The most useful question about your gala is whether to have one. Most organizations skip it, because the event is already on the calendar, the venue is holding the date, and somebody on the board would be heartbroken.
I like a good event. A room full of people who care about the same thing can do what no appeal letter can: it introduces new friends to your work, gives your community a ritual, and lets donors see each other giving. When an event is built for a clear purpose, it earns its place.
But an event is a tool, and the tool should follow the job. Here is how I’d decide whether this year’s gala gets planned, redesigned, or retired, with a worksheet at the end you can bring to the meeting.
Question one: what is it for?
“To raise money” is the usual answer, and it is rarely the whole answer. Events get asked to do many jobs at once, and each job calls for a different event.
- Net revenue. Money you could not raise another way, after every cost.
- New donors. People who have never given, meeting you for the first time.
- Stewardship. Thanking and deepening ties with people who already give.
- Visibility. Getting your name and story in front of a wider public.
- Celebration. Honoring a person, a milestone, or a community.
- Board and volunteer engagement. A concrete way for leaders to invite people in.
Pick one primary purpose and, at most, one secondary. Then write down how you will know whether it worked: a net dollar figure, a count of first-time donors, a number of major donors who attended and heard something specific. If the committee can’t agree on the primary purpose, you have found your first problem, and it is cheaper to solve now than in the week before the event.
Question two: what does it really cost?
Most event budgets count the hard costs (venue, catering, printing, entertainment, rentals) and subtract them from gross revenue. That number is not your net. It leaves out the most expensive thing in the building, which is your staff’s time.
Here is a fuller formula:
True net = gross revenue − hard costs − staff cost − money that moved
Staff cost. Count the hours every staff member spends on the event, from the first planning meeting to the last thank-you, and multiply by a loaded hourly rate (salary plus benefits, divided by hours worked in a year). Your finance lead can give you the rate. Ask each person to estimate their hours honestly, including the evenings and the auction items they chased by phone.
Money that moved. Some event revenue is new money. Some of it is a gift that would have come to you anyway, just in a different envelope. The board member who buys a table instead of making their usual annual gift has moved money, not grown it. You can’t know this figure exactly, but you can look at whether your top event buyers also gave separately, and whether their total giving went up.
An illustration, with invented round numbers. Say an event grosses $100,000 against $40,000 in hard costs. The budget calls that $60,000 net. Now add 900 staff hours at a loaded rate of $45, which is $40,500. And suppose $15,000 of the revenue came from donors who simply redirected their annual gifts. The true net is closer to $4,500. That event may still be worth holding (it might be your best source of new donors), but no one should call it your biggest fundraiser.
Also count what the staff didn’t do. Every hour spent on centerpieces is an hour not spent visiting a major donor, writing a grant, or cleaning up the database. In my experience, this is the cost small shops feel most and measure least.
Question three: what else could do the job?
Once you know the purpose and the true cost, compare the gala with other ways to reach the same goal. Some honest alternatives:
- For net revenue. A focused major gift effort with your top prospects, or a matching gift challenge built around one clear need.
- For new donors. Small gatherings in board members’ homes, program tours for groups of six to ten, or a peer-to-peer campaign your supporters run.
- For stewardship. Personal thank-you calls, site visits, or a donors-only open house where the people you serve do the talking.
- For visibility. A story series, a partnership with a like-minded organization, or a public event that costs little to attend.
- For celebration. A community party with no ask at all, which can be more joyful (and cheaper) than a gala pretending to be one.
- For board engagement. Specific hosting and thanking roles that don’t require a ballroom.
None of these is automatically better. The point is to compare like with like: the cost per dollar raised, per new donor, or per meaningful conversation.
Question four: who decides, and by when?
A decision this visible deserves the right people at the table: the executive director or head of school, the development lead, the board chair, someone who knows the finances, the event chair, and the staff member who will carry the work. Set a date for the decision well before any deposit is due. A venue contract signed out of habit is a decision made by default.
If you decide to keep the event, good. You now know what it is for and what it costs, which makes it easier to cut what doesn’t serve the purpose. If you decide to pause it, say so plainly and thank the people who built it. Retiring an event is not a failure. Holding one that no longer works is the more expensive choice.
The Gala Decision Worksheet
Print this and fill it in before anyone books a venue.
Part 1. Purpose.
- Primary purpose (choose one): net revenue / new donors / stewardship / visibility / celebration / board engagement
- Secondary purpose (optional): ______________________
- How we will measure success: ______________________
- The number that would make it worth it: ______________________
Part 2. True cost.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Expected gross revenue | $ |
| Hard costs (venue, food, printing, rentals, entertainment) | $ |
| Staff hours (all staff, start to finish) × loaded hourly rate | $ |
| Estimated money that moved from other giving | $ |
| True net | $ |
- What staff will not do during event season: ______________________
Part 3. Alternatives.
| Another way to reach the primary purpose | Estimated cost | Estimated result |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | ||
| 2. |
Part 4. Decision.
- ☐ Hold the event as planned
- ☐ Hold it, redesigned around the primary purpose
- ☐ Replace it with: ______________________
- ☐ Pause it for one year and review
- One question to answer out loud: If we had never held this event, would we start it today? It’s a version of Peter Drucker’s question about planned abandonment.
- Decision made by: ______________ Date: ______________
If you want a second set of eyes on the decision, or help making the event you keep do its job better, that’s our Event Strategy and Execution work.
– Mary-Ellen
Featured photo: Photo by Matt Benson on Unsplash.
