Reframing the Nonprofit Gala
We are currently in the middle of fall gala season, and although organizations can choose to hold galas at any time of year, two of the primary seasons are between September and November, then from February to May. Galas have become a mostly accepted part of nonprofit culture, they are a chance to bring an organization’s biggest donors, staff, and volunteers into one room and spread their message as efficiently as possible. However, recently some leaders within the sector have been speaking out against galas and fundraising events in general, declaring them wasteful.
So, what’s the deal? If you have ever been to a gala, surely you’ve left with a “warm glow” and most likely given a donation while you were at the event. You get to leave the event feeling like you’ve helped the organization, and the organization gets a lot of donations, it’s a win-win right? Maybe… it all depends on a few key factors which you can typically instinctively feel.
Donor Satisfying vs Relationship Building
One of the primary gripes with galas, are that they are wasteful. Organizations know that the more they spend on food, alcohol, entertainment, and other amenities, the happier their guests are, and the more they end up giving that night.
They also know that the “goal proximity effect” can effectively induce giving. Nearly always at a fundraising event there will be some countdown clock, or thermometer with the fundraising goal for the event. A big deal will be made about reaching this goal throughout the night, and all of this is to satisfy the donor’s ego.
If you are attending a gala, don’t be fooled by the announcement that the event has “raised” however many thousands of dollars, what is important is both net revenue, which you likely won’t hear about that night, and cost per dollar raised which you certainly won’t hear about that night. These figures also take into account the cost of staff who work on these special events, sometimes all year.
Some events can have a focus more on stewardship, which is the relationship building process after a donor makes a gift. However, some organizations have turned their stewardship into an endless and overly congratulatory thanking process. It can be incredibly obvious if this stewardship culture has seeped into an organization’s fundraising events. There is nothing inherently wrong with saying thank you, in fact, it is proven to increase retention. However, how often is an organization going to have all stakeholders together in a room for a few hours? This time can be used more creatively and efficiently to advance the mission instead of focusing on the past.
Tokenism vs Community Building
The idea of tokenism is based upon one person being chosen as a group’s representative. In the setting of a gala, tokenism can look like an individual who is a “client success story” being the only, or one of few people of their specific background in attendance at the event. Usually when this happens, this individual is there so that they can represent the “identifiable victim effect” which, again makes it more likely that donors will give that night, because it can give donors a more immediate connection with the results of the organization. The only thing worse than this example is a room full of white affluent donors watching a slideshow or poor brown children overlayed with sad music. This is another example of condition-based thinking about clients instead of aspiration-based thinking.
To shift this mentality to true community building, each organization would need its own unique strategy considering the context of their services. There may be legal, privacy, and health related concerns that would prevent clients of an organization from attending an event. However, the effort needs to be made to bring clients meaningfully into the event planning, execution, and attendance. Ask questions like, how can we better integrate clients with donors, volunteers, and staff? Is the organization building a holistic community, or a segregated one? and perhaps most importantly, how would clients feel about their involvement or lack of involvement in this event?
In Person Annual Report vs Sharing Their Vision
Annual reports are typically a brief document the organization compiles at the end of every year to recap what they have accomplished. For a variety of reasons, annual reports are a valuable communication tool for organizations to a variety of stakeholders. Because galas can serve as a convenient place to gather stakeholders, it is common for organizations to treat their galas as a sort of in-person annual report. This continues the trend of satisfying donors and allows the organization spend time patting itself on the back.
It is important to celebrate successes in the nonprofit sector, especially the successes of staff to prevent burnout, but there is no better opportunity to pull the curtain back on future plans than at a gala. Smart organizations are beginning to use these in-person relationship building events to share their visions and create buy in from their key stakeholders. Instead of only focusing on the past, the organization can build momentum into their future and use the event as one of many touch points in a relationship building strategy.
What Can You Do?
Nonprofit organizations have become incredibly efficient at using psychology to manipulate stakeholders. Should this mean that they should continue using what is considered to be best practices? Is it ethical for organizations to operate like this? Can we accomplish similar goals in a more ethical, and thoughtful way? I think yes, and if you are at a gala in the next year, just keep asking yourself, does all of this feel right, or is something off here? Then ask what it is you can do about it. If you have concerning answers to any of these questions, give feedback when the organization asks for it, and even join the planning committee for the next gala.
