Tonight Yelp.com will host its first "Yelp.Community: Causes for a Party" event. Set to occupy the downtown location of Pazzo's restaurant, the gathering will let potential volunteers browse booths devoted to 35 area charities, and "is something Yelp has never done before," said Colleen Curtis, the Web site's head of Midwest marketing and community management. "With this event, we were looking to do something that will let us really get involved with the nonprofit sector of the community, especially now that the economy's taken a downturn and our readers are looking to volunteer for causes and do other things that won't cost them any money."
At the after-work event, which Curtis expects will draw about 700 guests, reps from each charity will be on hand to recruit volunteers. "Each nonprofit's challenge," said Curtis, "was to set up a really dymanic booth that would get guests' attention." One organization, GiveForward.Org—a Web site that connects philantropists with causes—will distribute scavenger-hunt maps. "People stop by Give Forward's booth to get the map, then they have to bop around to all the other charities and find clues at the various booths," Curtis explained. "It will encourage guests to really check out all the nonprofits on site." Other booths will offer T-shirt giveaways, presentations on flat-screen TVs, and slide shows.
Curtis said she and her team used Facebook, Twitter and—naturally—Yelp.com to help spread the word about the event, but that promotion was largely handled by the participating charities. "We set each nonprofit up with an invite," she said, and allowed them to invite their own lists. Curtis said that letting the nonprofits handle promotion lead to R.S.V.P.s from a more targeted audience. "People will mostly be coming to connect with the nonprofit of their dreams," she said. "I think that very few guests will be there just to party for the night." Still, "We did want this to be a fun party and not just a boring networking event," so the event will offer elements such as an interactive photo booth and a hosted bar.
Curtis said Yelp hopes to introduce the event in other markets in the coming months. "We’re currently in 30 markets, so we’d love to bring this program to [each city] in hopes of bringing together communities and supporting local nonprofits," she said. "Yelp’s all about connecting people with great local businesses, and certainly nonprofits are included in that mission."
