Balancing Act

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — already the richest philanthropy organization in the world — found out one day in June that Warren Buffet will make a gift of nearly his entire fortune to the foundation.

As laudable as Buffet’s act is, that’s not usually how charities, foundations and other nonprofits raise money.

Most nonprofits — those not run by the richest man in the world, who happens to play bridge with the second-richest man in the world — do it the old-fashioned way: fundraisers.

Those who plan and produce those fundraisers, whether a small gathering of friends of the charity or massive gala events that attract thousands of people, face a set of challenges unique in the event world.

One of those is pulling off an event that is elegant, but doesn’t get tongues wagging about how much it must have cost to pull off.

But don’t throw out the rulebook yet — many of the usual standards and expectations of event planning and production apply.

Budgets as Usual

For better or for worse, every event has a budget attached, and fundraisers are no different.

“The boss says here’s the budget, and I try to stay under it,” says Diane Bruni, producer of a gala event in Pittsburgh benefiting the Hillman Cancer Center.

Virginia Fout, owner of Los Angeles-based V Productions, notes that the measurement of a charity event is the ratio of what it costs versus what it brings in for the charity.

Generally, for every $1 spent on an event, it needs to raise $3 or $4.

“It can be a real struggle,” says Fout, who produced An Evening at the Oscars, the party hosted by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

The struggle for an established event is less acute than for a new event, says Beverly R. Hoffmann, who has taught nonprofit management and fundraising at Seton Hall University, Princeton, Rutgers and George Washington University.

“A new special event is successful if it breaks even for two or three years,” according to Hoffman. “Long-term fundraising income is achieved when the donor community begins planning on community calendars for annual participation in the event.”

Finding Your Balance

Fout says her guests and the client expect the show to be elegant, but they also expect to feel like they’ve received value for their support.

“For the Elton John party, we try to keep things so they don’t look too showy,” Fout says. “It’s a fine balance, because Elton John is the host; the show needs to be good.”

Bruni walks the same line for the Hillman Cancer Center Gala.

This year, the event was held at the Pittsburgh Steelers practice facility and themed Seasons of Hope. The four-hour event was broken into four quadrants, each depicting a season.

The gala this year attracted 1,100 attendees and raised $8.2 million for the cancer center. Golf legend Arnold Palmer, among the celebrity guests, gave $2 million, Bruni says.

Feeding and entertaining that many in an elegant setting is daunting enough; doing it without giving the appearance that you spent too much is even harder.

“You don’t want people to wonder how much we spent,” she says. “The boss wants elegant, not overboard.”

Vendor Support

As with many charities, Bruni’s event gets help from her friends.

“A lot of vendors might give me a discount because of what we’re doing,” she says. The next gala isn’t scheduled until October 2007, and Bruni is already “out there soliciting.”

Fout, too, counts on the largesse of her vendors, and as more and more charities seek money, the pressure on event suppliers increases.

“Every vendor hears charities asking for a break,” she says. “There are a lot of people doing good things out there, and a lot of people asking for favors. Our goal is to treat our vendors well, and they will come back and help out the next time.”

The Bottom Line

When the dust settles, a charity event needs to have raised considerably more money than was spent on the event.

“My main objective is to get funding for the research center,” Bruni says. “My goal is to do the best I can for cancer research.”

Fout says she tries to use creativity “to look extravagant without costing a lot.

“The most important thing is sometimes to step back and look at what’s really the important focus of a successful night,” Fout says. “Look at the flow of the event, and drop anything that doesn’t contribute to the overall experience for the guest.”