Organizing an Event

Every individual has the ability to motivate others and inspire true change. By organizing an event, you become a crucial part of our movement by making sure that our mission is heard and has a far-reaching, lasting impact.

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Guide to Exhibition Event Planning

I am so happy you are considering hosting a Dear Society exhibition near you. This guide is to help you navigate some of the challenges of event planning so you can have a successful Dear Society exhibition!

If you want to collect letters and art pieces from your community (which I totally recommend!) I would give myself five months from start to finish. Feel free to add them to the collection of Hillsboro pieces that I have in a google drive for you to access. Link down below!

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The Team

I know it can be difficult to ask for help, but having a team help you out is amazing. I strongly recommend that you have ten volunteers at the actual event and then ten volunteers (can totally be the same people!) helping you prepare for the event. You can ask your friends and family and I am sure they will be happy to help! 

The volunteers at the actual event should be well versed in the pieces and able to answer questions, clean pens /organize comment cards (when in covid times), run any videos/ online media received, taking pictures (yes yes yes this was awesome at the event- have someone work the camera!) set up/clean up, etc. When I say “prepare for the event” I mean all of the work leading up to it; advertisements, making posters, printing letters, gathering art pieces, organizing the google drive (no seriously an organized drive will be a lifesaver), formatting letters, etc. 

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The Venue

Reach out to your local art centers, libraries, community centers and schools to book a date 5 months in advance. I would recommend hosting in an art center or community center and look at their availability before turning to libraries and schools (still totally acceptable options). This action is one of your first steps because these places book months in advance and have everything planned out so, the earlier the better. I have found that these venues and the people working in them are super accommodating and supporting a project led by youth is something that they want to invest in. 

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Submissions

Getting submissions is a huge step. I have attached below a link to a google drive where you can access an “asking for letters' ' format as well as the logo and other advertising pieces I created and letters/digital art previously mentioned. 

I would pick a due date (around month 4 is when you should have your due date at) and constantly remind people (I did this through instagram stories). Once the due date has passed, people will generally DM you asking for an extension - this is when you create your second due date (about a week or two after the first one) - one that is absolutely final and allows for people to finish up. When asking for letters and art pieces make sure to give the option of anonymity to maintain their comfort and I found that once I provided this option that the letters got a lot deeper and more personal. 

Regarding the art submissions I recommend asking for the title, a paragraph explanation to go with their piece and provide the option to write a paragraph or two about the artist where they can plug in their art instagram/ website/ etc. 

Reach out to art, writing teachers and leadership teachers asking them to ask their students for submissions. I would contact the student presidents of BSU, LGBTQ+ Club, Racial Equity Club, and other clubs under the general social justice theme. They love to get their clubs involved. If you plan to gather adult submissions I would email them personally. 

Create your social media pages (facebook, instagram, etc.) If you email me then I will grant you owner access to @thedearsocietyproject on instagram where you can advertise for submissions. I personally advertised and asked for submissions on my own instagram along with @thedearsocietyproject. Social media is where I gained the most submissions. Spend some time on this part. My biggest piece of advice for this part is to ask people individually on social media. By asking individually and commenting on why you think that they should contribute I was able to collect multiple submissions and it made the whole exchange more personable. Another tip is to offer an incentive for submitting a piece- for my exhibit, I offered a free 15 minute photoshoot with 10 edited pictures. I got quite a lot of feedback after I offered an incentive. 

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The Google Drive

As you collect your letters I strongly recommend you keep them all in one google drive folder. I had three folders inside my encompassing “The Dear Society Project Folder”-one labeled “Dear Youth of Today Submissions (adults)” , one labeled as “Dear Society (teenagers)” and one “ Digital Art Submissions and Explanations.” This just helps you stay organized and makes it an easy headcount. 

The Letters

For the exhibition, I printed all of the Dear Society letters out with normal printer paper. My team and I then taped/ used glue dots (glue makes the paper wrinkly) the printed letters onto black construction paper to create a small border. I bought the big black construction paper from the dollar tree and then cut each border out individually. I bought 11x14 foam core (elmer's brand) pieces and glued the black construction paper with the letter onto it. I then used a stencil that I bought from a dollar tree to color in the words ``Dear Society” at the top of the 11x14 foam core board in order to fill in the empty space and draw the eye. This gave it a very professional look and I highly recommend doing this. 

Of course, you will get letters of all shapes and sizes. I had the whole range; a paragraph to three pages and everything in between. For the letters that were longer than a page I just used additional 11x14 foam core boards but kept it at 11x14 and didn’t cut it. For the shorter letters I cut the foam core to size. The venue I reserved had small and big easels which were perfect for setting the letters up against. But for the paragraph sized letters I thought it looked funny. So, I went to Dollar Tree and bought a huge foam core board. I then cut this into small triangles and taped it to the back of the smaller letters. This created a functioning miniature stand. 

The Art Pieces

I would create physical copies of the digital art pieces you get. I printed all of mine out at walgreens and kept an eye on their sales. I printed a combination of 16x20 and 11x14 poster boards. 

For the photo submissions I designated one table to them and printed them out on 5x7 and bought 5x7 photo frames from dollar tree. The paintings, sculptures, drawings, and any hard copy art submission you receive don’t need anything added to them. 

Make sure your venue has stands- the 07/06/21 exhibition had a combination of table and floor stands. To create a uniform and professional gallery I suggest having the name, title, explanation, and about the artist (optional) for each art piece. To create the namecards I took cardstock and folded it hot-dog style. To have a uniform font I bought letter stencils from dollar tree to write the names and title. I printed the explanation and about the artist on a regular printer painter and then glued it onto cardstock. I then folded the top end of the cardstock to create a little stand. This worked really well and brought a cohesive look to the gallery. 

Advertising/ News

Instagram is your best friend. Advertise your event through posts and stories on instagram. This really draws your teenage/ millennial audience. Talk to your venue and ask about how they advertise for events and give them a little blurb for them to put on your pages. Feel free to reach out to your school district communications team or local papers to see if they would run something. You can also reach out to them afterward to share the success and photos of your project. 

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I hope this Guide to Exhibtion Event Planning was helpful. Feel free to reach out to me at thedearsocietyproject@gmail.com if you have any questions!