A screenshot from ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation’s Above & Beyond 20/20 gala shows auctioneer Kevin Pauley at work. The virtual event brought in $640,000 for the nonprofit. (Image courtesy ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation)
Throughout the pandemic, members of the Richmond nonprofit community have struggled — and innovated — to raise money and marshal volunteers to fulfill their life-saving, life-enriching, community-building missions.
COVID-19 has forced major fundraising events to be canceled, rescheduled or reimagined as virtual efforts. Face-to face meetings and visits — the building blocks of the relationship building that is crucial to nonprofits’ success — have been replaced by online meetings.
“I don’t think anybody was up to snuff on how to behave during a pandemic,” says Scott Blackwell, chief community engagement officer at the Community Foundation.
With $750 million to $800 million in assets, the Community Foundation uses grants, training and other programs to help maintain a sustainable network of nonprofits for the region.
The pandemic prompted the foundation to collaborate with partners and donors old and new, and new causes came to the forefront. Aid from the foundation and its partners first went to provide food access to children and families when schools were closed. As the list of needs grew — assistance to homeless people so COVID-19 would not spread through that community, laptops and tablets for students who needed access to remote learning — collaborations also grew.
“People who were strangers at the beginning of the year are now very close associates and allies,” Blackwell says. “Everybody just needed to let their guard down and dig in deep and figure out what we had to do.”
The foundation created the Central Virginia COVID Response Fund, soliciting money from donors, corporations and other funders to fill unanticipated requests for help.
“We’re putting more money into the community than we have in many years,” Blackwell says. Discretionary funding for the community totaled $3.5 million last year; this year, discretionary funding, including money raised specifically for the COVID response, totaled $11 million.
Every Dollar Counts
Pandemic or not, childhood cancer is relentless.
The ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation has been just as relentless in scaling one coronavirus-related hurdle after another to raise money to make life better for children with cancer.
“When everything turned upside down in March and we kind of scrambled, we had canceled our largest fundraiser event — our Above & Beyond gala — which was on track to raise a million dollars, so it was going to be a record-breaking year,” says Development Director Britt Nelson.
Then ASK’s second largest fundraiser, a 5K race, also had to be postponed.
“In early spring, we were pretty nervous about what was going to happen financially for our programs and for our budget goals,” Nelson recalls.
When the foundation’s fiscal year ended June 30, the budget had a deficit of $87,000. Had it not been for donors who stepped in at the last minute, Nelson says the deficit could have been $200,000.
With a new fiscal year, ASK moved its Sept. 19 gala to a livestreamed virtual event. Donors could pick up or choose to have volunteers deliver meals prepared by Mosaic Catering and cocktails from Perch restaurant to enjoy at home while watching.
There was no template for a virtual gala. “We had to think through all the pieces,” Nelson says. “We interviewed more people, we had a silent auction, a donation drive. We even had donors from California.
“Going forward, I think the gala will always have a livestream component. It was pretty cool to keep people, no matter where they are that night, part of the event.”
The virtual gala raised $640,000, topping the previous record of $540,000. And every dollar counts — since March, Nelson says, more than two dozen children in the region have been diagnosed with cancer.
One of the best-selling items in the American Heart Association’s virtual Heart Ball auction was healthy meals for health care workers. (Photo courtesy American Heart Association)
Virtual Success
Another nonprofit that had success with a virtual event was the World Pediatric Project, which provides care to hundreds of children annually in countries where basic pediatric surgical care is lacking, especially in Central America and the Caribbean.
The nonprofit was scheduled to hold Rock ’n’ Heal, its annual fundraising event, in August.
When the pandemic hit, the fundraiser moved online. The virtual event exceeded expectations, netting $250,000 against a goal of $225,000.
“I don’t know whether there is a clear sort of best practices,” says Andrea Ahonen, vice president of development. “We’re all kind of figuring this out on the fly.”
The local chapter of the American Heart Association also waded into virtual territory with its 28th annual Richmond Heart Ball on June 26 and raised a record $1.3 million.
“One of the best sellers for the auction that evening was providing a healthy meal to health care workers,” says Michelle Nostheide, the chapter’s executive director.
The Richmond SPCA is anticipating a downturn of as much as 40% to 50% less revenue from its events this fiscal year, which began in October and ends next September.
Its signature event, the annual Fur Ball on Nov. 7, was virtual, with a video of its popular parade of pets down the grand staircase at The Jefferson Hotel. Tamsen Kingry, chief executive officer of the RSPCA, says the virtual ball hoped to “capture the essence of the in-person event that everyone knows and loves.” The virtual event raised almost $420,000, with about $35,000 in expenses, says Director of Communications Tabitha Treloar.
