I want to raise a subject that I brought up at the Nonprofit Commons meeting last Friday: how do we increase attendance in the Nonprofit Commons archipelago?
While I think it is great if NPC tenants hold office hours on their spaces, they often are just hanging out in an empty sim for an hour. What we need is a variety of regular attractive events that draw different people to our islands.
Some ideas:
- Art Shows: Groups like Art for Healing can help us to figure out how to do regular art showcases on our islands. We all know great artists, photographers, scupltors and others who would love to showcase their work.
- Dance Parties/ Concerts: Wharf Ratz is a fantastic regular get together on Tuesday evenings. There’s no reason we can’t have more regular music and dance events. If you are a closet DJ or musician, this is your chance to shine!
- Contests: Building contests, photo, poetry and writing contests are great ways to bring in new folks, even with very little or no prize money. The Virtual Museum of Architecture had an entire eco-themed building contest with 20-some entries with no prize other than the glory of winning.
- Debates and Discussions: People love a good debate. Pick a provocative topic, find a couple of people to represent each side, and then invite folks to watch and participate. Just be ready to keep it civil and on topic!
- Movie Night: We all probably have in our Netflix cue or on our hard drives movies and videos on various social causes that we’ve been meaning to watch. What if we had a regular movie night and rotated who hosted the video that month?
If any of these ideas strike a chord in you, what we need is for you to host and make these happen. None of them require a tremendous amount of technical expertise, just the ability to organize and bring aboard others to help. Or maybe you have your own idea for an event you would like to organize that I haven’t mentioned. We are open to creative ways to increase attendance and bring new energy to our islands.
I and my team will help you find a date, a space and promote your event over our various channels. Contact me if you want to be head up or be involved in any of these events.
Written by: rikomatic