Very little of CodeDay is what you'd traditionally call "event planning." CodeDays are organized starting three months in advance, but typically organizers will only order food a few weeks before the event. Instead, much of what organizers do is make helpful connections with the community and local businesses.

We'll discuss all of these tasks in-depth as this manual progresses. Before you get started on any of them, however, it's important to have a basic understanding of what work will need to get done throughout the organizing season:

• 3 months (or more) in advance: talk to companies about hosting/sponsorship. Secure a venue by the end of this month.
• 2 months in advance: talk to companies about sponsorship, and schools about promotion. Secure at least one sponsor and some promotional agreements from schools by the end of this month.
• 1 month in advance: heavy promotional to students; order food and figure out final logistics.

3 Months in Advance - Venue and Sponsors

The first step of organizing a CodeDay, and probably the most obviously important, is to secure a venue. CodeDay can’t exist without a place to be. The first thing you do when organizing a CodeDay should be to find a venue.

Finding a venue often takes a lot longer than new organizers expect: tech companies usually have a lot of fancy equipment in their offices and, often, some high-paid lawyers looking to minimize risks as well. So inviting a group of around 100 teenagers to stay overnight in your offices tends to make many companies a little... nervous.

In the first month of organizing, it's important to reach out to many potential venues: usually 10-20 (even if one looks promising, it's important to have a backup).

Many of these companies will say "no," but that leads to the second goal of the first month: getting sponsors!

Sponsors are also important to making the event happen -- they provide the financial backing which allows you to feed your attendees. There are a lot of different reasons people sponsor an event, so you can usually find plenty of potential sponsors even in cities with no existing tech scene. We'll discuss these reasons in the later section on finding venues and sponsors.

2 Months in Advance - Sponsors and Teachers

Hopefully you've found a venue by the start of this month. (You have, right? Otherwise we might have to cancel the event!) A venue means it's time to double-down on asking businesses for sponsorship. To break even, each event needs to earn at least $750 in sponsorship, which means a lot of outreach.

$750 doesn't have to come from one company, and it also doesn't have to be cash -- companies donating food and drinks are a large part of what makes CodeDay financially possible.

In addition, you should start reaching out to local teachers about promoting the event. Teachers are busy, and it often takes them a week or two to respond to your email, and even once you've gotten approval to promote to their students, their lesson plans may not leave much time for talking about CodeDay for another week! Talking to teachers early is very important.

1 Month in Advance - Teacher/Student Promotion and Logistics

"Finally, it's time to order food, print nametags, and create floor plans for where tables will go!"

Well, no. Logistics are still a small part of this month. (Also, haha, we don't have the money for fancy nametags!)

Most of this month will be heavily focused on promotion, which means not only following up with teachers you'd contacted in month two, but also reaching out to new groups: student clubs, meetup groups, and more. If you've done a great job in month two, you might start this month with 20 registrations, and end with 200. (That's not to say the work in month two isn't important! Many of those registrations come from earlier work.)

Yes, some of this month will be focused on logistics, but for most events with less than 1,000 people, the logistics can wait for the last two weeks.