This resource is currently being improved and consulted on. If you have additions or criticisms, please leave a comment. 

Most Satellite events can be run inexpensively however, here is some advice on fundraising for your event*.

Keep your event low-cost

This is by far our best advice for hosts on running events. Here are some ways to do that:

• Space: Try and organize your event at your university or in space provided by governmental or non-profit organizations. It’s often possible to get space for free like this.  Many past satellite hosts have had venue space provided to them as an in-kind sponsorship. 

• Food: If you hold your event over lunch, “brown bag” lunch events where people bring their own food are not uncommon.

• Keep it local: Holding local events means you won’t have to pay for travel. This is also the advantage of using local speakers and the OpenCon recorded content.

• Bring your own supplies: Rather than paying for “in-house” coffee and drink services, sometimes it’s possible to bring your own coffee/juice and supplies like kettles and cups. Don’t be afraid to ask, in house services can often be very overpriced!

• Go digital: Avoid the need to print things by only using digital resources! Often people don’t need paper agendas or certificates and you can avoid printing posters by effective online publicity.   

We try to aid you in making your events inexpensive by producing resources you can use without needing to pay for designers, provide agendas which are designed to be used online and more. If there is more we could do, please let us know.  

Create a budget for your event

• Keep track of what costs you will need to cover for your event, if any. This allows you to estimate how many funds you will need to raise. 

• We've created a sample budget template you can start off with, here. 

Find sponsors and partners to cover costs

If you do need to incur costs, the best way to cover them is through event sponsorship. Here are our tips for that:

• Some local companies will provide food and drink for free, or at a reduced cost in return for a sponsorship.

• Find regional Open Access, Open Data or Open Education advocacy organizations who may be able to support you financially to host your event.

• Partnering with your local library or a department often means they can pay for some of the costs incurred through the event.

• See if an Open Access journal in your region would be interested in sponsoring your event. For instance, you can search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) by the publisher's country. However, please reach out to us for approval before contacting a journal for a sponsorship. 

• OpenCon is a well known conference series and this can help in getting sponsors. We’ll happily give letters of support if required. 

• Often it's easier for organizations to directly purchase a venue, food, or other expense for you rather than giving you the money. It can help cut down on overhead for both organizations in transferring funds. 

• Consider asking sponsors to cover a specific cost, (e.g. refreshments), rather than presenting them with the entire event budget. 

• We've created some tips and a template for approaching potential sponsors here. 

Remember, you must clear any sponsors of your event through us and they should align with our sponsorship guidelines.

If you are approaching any major sponsors, please reach out to us for approval before contacting them. 

Charge for tickets

We have no issue with events charging small amounts for people to attend, however we ask that you aim to only cover costs. If you don’t want to pay for transaction fees for an online provider such as Eventbrite, ask people to bring money and pay on the day.

*  We apologize if some of these points may not be true where you’re based.