Venetta Ellerbe, Director of Annual Giving and Special Events, Middlesex County College Foundation

Has your organization seen a noticeable decrease in the number of guests that attend your events? Has there been a lack of excitement from volunteers that have supported your events in the past? You are not alone. Most nonprofit event planners are wondering how to increase sponsorship, underwriting, and ticket sales for their events, during a time when corporations and philanthropists have shifted their focus away from supporting events.

Intended for experienced event planners, this interactive workshop will come to the rescue, by:

•   Introducing you to new traditions to solicit contributions from past donors while soliciting new prospects

•  Focusing on motivating and increasing volunteers

•  Providing marketing tools to make your event more desirable

•  Demonstrating how you can work with a small budget and still net a generous prof

• Improving your ability to create a sustainable event that will meet your financial goals

Speaker Bio
Venetta Ellerbe is the Director of Annual Giving and Special Events for the Middlesex County College Foundation. Responsible for raising funds annually through special events and annual campaigns, Ms. Ellerbe has a successful track record of increasing annual revenues, a volunteer base and community awareness through innovative campaigns, event management, event marketing, effective public speaking, and strong leadership skills.

Additionally, Venetta is a College Instructor at Union County College where she teaches seven classes in the Event Planning Certificate Program. These popularly attended classes include: Introduction to Event Planning, Contracts, Budgets and Financial Management, Site Selection and Inspection, Registration Management, Audio, Visual Technology Needs, Room Set-Up, Food and Beverage Planning and Event Marketing. As Program Chairperson for the Event Planning Certificate Program she has implemented new policies and has received recurrently high rankings from her students.

In spite of her demanding work schedule, Venetta finds time to run her own event planning company, Times of the Essence Events.  Because of her life-long passion for planning events, Venetta has been planning social, corporate and fundraising events for more than 10 years focusing on corporations, individuals, universities and not for profit organizations.Venetta is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and was featured in a recent edition of Middlesex Life Health and Style Magazine.