Share Impact100 Garden State with your friends, family neighbors, and professional networks. Meet & Mingle events are fast, fun and our best recruitment tool. Members have hosted them at their homes, at their offices or in public venues. Our Membership Recruiting Team supports hostesses every step of the way.
The guidelines below are for in-person Meet & Mingles. If you decide you'd rather host an event via Zoom, no worries—we have your back! Write to member@design-proposal.com.
GUIDELINES FOR HOSTING MEET & MINGLE EVENTS
What does a Meet & Mingle host do?
Spread the word. Alert friends, family members, and business colleagues about a virtual, no-pressure gathering to learn about Impact100 Garden State. Suggested language for email and social media posts is provided below.
Compile your invitation list. Provide us with the names and emails of women you think might be interested in joining. You may want to personally invite someone before the official email invitation is sent, so we have provided suggested language for an email (see “Sample Language for Host Email Invitation,” below). With your permission, we will add to your guest list if we know of any other women who may be interested. Meet & Mingle events that are open to any prospective member are posted on our website. There is no maximum or minimum number of guests.
Pick your date and time. In our experience, potential members are most likely to attend gatherings held at lunchtime or in the early evening.
Make brief welcoming remarks at the event. Sharing your personal reason for joining Impact100 Garden State and encouraging others to join can be very powerful.
How will Impact100 Garden State support the host?
At your request, we’ll send the email invitations. The Impact100 Garden State Membership Recruitment Team will send invitations via email and handle the RSVPs and follow-up communications.
We’ll provide an agenda. The Impact100 Garden State team will provide an agenda, as well as posters and any other promotional material.
We’ll follow up with your guests. We know from experience how important follow-up is to membership recruitment, so we send emails to all of the attendees after a Meet & Mingle. (Don’t worry: We won’t stalk your friends! We send one email and then back off if there is no response.) We will keep the host notified of the response to these contacts.
What’s the program for the Meet & Mingle?
The agenda will generally follow this format:
● Welcoming remarks by the host(s)
● Brief introductory video or slides
● Overview of Impact100 Garden State by someone on the membership team
● Q&A session
Meet & Mingles typically are just 45 minutes long, but can go longer if the discussion warrants it.
Dear [Name],
Because you are a dynamic woman who cares about her community, I’m so pleased to invite you to a Meet & Mingle to learn about Impact100 Garden State. This wonderful organization is for women who want to—and do—make an impact in our local communities.
It will be an easy, no-pressure event on (insert day), (insert date), starting at (insert time), and will last about 45 minutes.
The Impact100 Garden State formula is simple: Each woman donates $1,000, we pool our resources to make high-impact grants to local nonprofits, and every member gets a vote on each grant. Our goal is to give at least one grant of $100,000 annually, but we can make more grants if we have more members. Every penny of every member’s annual $1,000 donation goes to grants!
As of June 2023, our organization has given more than $3 million to carefully selected nonprofits in northern New Jersey—money that has fed hungry children, guided struggling teens, housed the homeless, and much more.
It feels great to contribute to this effort, and I think you would enjoy the organization—what we do, as well as the women you would meet—very much.
You’ll soon be receiving an email invitation to the Meet & Mingle. If you have any questions, please contact me at [insert host email or phone]. I would be happy to tell you more. And feel free to share the meeting invitation with a friend. Looking forward to “seeing” you on the (insert date)!
With all best wishes,
[Host Name(s)]