All too often I get calls from organizations planning first year pledge events or walkathons that fail to set revenue and participation objectives for their event. Needless to say, this approach is destined for failure.
The "let's see what happens approach" prevents organizations from truly buying in to meeting the goals for their event.
Take for example, the decision to use walkathon or pledge event software for their event. An event planner using the "let's see what happens approach" will undoubtedly choose the vendor that charges based on percentage of transaction. This results in a lose - lose scenario. If you don't raise that much money, you don't pay a lot but in the end the organization does not benefit from the event. If you raise a lot of money you are stuck with exorbitant fees and overcharges because your cost for the software is uncapped.
There are also cultural drawbacks for using the "let's see what happens" approach. If you haven't planned properly, you certainly will not know how many people to expect to attend and how much they should be raising.
If there are no goals, there is no incentive to strive towards something and plenty of ways to make excuses to justify failure. In the end, it's an approach that will waste valuable resources and doom your event to fail.
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