Exercises: Galas, Fundraisers, and Social Celebrations
Part A recall · Part B application · Part C field work · Part D critique · Part M mixed review · Part E extension.
Starred (★) problems have worked answers in appendices/answers-to-selected.md.
Part A — Recall and Comprehension
A.1 ★ Define cost per dollar raised. Give the typical range for galas and for major gifts.
A.2 Why is donor acquisition allowed to cost more than a dollar per dollar raised? What does that establish about galas?
A.3 ★ Name the five things a gala can do that a letter cannot. Which does it do least efficiently?
A.4 State the threshold concept about what a gala actually is. Name three design decisions it changes.
A.5 Give the two questions asked in the first committee meeting. What does the second one reveal?
A.6 ★ List the six revenue streams with their typical share and their cost to produce. Which two produce most of the money for almost none of the effort?
A.7 Work through why a $500 ticket nets $152.49.
A.8 ★ Where does the ask go in the run of show, and give three reasons the traditional placement is worse.
A.9 What is wrong with the twenty-two-minute video, and what replaces it?
A.10 Name the seven components of a paddle raise.
A.11 ★ What is a lead gift, why is it necessary, and what happens without one?
A.12 In the sample ladder, what fraction comes from the top two rungs, and what are the bottom two rungs actually for?
A.13 How many items should a live auction have, and what happens at item seven?
A.14 ★ Give the silent-auction arithmetic: items, volunteer hours, gross, per hour — and the cost nobody computes.
A.15 State the threshold concept about volunteer time. Why does the wrong work get done?
A.16 ★ What is a committee for, and what is it not for? What kind of ask works?
A.17 Distinguish sponsorship from underwriting. Who is each sold to, on what argument?
A.18 ★ Does underwriting reduce cost per dollar raised? Explain precisely what it does change.
A.19 Name the seven rows of the report a gala should produce. Which one does almost nobody produce, and why?
A.20 In a social celebration, who is the subject and who is the client? What failure does that produce?
Part B — Application
B.1 ★ A gala grosses $478,000 at a cost of $211,000. Compute net and cost per dollar raised, and write the two sentences you say to the board — one about the number, one about what it means.
B.2 Write the announcement made from the stage at the end of the evening. Not gross. Under 60 words, true, and stronger than the gross figure.
B.3 ★ Build a revenue architecture targeting $850,000 net for a 400-guest gala. All six streams, with a target and a justification for each, and state what you would cut first if you were short.
B.4 Write the run of show for a 350-guest gala, 6:00 reception to 10:00 close. Place the ask and justify the placement in one sentence.
B.5 ★ Design the paddle-raise ladder for a 250-guest room whose top prospect can give $15,000. Show levels, expected paddles, and the total — then say which two numbers you would secure in advance.
B.6 Write the lead-gift solicitation script for a donor who gave $10,000 last year and whom you want at $25,000 as the opening paddle.
B.7 ★ A silent auction has 95 items, raised $38,000, and consumed roughly 700 volunteer hours from 25 people, 9 of whom are board members. Do the full arithmetic including opportunity cost, and write the recommendation.
B.8 Design a wine pull: procurement ask, price point, bottle range, setup, and expected net for 400 guests.
B.9 ★ Build a sponsorship ladder totalling $300,000 for a 300-guest gala. Then identify the double-counting risk and say how you present it to the board.
B.10 Write what you say to a committee that has spent forty minutes on centrepieces and has 18 unsold tables at $7,500 each.
B.11 ★ A board member has not sold their two committed tables and the event is five weeks away. Write what you say to the chair — and say what you do not do.
B.12 Write the 72-hour follow-up plan for a gala that raised $640,000 including $180,000 of paddle pledges.
B.13 ★ A bar mitzvah: 220 guests, of whom 55 are twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. Write the supervision plan, the two-arc programme design, and the three questions you ask the young person.
B.14 A quinceañera family has a $28,000 budget and a guest list that has grown from 120 to 190 over eight months. Write the conversation, using Chapter 5's material.
B.15 ★ An organisation's gala nets $170,000 at $0.45 per dollar raised while its membership programme raises $480,000 at $0.11. Write your recommendation, including what you say about your own fee.
Part C — Field and Practice
C.1 ★ Find a nonprofit's published annual report and locate its fundraising expense by method. Compute cost per dollar raised for each. Report whether the gala's number is separately disclosed — usually it is not.
C.2 Attend or watch a recorded gala paddle raise. Record the ladder, the paddle counts, and the close. Report whether there was a lead gift.
C.3 ★ Ask a development professional what their gala's cost per dollar raised is. Record how long it takes them to answer and whether the number is at hand.
C.4 Find three benefit auctioneers and get their fee structures. Report the range and what is included.
C.5 ★ Count the volunteer hours in any silent auction you can observe or reconstruct. Then ask three of those volunteers what else they could have done with the time.
C.6 Collect three gala sponsorship decks. Compare the ladders, and report what the top tier includes beyond a logo.
C.7 Find out what a mobile bidding platform actually costs, all in, including processing. Report the percentage on a $500,000 event.
Part D — Critique and Judgment
D.1 ★ The chapter opens with a ratio that makes galas look bad and then spends the chapter defending them. Is that intellectually honest, or is it having it both ways? Take a position.
D.2 §32.6 says a silent auction is usually a mistake. Build the strongest case for one, including things the volunteer-hour arithmetic does not capture.
D.3 ★ The opportunity-cost argument treats board members' time as convertible to sponsorship solicitation. Attack that assumption. Are those forty people actually able or willing to do the other job?
D.4 §32.8 says underwriting does not change cost per dollar raised. It also says the sentence it enables is "worth more than the money it describes." Are those consistent? Work out what is actually being claimed.
D.5 ★ The chapter says announcing gross from the stage is a mistake. Argue the opposite — that gross is the honest number for what a room did together, and that net is an accounting artefact. Then decide.
D.6 §32.5's paddle raise depends on public giving in front of five hundred people. That is social pressure, deliberately engineered. Where is the ethical line, and does this chapter cross it?
D.7 ★ The productive struggle has the planner risk their own fee. Is that realistic advice or is it advice that is easy to give? What would make it realistic?
D.8 §32.9's twelve-month query is called "the only honest measure" of cultivation. Design the objection: what would make that query misleading even if somebody ran it?
Part M — Mixed Review
M.1 ★ (Ch.31) How does the objective discipline apply here, and what two things are different?
M.2 (Ch.22) A gala's arc peaks in its first third. Why, and what carries the second half?
M.3 ★ (Ch.15) State the alcohol tension and its resolution. What else from Chapter 15 applies unchanged?
M.4 (Ch.29) Which two Chapter 29 findings matter most at a gala, and why is the seating chart worth more here?
M.5 ★ (Ch.30) Apply the praise problem to a gala debrief. Who cannot report what, and what replaces the question?
M.6 (Ch.14) Where does the banquet multiplier appear in the $500 ticket arithmetic, and what does it do to it?
M.7 ★ (Ch.24) Named jobs with one task each. Where does that principle appear three times in this chapter?
M.8 (Ch.21) Why does Chapter 21's rule apply with full force to a b'nai mitzvah or a quinceañera?
M.9 ★ (Ch.5) What is the specific overrun risk in a social celebration, and when should the conversation happen?
M.10 (Ch.27) What is the gala equivalent of the napkin fold, and who does it?
Part E — Extension and Synthesis
E.1 ★ Get real numbers for one real event — gross, cost, volunteer hours, attendance by segment — and produce the full report from §32.9, including an estimate of the twelve-month row. Report what you could not find and why.
E.2 Research the evidence on charitable giving and social influence — search: identifiable victim effect, social proof in fundraising, matching gifts. Report which of §32.4's and §32.5's techniques have empirical support and which are folklore.
E.3 ★ Write 800 words on whether the paddle raise is manipulative. Engage seriously with the strongest objection, and reach a position you would defend to a donor who asked.
E.4 Design an alternative to a gala that achieves the cultivation objective at a lower ratio. Cost it, and say honestly what it loses.
E.5 ★ Interview a board member about selling tables. Ask what makes it hard. Report three things the chapter does not address.
E.6 Compare fundraising-efficiency regulation and disclosure across two countries. Report what donors can actually find out, and whether the chapter's transparency argument is supported by what the public record makes possible.
📐 Mini-Project
Take one real fundraising event and produce the analysis nobody produced.
- Cost per dollar raised, computed, against the organisation's other methods
- Revenue by stream, with the cost of producing each
- The volunteer-hour audit, with opportunity cost stated
- The run of show, with the ask's placement assessed
- The paddle raise, reconstructed — ladder, lead gifts, close
- A rebuilt design, with a target for each change
- The report, all seven rows, including an estimate of the row nobody produces
Then present it to somebody involved.
Record which finding they resist hardest. It will almost certainly be the silent auction, and the reason will not be the arithmetic — it will be that forty people enjoy doing it and it is how they feel part of the organisation.
That is a real answer and it belongs in your report.