Return of the balls: sigh of relief for the foundations
Proms are traditionally a time to raise funds and bring attention to a cause (except Bridgerton, we get along). Pandemic obliges, they had to be erased from our calendars for two years and the foundations which organize them have thus lost opportunities to bail out their coffers. But they have also won an opportunity to reinvent themselves!
The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation, which annually organizes the Printemps du MAC, the MAC ball and the Collectors' Symposium, has lost over a million dollars by not being able to hold its three events in the last two years.
At the Canadian Cancer Society, which holds the Daffodil Ball each year, $80 million has been lost across the country. The Montreal ball alone usually raises more or less $1.5 million every spring.
As for the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation, the team was expecting this that 40% of income is gone. In the end, she did not suffer any financial loss, despite the absence of the Bal de Sainte-Justine and other face-to-face activities from the event program.
“The team and the volunteers have really worked hard to ensure that there is no financial impact, because the support that the Foundation provides to the hospital is enormous,” explains Delphine Brodeur. , President and CEO of the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation.
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Reinventing yourself
All the foundations have sought (and found!) alternative solutions for raising funds. Liette Guertin, director of exemplary and corporate giving and head of the Daffodil Ball, says she and her team were able to raise $800,000 to offset the ball last year. “We did a solicitation campaign with business leaders, who are the ones who generally buy tables and make donations. We still pulled out of the game,” she said.
This year, $1.2 million was raised at the ball, even though it was held with just 300 people last month. It's half less than usual, but that didn't take anything away from the success, which wasn't just pecuniary: “People were happy to meet again, it was difficult to get them to sit down at their table. !”, assures Liette Guertin.
Francis Guindon, co-chair of the Printemps du MAC volunteer committee, tells how he and the other volunteers wanted to “be innovative with the means at hand” by offering a virtual auction as an alternative to the event last year. The success was such that this auction of works by Quebec and Canadian artists was back this year, in addition to the evening which was finally able to take place last Friday.
And the philanthropists of the metropolis were enthusiastic to be able to put on rhinestones and sequins again! The event was sold out, filling the Auberge Saint-Gabriel with 800 guests who had followed the theme announced two years ago, Hasard Bazar, a tribute to the surrealist movement.
The organization of the ball also wanted to be careful, hence the choice of the venue, which allowed the crowd to be divided into different rooms. “We did not close our eyes, launches Francis Guindon. Just because we no longer need to wear the mask doesn't mean we're coming back pre-2020. We didn’t want to be the party that brought the eighth wave to Montreal!” Nevertheless, the place was packed, but that only helped to raise the evening.
Push-thinking further
As for Sainte-Justine, a lot of effort has been put into organizing virtual activities, which has made it possible to reach a wider audience, especially outside the metropolitan area. Of course, like the other foundations, this one offered to holders of tickets for the 2020 edition of the ball to convert their purchase into donations. However, nothing has been put in place specifically to replace last year's evening, which is also not on the calendar this year.
C'est que le Bal de Sainte-Justine generates higher costs than other activities, admits Delphine Brodeur. The foundation's team therefore took advantage of the pandemic to carry out a global reflection on its event programming.
“We are thinking about having a more scalable event approach to allow us to go into different spheres of activity, therefore to seize opportunities and renew our offer, summarizes the president and general manager. We are doing a reflection based on successes that were implemented in the urgency to act, but which were nevertheless an opening towards innovation. It allowed us to brew the paradigms all together in a context where we had no choice but to do so.”
The members of the three foundations agree: the last two pandemic years, it was a difficult but transformative time. Events in a hybrid format (half-face-to-face, half-virtual) are likely to continue, the generosity of the public has been more than appreciated and the return to normal life has everyone breathing a sigh of relief.
“In an equally efficient way, but with less resources, we were able to deliver what is at the heart of our mission. I think we have something to be proud of,” concludes Liette Guertin.
