Board Directors and Events

29 Sep Board Directors and Events

30 September 2025

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

Several years ago, I was asked to help evaluate a Gala event that had plateaued. For the previous four or five years, the organization had introduced higher ticket prices, more robust sponsor packages, different auction styles, a paddle raise, and gimmicky games in hopes of pushing the net over $100,000. But each year, the net penciled out just short – $98,300 being the most recent example. What could the organization do to improve results?

So I pulled the event apart, and a lot of what I learned in the process has colored the way I look at fundraising events to this day. And here’s the BIG one:

You don’t raise money from events. You raise money from people.

When I started looking at the people giving money through the event, I found some donors, including several businesses, who ONLY gave through events. In years when they couldn’t come, they didn’t give.

But others seemed to give the same regardless and some actually gave more during years when they couldn’t go. Many donors give when they are asked, give what they are asked to give, and give to what they are asked. Ask them to renew their Donor Circle membership, and they renew their Donor Circle membership. Ask them to buy a Gala table, and they buy a Gala table.

Some might do both, but not all. And that specifically applies to board directors.

When I mined the data, I discovered that the revenue from the event had remained flat, but that board directors were making up a larger and larger share of the total. In other words, board directors were propping up a fundraising event that was otherwise raising less and less each year. Over the five years I studied, the erosion was close to $15,000 on a $98,000 event.

Why would they redirect money they would have given otherwise to the Gala? I think they did so mostly because that was what they were being asked to do. Being seen as fundraising leaders at the event made them feel good too.

So what are the opinions that were colored by that experience?

1. Board members should be asked to attend events to work. If they wish to buy a table, if they wish to buy tickets, if they wish to sponsor – so be it and thank you very much. But even directors who can’t or don’t pay anything should still be expected to attend – and expected to work.
2. Events should be evaluated both WITH and EXCLUDING all revenue from board directors. It is reasonable to expect board directors to give that money anyway, so giving it through the event instead of over coffee, doesn’t actually help financially. You need to understand the event financials without the director’s money involved. And if the event is raising less and less each year, you need to look at that instead of masking it.
3. Finally, and most importantly, we should all avoid evaluating events in isolation of everything else going on. What about those donors buying a table for $1,500 and then sticking with their $1,000 membership renewal? Could you have asked them for $5,000 instead under the right circumstances? If you had, might they have given $2,500 anyway?

Plus the table?

Cheers, and have a great week!

-da

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Photo by Herbert Bieser courtesy Pixabay