Using Parties to Ease the Process of Asking Friends and Family for Money

By NICOLE LEWIS

Nonprofit board members and donors often have a hard time asking people they know for charitable contributions.

To help ease some of the anxiety associated with raising funds from friends,

some nonprofit groups encourage their volunteers to hold parties at their homes as a way to attract donations. At such parties, the organizers usually invite 15 to 50 friends, colleagues, and relatives to enjoy refreshments and hear a short fund-raising pitch.

House parties “take a bit of the pressure off the one-on-one, I’m-asking-my-friend-for-money” approach, says Marla Bobowick, an official at the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, in Washington, who visits trustees nationwide to counsel them about their duties. “We are seeing more organizations say, ‘Hey, let’s host a dinner in someone’s home. We’ll bring in some material and it will be kind of casual, but we’ll get around eventually to asking for money.’”

Saving a Forest

The Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, an environmental group in Bellingham, Wash., used a series of house parties in 1999 to raise $123,000 for a campaign to save part of a state forest. The group was only given five months to secure the money or the state’s Department of Natural Resources would continue to cut down trees.

The urgency of the issue and a fun atmosphere — one party featured a live band — spurred the events’ success, says Mary Humphries, the alliance’s development director.

Each of the 24 parties started with a 20-minute slide show about the forest, followed by a short fund-raising appeal by the host. If the host was nervous about making a pitch, a charity official offered to set up a practice session beforehand.

After the presentations, a basket with donation envelopes was circulated to help prompt immediate contributions. The charity would sometimes make sure that a small number of loyal donors attended the party — and encourage them to lead the way in writing checks to show what was expected. Then, at the end of each event, charity officials would recruit two participants to hold parties of their own.

“Many people gave much more than they thought they would,” says Craig Benton, a recycling consultant who held a party that raised about $18,000. “The checks kept flowing in.”

Some lawyers who attended his event asked some tough questions, says Mr. Benton. But charity officials answered them, taking the pressure off him to know every last detail about the campaign.

“Would I do it again? Yes,” says Mr. Benton, who added he felt comfortable making the pitch because he believes in the group’s cause. “It was a specific ask for a specific purpose. We could say, Hey, this is what we are going to do with your money.”

The charity is planning another round of house parties for a new conservation campaign later this year, with a goal of $250,000.

Wooing New Donors

But money is not always the primary goal of house parties. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, in San Francisco, which fights discrimination, only culls a few thousand dollars from each of its six or so annual house parties. Instead, the group uses the intimate events to woo new donors and strengthen ties with regular contributors.

“It’s your opportunity to really meet people face to face and talk to them individually about the work,” says Leslie Minot, development director of the commission. “We want people to understand the urgency of our work, but we don’t want them to think of us as high-pressure salespeople.”

Still, the charity does ask an event’s organizer to speak about the group’s work and make a plea for donations. “We encourage the host to talk about why they give,” says Ms. Minot, “why this matters so much that they are letting 50 people tramp through their homes.”