Event Specialist, Advancement Special Events

How You’ll Contribute

The Advancement team cultivates, solicits, and stewards individuals, as well as foundation, government and corporate partners who invest in the Society to drive impact through science, technology, education, exploration, and storytelling. The team collaborates with Society teams – and often works closely with NGP/Disney – to build transformative and impact-driven strategic partnerships. The team also produces global events that deepen connections and leverage the Society’s power to convene, and directs robust annual, major, and planned giving programs empowering the Society with a broad base of public support.

The Global Special Events team of the National Geographic Society is responsible for developing and producing high quality, impactful events that use the power of convening to drive programmatic outcomes, further visibility for our executives, programs, and talent, and build donor loyalty and philanthropic support. Collaborate with internal partners to develop programming that brings our mission to life; complements our programmatic, outreach, educational, and philanthropic strategies; and creates meaningful connections among attendees.

Reporting to the Director of Advancement Special Events and Operations, the Event Specialist, Advancement Special Events provides critical support for the Advancement Special Events team. These tasks include registration management, email marketing support, on-site event execution assistance, and provides first-class customer service to stakeholders and attendees pre-event, on-site, and post-event. The Specialist will collaborate across multiple departments to build complex registration websites and registration forms, generating and compiling invitation and RSVP lists, creating comprehensive data reporting, and coordinating attendee management. The Specialist should have a deep understanding of how data can enhance a guest’s experience and provide analytics that help the team elevate future experiences for our attendees.

Your Impact

Responsibilities Include:

Event Registration (50%)

• Responsible for working with Advancement Operations and other teams to compile invitation lists for events. 

• Build and maintain simple to complex registration sites and deploy invitations primarily using the Swoogo platform. 

• Circulate RSVP lists and event metric reports twice weekly or based on individual event needs to share with internal partners and hosts. 

• Work with the team to build and deploy post-event surveys and other metrics that provide relevant insights for future projects.

• Support inputting and analyzing the registration data for quarterly ROI reports.

• Manage the name badge printing process and other on-site registration needs.

• Explore new technologies and industry best practices to implement that will improve the team’s registration processes, engagement tactics, and on-site experience for guests at events.

Event Marketing & Communications (30%)

• Outline key event communication deadlines and maintain the event marketing production calendar for Advancement Special Events.

• Communicate between departments to develop invitation lists as well as create and manage follow-up strategies. 

• Independently draft initial invitation and quality communications distributed to attendees to drive attendee engagement and satisfaction.

• Work with the Creative team to design invitations, event websites, and other marketing materials. 

• Build event websites and deploy invitations using Swoogo.

• Liaise between the events team and the systems integration team (Advancement Operations, Swoogo, Raiser’s Edge, etc.) to ensure accurate data management and reporting. 

• Serve as the Advancement Special Events Team’s Swoogo expert and POC for support.

• Regularly and clearly communicate planning updates and attendee data.

• Provide all guests with clear communication from invitations, confirmations, plan-your-visit emails, personalized travel itineraries for event attendees as needed, and post-event thank yous and communications.

• Communicate directly with attendees to answer questions and address special needs.

• Work enthusiastically and collaboratively with colleagues to ensure the strategic goals of each event and the Society are met. 

Advancement Special Events Team Administration (20%)