Fundraising event profitability once you count staff time

7 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Introduction

The gala raised eleven thousand. Everyone agreed it was a success, the photographs were good, and it will run again next year.

What nobody calculated was the four months of staff time, the venue deposit paid in March, the printing, the volunteer hours, and the appeal that did not get written because everyone was busy. Counted properly, a great many charity events raise less than a letter would have, and they keep running because the true cost is never put on paper.

1. Fundraising event profitability requires counting staff time

This is the omission that changes every verdict.

Hours spent by paid staff on planning, selling tickets, chasing sponsors and running the day are a real cost. Leaving them out is what makes an event look profitable when it is consuming more value than it creates.

2. Count what the event displaced

Opportunity cost matters as much as direct cost.

If four months of fundraising capacity went into the event, the question is what those months would have produced otherwise. That comparison, not the gross raised, is the honest measure.

3. Separate the money into its sources

Events blur several different things together.

Ticket sales, sponsorship, the auction, and donations made on the night. Frequently the sponsorship and the major gifts would have arrived anyway through a direct ask, which means the event itself generated far less than the total suggests.

4. Include the costs that arrive late

Events have a long tail.

Refunds, unsold tickets, damage, thank-you printing, and the staff time spent on follow-up afterwards. Closing the books on the night flatters the result; wait a month before deciding what it actually made.

5. Judge it on its real purpose

Some events are not primarily fundraisers.

Recruiting supporters, thanking existing ones, raising local profile, cultivating major donors. These are legitimate aims, and an event serving them should be judged against them rather than against a figure it was never designed to hit.

6. Capture the people, not just the money

The most common wasted asset of an event.

Everybody who attended is a warm contact, and in many organisations nobody collects their details or follows up. The attendee list handled properly can be worth more than the night's takings.

7. Follow up within the week

Attention decays fast after an event.

Thank people, tell them what was raised, and give them a next step. A guest contacted a fortnight later has already returned to their normal life and forgotten the feeling that would have carried a second gift.

8. Decide honestly whether to run it again

Repetition by default is how loss-making events survive.

Put the full costing, including staff time and displaced work, in front of the board. Some events survive that scrutiny comfortably. Others turn out to persist because cancelling them feels like an admission rather than a decision.

9. Consider the smaller alternatives

The choice is not gala or nothing.

A supporter dinner for twenty, a community fundraiser led by volunteers, or a straightforward campaign often produce more net income for a fraction of the staff time. Test one against your usual event and compare the honest figures.

Write the full costing down every year in the same format, so comparison is possible. Events tend to be remembered by the atmosphere on the night rather than by the numbers, and only a consistent record corrects for that.

Conclusion

Cost the event properly including staff time, because the gross raised is not the figure that tells you whether it was worth doing.

Count what the preparation displaced, separate income that would have arrived anyway from money the event genuinely created, include the costs that appear in the following weeks, judge events with non-financial aims against those aims, collect and use the attendee list, follow up within the week while the goodwill is live, put the honest costing in front of your trustees before committing to a repeat, and compare it against a smaller alternative before assuming the big event is the best option.