Start a contest
Begin from a ready-made template or last year's contest, set the entry and voting windows, and move it from planning to closed.
Where it lives Where it lives: Sidebar → Contests
Where contests live, and when you'll see them
Contests are an add-on your community has to have switched on: Contests appears in the sidebar only once the platform team has enabled it for your neighborhood and your plan includes it. If you don't see it and you'd like to run a contest, email [email protected]. Once it's there, the Contests page lists every contest with its status, its entry, voting, and results links, and the buttons to manage, edit, duplicate, or delete each one.
Deleting a contest deletes its entries, photos, and votes with it, and there is no undo. Duplicate it first if you might want it again.
Start from a template
New Contest opens Create Your Contest, with templates on top and Start from Scratch underneath. A template brings a finished set of categories and prizes, the entry and voter form settings, a theme, and dates for the next time that season comes around, so a Halloween template lands on this October. Pick one with Create Contest and you go straight to the edit form, in planning, to make it yours. Browse Templates on the Contests page lists them all, and you can save your own there for the next organizer.
Nothing is public while a contest is in planning, so it's safe to create one just to look around.
Or run last year's contest again
Duplicate (on the Contests page or a contest's own page) copies a contest for its next run: the description, voting page text, winner announcement, categories and prizes, entry and voter settings, theme, banner design, and organizer notifications. You confirm the title and one date, and every other date moves by the same number of days, so the windows keep their times and spacing. Entries, votes, winners, messages, and share links start fresh, and the copy opens in planning.
If the old title had a year in it, the copy's title is updated to the new year for you.
Set the entry and voting windows
Under Contest Details on the edit form, Entry Period is when people can submit and Voting Period is when they can vote, each with a start and an end. Times are your neighborhood's time zone. The dates are what neighbors see: on the contest page, on the banner and flyers, and as the "voting opens" notice on the voting link before it opens.
Leave a gap of a day or two between entries closing and voting opening. It gives you time to clear the approval queue before anyone votes.
Move it along: planning, entries, voting, closed
A contest goes Planning → Accepting Entries → Voting Open → Closed, and you move it with the one button at the top of its page: Publish & Open Entries, then Open Voting, then Close Contest (which calculates the results). The dates don't flip it on their own unless the NeighborlyEvents team has turned on automatic transitions for your community, in which case each phase opens and closes at the times you set; without it, plan to press the button on the day. If you'd like automatic transitions and they aren't on yet, email [email protected]. Need to step back, say to reopen entries? Pick the status in the row of status choices at the top of the edit form and save.
As a safety net, a contest still open a week after its last deadline is closed automatically. That close doesn't send you the results email, so send results from the results page yourself.
Give it a look
The Contest Theme section on the edit form sets the colors, pattern, and icon the contest wears everywhere: its public pages, its emails, its banner, and the preview image that shows when someone shares a link to it. Templates bring a theme that fits the season, and you can pick another or customize one here. A contest with no theme of its own wears your neighborhood's theme.
Print the banner and flyers
On the contest's page, the Share & Promotion tab has Download Entry Banner and Entry Flyer (Letter PDF), plus the same pair for voting. Each is drawn from the contest's title, dates, and theme, with a QR code to the entry or voting link, so a flyer for the mailbox or the clubhouse board takes one click. Change the dates or theme and the next download, and the link preview image, follow.
Print the voting flyer as soon as entries open. Its QR code works before voting starts, showing visitors when the ballot opens.
Related guides
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