Fundraising Benefit Dinner

Hi Jeni

The first thing to do is to pick a theme.  You could make it a quiz night or a poker night.  Then you need to find a venue, ideally free of charge - you could see if the local pub/bar will let you have it there.

You work out how many people can fit, then you do a budget and calculate a ticket price that will allow a good profit.  Then you start marketing the event and ideally you want people to buy a table and get all their friends to come as this is easier than selling individual tickets.  Produce posters, send emails, do everything you can to market it as a fun night out for everyone. You want people to want to come because it will be a great evening and not just because it is for charity.

I hope this helps.  let me know if you need more advice.

We are holding a dinner/auction benefit for someone who is very sick with alot of medical bills piling up. Our local Elks Lodge has donated their building for the evening. A benefit that was held last weekend was at an Eagles Lodge that donated the use of their building. We are having 3 whole hogs (donated) and fried fish (also donated). A restaurant owner on our committee is getting her supplier to donate a vegetable side. A local caterer is donating the rest of the side dishes and tea, coffee and lemonade. The church ladies have formed a committee to have members make a dessert to donate, so we will have a dessert bar as well. So we are not paying for any food whatsoever and it's looking like most if not all of the door money will be going to the family in need. We are selling tickets at $20 a person, seeming to be the going price in our area. We are not selling tables but we do sell the tables at the benefit (which is more formal) for our Catholic school. We have a committee to solicit donations and then a committee to pick the items up when it is time. Someone who is familiar with silent auctions is donating her time to organize that end of it. Most of our local auctioneers are generous enough to work together and donate their time for the live auction. The high school football team and the FFA are helping in setting up and cleaning up and doing leg work in between (they have connections to the family). And the advertisers are helping out by running the ads free of charge. We are also putting flyers in every business' window that will allow us to. The key is to get a committee together so that one or just a few people are not doing all of the work. And the more you can get donated, the more money that goes to the family!