Holiday Galas: How a Health Charity Thrives Amid Recession and a Touch of Scandal

Anna Wolf, a 9-year-old, was probably the youngest person at the 50th annual Children’s Ball here this month.

But she had all the poise of an adult when a sixty-something woman in black satin approached her, bent down, and said: “Don’t move too far away, honey. In 25 years, you’ll be doing the ball.”

The leadership of the Children’s Ball does not always pass from generation to generation in the same family. In fact, each year’s leaders are always new volunteers.

But Anna’s grandmother, Barbara S. Bluhm-Kaul, co-chaired the event in 1981, and her mother, Meredith Bluhm-Wolf, co-chaired it in 2008. Such loyalty has helped to make the annual event one of the most successful and long-running charity benefits in the country.

Last weekend’s ball shows how strong leadership can help ensure that fund-raising events thrive even amid the clouds of recession and scandal.

The Children’s Ball has succeeded both by following traditional fund-raising advice and flouting it. It has raised more than $100-million since 1959, when it was founded to benefit Michael Reese Hospital. In 1991, the beneficiary became the Medical Research Institute Council, which forwards money to Children’s Memorial Hospital.

Nonprofit groups all around the country have canceled holiday benefits this season out of concern donors were not in a celebratory mood and might be turned off by lavish events. But the Children’s Ball never considered folding such a long-running event.

Just as worrisome as the economy in the week before the ball was the scandal involving the governor of Illinois. Rod Blagojevich allegedly sought to extract a campaign gift from the president of the hospital in exchange for guaranteed state aid.

Although Chicago was buzzing with the news of Governor Blagojevich’s arrest — and the hospital was put on the spot to deny any connection to the corruption — donors are so focused on what their money does for medical research that “I haven’t heard a word about that tonight,” said Mary J.C. Hendrix, the council’s president and scientific director, as supporters mingled in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Chicago hotel.

This month’s ball raised more than $800,000 from among the more than 1,200 donors who attended. The event capped off a record-breaking year of fund raising by the Children’s Ball committee on behalf of the research council. The council says it raised a total of $5.3-million this year, about $4.5-million via face-to-face fund raising, and the remainder from the ball.

The Children’s Ball has always been designed to be glitzier than any similar event in Chicago. Expensive brands of alcohol were available at four open bars. A live jazz combo played throughout the evening, while a performance artist dressed in turquoise pretended to be a butterfly. Even her hair was turquoise. Meanwhile, 10 children welcomed arriving guests by playing the Brandenburg Concertos on violins. And a full orchestra was offering “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” accompanied by two crooners and 10 dancers dressed in satin.

JoAnn Eisenberg first attended the ball in 1967 and later became its chairman. She says that the event’s “great history” is the key to its success, but that its unusual approach to fund-raising leadership is even more important.

When the ball was born, “it was primarily a Jewish event,” said Dr. Eisenberg, a retired clinical psychologist and a lifelong Chicagoan.

That’s because its beneficiary, Michael Reese Hospital, was the only medical facility in Chicago where Jewish physicians could practice. The event — originally called the Crystal Ball — ”quickly became the event for the philanthropic Jews of Chicago,” Dr. Eisenberg says.

Fifty years ago, “things were not as they are today,” Dr. Eisenberg said. “There were very few Jews on the board of the Lyric Opera.”

But the Children’s Ball was determined not to stay a Jewish-only event— and it has made a determined effort to seek volunteer leaders and organizers from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Unlike other galas, the Children’s Ball is careful about not spending so much on the festivities that too little is left over for charity.

This month’s ball was the third in a row held at the Hilton. In return for a pledge to hold the event there for three years, the hotel agreed not to raise its prices from year to year. “When you hold down your costs like that, you are really in position to succeed,” said Dr. Eisenberg.

“We haven’t seen the declines that others have seen” in the turbulent economy, said Emily Emmerman, a health-care executive who co-chaired the 2008 event. “The reason is that this is a personal cause, not a wholesale fund-raising event. We probably know half the people in this room. I went to summer camp with two of them.”

“It’s not hard to raise two or three million dollars in a year for children’s medical research. Really, it isn’t,” said Dr. Eisenberg. “What’s hard is to do it year after year after year.

“The reason that happens with this event is that it’s the culmination of a whole year of effort.” Another key to success is that the event is run by new volunteers every year.

Fund raisers are usually told to engage donors and leaders — and never do anything to disengage them. But the Children’s Ball’s unwillingness to let a small number of volunteers dominate the event has proven to be a shot in the arm, both in terms of energy and because new social circles of the volunteer chairmen get invited and get involved every year.

To reinforce the connections to the cause, senior researchers from the council are always on hand at the gala. They were seated at tables with philanthropists who had contributed directly to the researchers’ areas of specialization.

At the ball, the new chairmen for next year — Donna Drescher and Debra Marcus — were introduced, and they are clearly eager to get started.

“Bottom line—it’s about kids,” said Ms. Drescher, who has four children, including a son who was treated successfully for leukemia at Children’s Memorial when he was a teenager.

Even though 2009 is clearly going to be challenging for fund raising, that is not a worry for Ms. Drescher.

“Kids who get sick,” says Ms. Drescher, “don’t know anything about the economy.”

Bob Levey is a regular columnist for The Chronicle. He spent 36 years as a columnist, reporter, and editor for The Washington Post. He has also been a senior fund-raising executive, and he is a longtime volunteer fund raiser in higher education and the arts.