What if the volunteers really WANT to do a black-tie gala?
Here’s a good question from Joe P. in Santa Barbara, “What if the volunteers really WANT to do a black-tie gala.” My loyal blog readers (both of you) know that I often blog against black-tie galas and golf tournaments. I hate that they take a lot of time, they’re long events, and mostly that they cost a lot of money and don’t emphasize the mission of the organization. Once you’ve been to a couple, they start to blend together. They’re mainly entertainment, not fundraising, and they teach people that you have to have a transaction where you entertain donors rather than just ask for money.
But what if the volunteers really, really want to hold black-tie galas and golf tournaments? What should they do?
I thought about it and here’s my answer: the volunteers should start their own non-profit organization and pick a nonprofit beneficiary to receive the net dollars each year. This takes out several problems: you’re not spending the organization’s money in advance to hold a party, and you’re not relying on staff members to do the work. Further, if volunteers become disenchanted with the organization, they just change beneficiaries, rather than disbanding all together.
There are a number of organizations that do this. I particularly like The Decade Society in Washington, D.C., which holds an annual gala black-tie event and gives the proceeds to two charities they choose each year. The charity just has to submit a brief proposal, and if they’re chosen, they only have to write a paragraph on their work for the program and send someone to accept the check. That’s it. For the charity, it’s low effort and high reward, with low risk. They don’t have to worry that the event will be cancelled or rained-out or their will be a blizzard the week before. For the members of the Decade Society, they get to work on and attend an enjoyable event and know the proceeds will go to a worthy cause.
Conversely, I’ve seen organizations and volunteers have difficulty with gala events when the volunteers don’t have their own nonprofit. In one case, a new executive director came down hard on the volunteers, wanting more control over the finances and the budget. She wanted to know in advance what commitments these volunteers were making to vendors, including the reception site. She wanted to know where the money would go and what it would be spent on. She wanted checks to be written from their office. While all of these are reasonable concerns, it offended the volunteers who had been raised tens of thousands of dollars for years. The executive director is now gone, but the volunteers left first. If they had formed a nonprofit separately, they could have had control of the checking account, made their own decisions, and just presented a check at the end. I’m not saying the executive was wrong, just that the result was alienating loyal volunteers and losing the net money. My alternative — starting a separate nonprofit — allows everyone to win and reduces risk for the organization.
If you have a question about fundraising, please write me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com.