{"id":1048,"date":"2007-05-29T09:13:29","date_gmt":"2007-05-29T16:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2007\/05\/timewasting_moneylosers_aka_ch\/"},"modified":"2007-05-29T09:13:29","modified_gmt":"2007-05-29T16:13:29","slug":"timewasting_moneylosers_aka_ch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/timewasting_moneylosers_aka_ch.php","title":{"rendered":"Time-wasting money-losers, aka charity events"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll be blogging more about the recent ”leisure trends” roundtable at the Getty Center this week, but wanted to take a break to flag a new report on special event fundraising<\/a> from Charity Navigator. The analysis (also reported here in the Wisconsin State Journal<\/i><\/a>, with the ”local” angle) suggests that special events, on average, are awful ways to raise money.<\/p>\n

Says the report:<\/p>\n


\nOn average, the charities we studied spent $1.33 to raise $1 in special events contributions, compared to an average overall fundraising rate of $.13 to raise $1. Only 15% of the charities that held special events were more efficient when using special events to fundraise than they were in their regular fundraising activities on the whole.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Among health organizations, the study found special event costs of $1.84 for every dollar raised.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, the reported costs used in the study (from IRS tax documents) don’t include the person-hours, board time, volunteer effort, and staff distraction that such events require — suggesting the true<\/i> cost of each dollar raised is much, much higher.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, special events are not just about raising money. They provide public events, celebration of achievement, recognition of volunteers, donors, and community members, and gateways for new constituents to learn about your organization. These are all noble goals, as long as your organization is balancing its strategy and costs against all other opportunities to do the same thing.<\/p>\n

But the report should nudge you to ask yourself, your staff, and your board the obvious but awkward question: Are the benefits of our special events worth their actual cost? And if not, why on earth are we doing them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll be blogging more about the recent ”leisure trends” roundtable at the Getty Center this week, but wanted to take a break to flag a new report on special event fundraising from Charity Navigator. The analysis (also reported here in the Wisconsin State Journal, with the ”local” angle) suggests that special events, on average, are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}