The annual convention of the Atheist Alliance International (AAI) was designed to bring like-minded people together in order to build a stronger community through education, networking, and socializing. AAI began hosting their annual convention in 1995. Every year it grows stronger. As a volunteer-based organization, AAI holds their annual general meeting of the board members during the convention. The convention is designed to be educational and entertaining for the attendees, bringing world-class speakers and performers together.

Working with a non-profit organization brings a whole new set of challenges. The convention is one of the major sources of income for the organization. This brought two challenges to the table; increasing attendance and reducing expenses. The secondary challenge was to achieve previous two challenges with a limited budget. Many non-profits do not have a steady flow of income as they do not sell products and/or services, so their budgets are very limited. Some of the smaller challenges that we faced were basic event management, website, registration, marketing, venue selection, negotiations and contracts, and speaker recruitment.

In order to stay within budget and reduce expenses as much as possible, we spent many hours researching services and products to find the best quality, yet nicely priced to fit the budget. It’s a delicate process as you don’t want to sacrifice quality over price; you want to find something in between.

We were able to offer AAI full event management to help them make their 2009 convention successful. Being able to have control over most aspects of an event helped us streamline the process and reduce any disruptions in the process. After researching the venues to comply with AAI’s needs we were able to negotiate a great contract, making both parties happy. The venue was the Burbank Airport Marriott and Conference Center. During negotiations we were able to lower room rate to $89 per night with shoulder nights, low food and beverage minimum, and stay within AAI’s proposed budget for meals per person.

During the course of convention planning, we recruited speakers based on AAI suggestions with minimal to no cost. Being a non-profit organization, many speakers waived their fees and only asked for travel expenses covered.

The registration was managed through Eventbrite and integrated with convention website, managed and designed by us.

We helped run the convention onsite, maintaining contact with hotel staff and ensuring smooth flow of schedule.

The 2009 convention was the biggest convention they ever had, with over 700 attendees, 30 speakers, and successful fundraiser. AAI was able to keep over $40,000 in profits. Attendees were very happy and satisfied with their experience at the convention, as well as customer support provided through the website.