Teaching Paper: Community Event Planning for Advocacy and Engagement – A Practical Guide to Designing, Delivering, and Evaluating Impactful Events

Community events are a cornerstone of advocacy and non-profit work, offering opportunities to build trust, raise awareness, and mobilize stakeholders. Yet without structured planning, events risk being costly, ineffective, or poorly attended. This Teaching Paper introduces a Community Event Planning Guide that equips organizations with tools to define objectives, select formats, engage communities in decision-making, and manage logistics with precision. Drawing on strategic planning and community engagement scholarship, the paper demonstrates how participatory approaches and systematic evaluation can maximize the impact of events. A case study of a health awareness fair illustrates how structured planning leads to inclusive, culturally relevant, and effective outcomes.