BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer
TheMainEventS.com, an event calendar Web site designed by Candace Huddy (below), was inspired by her mother’s experience as a volunteer running fund-raisers for nonprofit organizations. More than a decade of experience as a volunteer didn’t help Loretta “Lori” Huddy avoid a pitfall dreaded by every committee running a major fund-raiser – planning an event for the same night as another benefit.
“This year the Monmouth University Scholarship Ball and the Ronald McDonald House Cancer Ball were on the same night,” said Lori, chairwoman of the university’s annual gala. “Those are two major fund-raising events. We had people on both boards. They were wonderful and they came through, but it was very stressful.”
“We tried to get every source we could for event listings. We contacted over 2,150 organizations that had chapters throughout New Jersey and said, ‘You can get onboard.’ And it’s free for the organizations. We got a great response.” — Candace Huddy “They moved the Ronald McDonald House ball to Branches in West Long Branch just so people could go to both. That’s how important it was,” added Candace, Lori Huddy’s daughter and business partner.
Drawing on Lori’s experience as a volunteer for numerous nonprofits, the mother/daughter team decided the time was right for an Internet-based calendar of major fund-raising events in New Jersey’s 21 counties and launched TheMainEventS.com in April.
“The more organizations she was a volunteer for, the more she would hear this issue,” explained Candace. “They were double-booking golf outings and other events. A number of organizations tried to provide a printed calendar, but the problem was that once it was printed it was obsolete.
”About five years ago, I said we could probably do something online, a master calendar,” Candace said. “We started putting one together, but it was such a huge undertaking we put it on the back burner.
When I heard [about this year’s snafu], I said, ‘Let’s give it a shot,’ ” said Candace, whose background is in Web design and marketing. “We put together the site in six weeks.”
“The number of events is growing,” noted Lori, making the online calendar all the more valuable as a planning tool.
“You have to make sure you aren’t bumping your event right into another one. That splits dollars and corporate sponsors can’t be in two places at once.
“Every cause is a worthy one. We had to organize this to make sure we can all do our best.”
TheMainEventS.com is designed to be a comprehensive, free and easy-to-use online event planning tool for charitable and nonprofit organizations, and an at-a-glance reference for sponsors and attendees.
The month-by-month calendar gives planning committees an up-to-date event calendar to plan, reserve and book events and – importantly – to avoid the frustration of competing for attendees and dollars that results when charitable events are booked on the same date.
In addition to the master calendar, the site features a section on event planning tips, a directory of participating organizations, forms to reserve an event date, a merchant directory of event-related services, a bid engine to request quotes for services, links to trade publications and magazines.
The merchant directory has 90 categories arranged alphabetically from antique dealers to wines and liquors.
The directory is not only a resource for event planners, but a way for small businesses to reach a quality clientele, Candace said.
“The nice thing we’re seeing is a lot of the smaller businesses in the area feel that the organizations have caterers, valet services locked up. Our merchants’ directory gives them an equal opportunity to get in,” she said.
Advertising rates have deliberately been kept low, as low as $15 monthly per entry, and advertisers get the opportunity to be in on the site’s bid engine.
“Our main focus is not to be a money maker, but to provide public service,” she said. “Our feeling is even if it brought in no money, it’s still a good thing for the organizations.”
Subtitled “The Main Events of New Jersey,” the site is organized by county, with five counties currently up and running. According to Candace, all 21 New Jersey counties will be operational this month and each county will have 85-90 pages of information. “The capacity of the site is unbelievable,” she said.
And, Candace said she has already had inquiries about franchising the site for other locales.
“We tried to get every source we could for event listings. We contacted over 2,150 organizations that had chapters throughout New Jersey and said, ‘You can get onboard,’ ” Candace said. “And it’s free for the organizations. We got a great response.”
With Candace handling Web design and marketing, and Lori providing contacts in the nonprofit community and networking savvy, a third partner, Valerie Quartiere, a financial planner, handles sales.
Since Candace handled all of the Web design, the initial investment required was low – around $5,000, she said. “I really did all the building and designing; it didn’t cost us too much to start except for hosting fees.”
Still a start-up, the site is exceeding expectations, according to Candace.
“The response is just phenomenal,” she said. “From April to date, we’ve had 96,000 hits by unique users and people are already booking 2006 events.”
The idea for TheMainEventS.com went over big with John Lombardo, managing partner at Branches, where it isn’t unusual for events for four nonprofit or community organizations to take place on the same day.
Lombardo signed on as a strategic partner, providing contacts and hosting TheMainEventS.com launch party.
“It’s just a great tool, an absolutely great resource,” Lombardo said. “We would have clients who came in, booked an event, did all the planning and would be halfway through it, too late to change the date, when they would realize there was a major gala on that date.
“It dilutes their attendance and doesn’t help us either. It takes away from the overall fund-raising capability of a group.”