Helping Your Honorees Find Their Voices

Celebrating honorees at your event is a great way to highlight key people in your organization and encourage them to bring their supporters. It can also be a great opportunity for those strategic voices to speak to your organization and the impact of its work.

Honorees Lisa Watson and Peter Shanky of Cupcake Jones

Honorees on the microphone at an event can be a wild card unless you help give them some direction. If they can support the arc of your program and help speak to your impact, they will only help strengthen your case with donors.

At this year’s Oregonians Against Discrimination Luncheon, Basic Rights Oregon asked honorees to address particular questions in their remarks. They engaged them in the following why questions:

• What is your role in business in advocating for equality?
• How do you see your role as a small business leader to create change?
• How do you see sports as impacting the conversation on equality? How can businesses take the lead in creating equality?
• How have you fostered a culture of equality?

Honoree Nikos Ridge of Ninkasi

They gave one question to each speaker. It helped direct their remarks and also got the honorees, who may be shy about doing so, to actually speak to showcase why they were given the award. Answering these questions enabled the honorees to bring their experience to the stage and share it with the audience and at the same time, speak to the work of the organization.

It was a great tie of the honorees to the work of Basic Rights Oregon and continued the thread of impact all the way through the event. It made the event feel cohesive..

Take a look at your honorees and why you are honoring them and then engage them to speak about the work. Their passion will take your audience a long way.