Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
I've served on the planning committee for two for quite a few years before the pandemic and am now taking a bit of a break from attending. I love charity 5Ks and there are a few my daughter and I do either virtually or in-person every year, but I really don't enjoy the dinner-and-auction type of fundraiser. The first few years on the committee of the bigger of the two events were fun because we always had a theme and committee members were expected to dress to the theme of the event, which was Mardi Gras one year, Vintage Vegas another, etc. so a good excuse to be a bit extra for the night, but the novelty wore off pretty quick. The other org. does casual-dress events with far less theming, which actually got boring even quicker. LOL
Same. I enjoyed working on the creative end of things and didn't mind sourcing donations or low-cost supplies for decorations, centerpieces, etc. to carry out our theme, but I always made it clear that the soliciting auction items was best left to someone else. Fortunately we had a few volunteers who are amazing at it, so if we all just stuck to our strengths everything ran smoothly.
I would be very surprised if that is true for any org. worth their fundraising salt. Tickets are generally priced such that they cover the per-plate cost of the venue plus incidentals like the DJ/band and decorating budget, in my experience, and most of the auctioned and raffled items are donations so those are pure "profit" for the host organization. The larger of the two events I was involved in usually draws 200-300 attendees and raises around $50K after expenses. It would be pretty tough to try to solicit that much in direct donations.
I agree. When I help with planning, I never offer to help with solicitation. My mom was great at that and would ask anywhere. She even went to the indie record store filled with counter culture teens and 20 somethings that none of the other parents would go to. She thought the owner and employees were nice and always got big donations from them.
Same. I enjoyed working on the creative end of things and didn't mind sourcing donations or low-cost supplies for decorations, centerpieces, etc. to carry out our theme, but I always made it clear that the soliciting auction items was best left to someone else. Fortunately we had a few volunteers who are amazing at it, so if we all just stuck to our strengths everything ran smoothly.
No, I am not at all interested in attending those kind of events. If I want to donate money or goods to a cause, I will just make the donation. These big flashy events cost money that the charity could just put toward their cause.
I would be very surprised if that is true for any org. worth their fundraising salt. Tickets are generally priced such that they cover the per-plate cost of the venue plus incidentals like the DJ/band and decorating budget, in my experience, and most of the auctioned and raffled items are donations so those are pure "profit" for the host organization. The larger of the two events I was involved in usually draws 200-300 attendees and raises around $50K after expenses. It would be pretty tough to try to solicit that much in direct donations.