By Steve Adubato, PhD

I recently attended a gala in New York for a worthy charity with nearly 500 people in attendance. A lot of money was raised, but the event itself dragged on and missed the mark by a mile. Don’t kid yourself. How you run an event communicates volumes. It impacts on the willingness of supporters to stay on board in the future.

When it comes to business relationships; “It’s all about communication.” Or, as my former communications professor at Rutgers told me years ago; “Steve, you can’t not communicate.” Excuse the double negative, but it is still a powerful message. Events and fundraisers do communicate all kinds of messages.

Consider the following communication mistakes made during the above-mentioned event.

• The program was way too long with too many awards being given out and too many people introducing the award-recipients. The maximum number of awards that should be given out at an event is four. Beyond that it becomes tedious. As for introductions, you have to question the logic of having a speaker introduce an award recipient by simply reading his or her lengthy biography. (The same one you can read in the event’s printed program.)

• An inexperienced or less-than-professional emcee who didn’t know how to move things along. The emcee at this event was often confused and out of sync. He mispronounced people’s names and made “jokes” that were often inappropriate and not in sync with the audience.

• A 15-minute video that told a detailed story about the sponsoring organization. Videos should be three to five minutes. Many of the points made in the video were made by the organization’s CEO as well as many other speakers. It was redundant.

• Event lighting matters. Several speakers at this gala got up and commented that they “couldn’t see the audience” because the “lights were in their eyes.” When a speaker can’t see the audience or is distracted by the lighting, it makes it hard to connect on a personal level. Check the lighting BEFORE an event.

• No speaker time limits. Some of the award-recipients went on for 10 minutes or more. Event planners should make it very clear that each speaker will have no more than three minutes to give their remarks. It is the reason the Academy Awards start playing music after the first minute or so of an acceptance speech. Thanking people is fine, but the event is also for the audience who grows tired of hearing an endless stream of thank yous. An experienced emcee needs to be assertive in communicating speaker time limits.

Clearly, many of these communication mistakes have to do with time management. This event had no clear sense as to when it would begin or end. You must tell people that an event will finish by a specific time. If not, the event drags on, people start to leave or look at their watch counting the minutes. At this particular event, which went on for nearly two hours, many speakers apologized saying; “I promise I won’t take long, and I know many of you want to get out of here but…” That’s a terrible message. You can feel an audience’s impatience and can sense they want to get out of there. That’s why event planners must be more vigilant on timing. If not, the sponsoring organization will pay a heavy price and you will see the effects the next time you ask people to show up and contribute.