Your Great Event creates, promotes, coordinates and manages special events and fundraisers. Clients include the entertainment industry, corporations, nonprofit organizations, medical centers, educational institutions and churches. Services are based on the conviction that community development can only be successful with creativity, commitment and energy. Your Great Event provides these elements while producing active programs that involve and motivate key community leaders and decision makers.

Your Great Event manages and produces galas, golf tournaments, “A Taste of…” evenings, Walk/Run events, conferences, awards dinners, groundbreakings and grand openings, anniversary celebrations, art shows, festivals, auctions, concerts and more. Each event is custom-tailored to each client’s needs and expectations. In 2008 Your Great Event raised more than $6,200,000 for its clients through special events. Nominated for a 2009 Gala Award by “Special Events Magazine,” Your Great Event delivers award-winning events while managing budgetary issues and maximizing income.

Laura Thompson, president and owner of Your Great Event, is one of California’s leading event producers. “Event Solutions Magazine” nominated her for a Spotlight Award as Event Producer of the Year in 2009. Ms. Thompson formed Your Great Event in 1994 and, starting with a small but dedicated list of clients, built Your Great Event into one of the most respected and creative event-planning organizations in California, working with some of the state’s best-known business, political and entertainment leaders.  She currently has nine employees on staff and regularly uses the services of many freelance specialists and volunteers.

Ms. Thompson shares her expertise as a guest lecturer for USC and UCLA’s “The Art of Fundraising” and “Annual Giving” courses. She is also an instructor for California State University Northridge’s Fundraising Certification Course and a featured speaker for the Association for Fundraising Professionals, the Santa Clarita Valley Resource Center and the Public Health Foundation. In January, 2008, Ms. Thompson was a guest speaker at the National Special Event Convention lecturing on “The Art of Fundraising through Special Events.” In 2009, Ms. Thompson was invited by the Los Angeles chapter of the International Special Events Society (ISES) to be a Master at their 4th Annual “Meet the Masters” gala.