect of the blog.

This will be a quick update since I've been kind of drowsy with this cold.

A coworker brought to my attention an interesting article in the NY Times:
Inviting Websites for Party Planners
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/technology/personaltech/17basics.html?emc=eta1
It's a nice breakdown of the different online invitation tools out there. The article does complain about Evite a bit. I'm an Evite fan, except for the fact that invitees always seem to wait to see who else is attending before they respond, which isn't really an Evite flaw as much as a social networking flaw. Still, it's nice to know that there are other options out there.

Have fun at your holiday parties and keep in mind these tools for inviting folks!

Special Events in a Recession

New York Times had a great special section on giving yesterday. It can be accessed here: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/giving/index.html
There was an article that was especially interesting, "Galas Dispense With Some of the Froth": http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/giving/12BENEFIT.html?ref=giving
It highlighted how the Special Events industry has been reacting to the "Great Recession". As one event planner put it, it's forcing planners to become more creative because charities do not want it to look like they are spending all the money that they raised on the gala. Some interesting ways they are making events more economical include toning down the formality of the events to make them more casual, offering chicken instead of beef, and changing centerpieces to short stemmed flowers (which are cheaper) with more candles. The article goes into more specific examples.