Events FAQs

Q: I’m not sure which of the 3 categories my event falls into. What should I do?
A: Please review the Event Intake Worksheet to help guide your thinking about event goals & format and contact the CBE Advancement Team so we may help answer any questions you have.

Q: I’d like to format my event so that attendees may join in-person or virtually. How can I do this?
A: This is what we call a hybrid event and we discourage event planners from having a hybrid event because it requires double the logistical prep, planning, and staffing in order to make it successful. We have also found that even the best executed hybrid events tend to result in a better experience for one audience over the other (i.e.: in-person over virtual or vice versa). Currently, neither Advancement or Visual Resources have the staff support or infrastructure to support hybrid events. As an alternative, if you are hosting an in-person event, you may want to consider recording your event or incorporating pre-produced pieces; this way you have something to share afterward with constituents unable to join the event in person. We are happy to make suggestions as to how to approach this and recommend vendors based on your specific needs.

Q: Is a “student event” a student organized/led event or an event for students? One might say students are CBE stakeholders.
A: Though students are certainly CBE stakeholders, internal events where the audience consists only of students lie outside the scope of Advancement strategic priorities which are predominantly aimed at engaging alumni, donors, prospects, and/or volunteers. While a student audience may be part of the overall audience for an event that Advancement may support, we are unable to support events that are exclusively for this internal audience. This applies to all events for students, whether organized by the college or student led.

Q: Can I promote the sale of a book to which I’ve contributed?
A: Per Presidential Executive Order No. 32, UW Faculty and Staff may not use official lines of communication to promote the sales of any item that could potentially benefit them financially. We also may not allow the purchasing/selling of items at events.

However, while we cannot directly lead constituents/audience directly to a webpage to purchase items, we can share the website generally.

We understand that this will be an inconvenience at events that are specifically convened to celebrate an item that the audience may want to purchase, such as a book, or other faculty-created item. If a workaround is possible, we will help to implement it at your event.

Q: Can I promote contributions toward/the sale of something available through another organization?
A: No, but if one is available, you can include a link to the organization’s home page (not the page for donations or with items for sale.)

Q: Can I raise money for an endowment via an event?
A: Yes, please reach out to the Assistant Dean for Advancement & External Relations for more information about fundraising for an endowment. Also, it is important to note that endowment funds cannot be collected via Cvent’s (Advancement’s event registration tool) usual financial systems. Instead, we may include a direct link that would take them to the University’s giving site.

Q: My department is partnering with another department to host an event where we will be charging admission and/or collecting optional donations. We each have our own separate fund/budget for our respective departments where we would like to direct funds. How can we set up this event so that participants may give to their corresponding department?
A: We are thrilled to hear that multiple departments are collaborating on an event! Our team can help set up online collections to multiple funds– before we connect with you to do so, we ask that you consider and prepare to address the following so that we may better assist you:

1. What are sponsorship/admission/donation levels for participants? They will likely be uniform for all regardless of participant departmental affiliation.
2. What are the expectations from participants? If you are asking for work submissions of any kind, are participants being asked for same/similar submissions along comparable criteria (regardless of department affiliation)?
3. If your event will include extending invitations to firms and community partners, how do you plan to handle firms that have affiliations to more than one department? Are they considered an attendee/participant from one department over the other? Will funds from such firms for their participation be split among the departments?

We recommend that the departments connect and come to an agreement on all of the above prior to meeting with Advancement.