Dear Gala Committee,

 

As a reminder, we’ll be meeting this afternoon at 4:15 pm. The topics for this afternoon’s meeting include:

 

1.       Ticket Sales - Mark and Anna

2.      Ticket Pricing - Pete and Jenn

3.      Wine Pairing with Dinner - Shirley and Pete

4.      Wine Raffle - Guy

5.      Event Sponsorships (levels) - Anna

6.      Table Sponsorship Pricing - Debbie

7.      Table Decorating (Contest?) - Debbie

8.     Entertainment (Karaoke?) - Guy

9.      Raffle (Dinner Anywhere) - Bob Larsen

10.  Quilt Drawing (Ticket sales?) - Margo

 

For your reference, I’ve attached the notes from our last meeting and ask that you review these notes prior to our call this afternoon. I’ve also attached last year’s sponsorship prospectus and have listed below again an email thread between Anna and me that you might find useful for today’s meeting.

 

I look forward to speaking with you all this afternoon.

 

Jenn

 

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1. When do you think Mark will give us an answer on if we can have printed tickets and register them online in either a system Mark creates and give us login or something we management and shares with Mark? If you need me to bug Mark, I'm very persistent and annoying so I wouldn't mind, just let me know. In theory, your suggestion sounds very doable. Mark needs to explore the registration system he’s using to see if we can have volunteers logging in to register guests. If not, we’ll need to explore other options. Question for you . . . when you’ve sold tickets in the past for other events, how did guests pay? Assuming you accepted checks, but what about credit cards? Did you register the guest on spot using a registration system that allowed you to process a credit card or did you only accept checks? Just want to know what I need to set up on this end if Mark’s system won’t allow for volunteers to enter guest info.

In the past I normally only accept cash and check. Credit cards gets complicated because there are always fees involved and hard to track. I haven't had much problems with just cash and check. If Mark's system won't allow for volunteers to enter guest information. I would suggest we just create a google form link. So people selling tickets could just click on the link and enter them that way. We definitely need to keep track on the google form who sold the ticket and how they collected the money (check or cash), but they would need to turn in that money two weeks ahead of time to either me (since I volunteer to help with the online system) or you. I think it would get messy if we have them turn it into Mark directly. 

 

2. Sponsors - I notice in the past we have had Platinum, Gold, and so on levels of sponsors. How much is each level of sponsorships? I would love to jump on getting corporations to sponsor our Gala right away. The Gala Committee determines sponsorship levels. When would you and Guy like to schedule the next committee meeting? We can add sponsorships to the agenda. Also, at the last meeting we talked about individuals being able to purchase a table to decorate; we should determine the table sponsorship fee as well. I’ve attached last year’s sponsorship prospectus for your reference. Last year there was discussion that the sponsorship levels were too low when compared to other nonprofits. The argument was made that the levels are just right (or maybe even a little too high!) for Kiwanians. Everyone agrees we need to start asking people outside of Kiwanis for donations, but no one makes the ask. Staff will update the sponsorship prospectus based on the suggested sponsorship levels/benefits the Committee comes up with.

I'm going to start making the ask right now. I don't really care what the levels are, people will just find a level they are comfortable with. I don't mind keeping the levels the same. I love the brochure you sent me. I'm going to make a donation letter based off of it and start mass sending it out to all organizations in California and Nevada.

 

3. Donation/ Sponsorship letter - Is there already a letter we use to solicit sponsors? If so can you please send me a copy? We haven’t had a separate “letter” in the recent past, just the attached prospectus. Several years ago we had a “ways you can help” letter, but that was written towards Kiwanians and clubs; not for anyone outside of Kiwanis. Staff sends personal appeals; for example, Pete reaches out to his hotel and wine contacts each year and solicits donations by simply making the ask.

Attached is the donation letter we normally use for ribfest and some other events. It's one letter that ask for both silent auction items and/or sponsorships. I find it very useful. I love the brochure with all the photos and everything, but most companies just want the information in the least number of pages and words. I know Visa was a Platinum sponsor of $2,500 for our Chamber event last year. I'm going to hit them up for $2,500 again and I'll just call it Platinum Plus level. 

 

4. Who in the past get the sponsors, donors, and silent auction items? I really hope they don't put all this on you. Again I'm not familiar with the board but from I heard this weekend it sounds like the board members really don't carry their own weight and put a lot of work on you. I completely plan on soliciting over 50-60 companies for donations right away. The Board and Ambassadors are asked to solicit gifts, but what little we receive from the volunteers is usually small gifts and gift baskets. Staff solicits donations from organizations and from Kiwanians.

 

5. Silent Auction items - Have we already filled out requests online for Disneyland tickets donations? all major sports teams? etc. If not, I'll be happy to do it, but I just didn't want to double the requests. I haven’t started this piece and would be grateful if you could take on this task. Thank you! Let me know what you might need from me. For instance, our tax ID number is 94-1623498 and our mailing address is 8360 Red Oak St., Ste. 200, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730.

For #4 & $5, I'm going to start asking all chain restaurants (BJ's, Friday's, Olive Garden, Red Lobster), Costco's, Sam's Club, Disneyland, Universal Studios, etc  Most of these places will give you a give card of like $25- $50, BUT the key is if you ask like 5 Olive Garden or BJ's, you can combine the gift cards to make it like a $100 or $250 gift card and put it with a basket of wine and glasses or beer mugs and T-Shirts and called it something like "Date Night Basket." At the very least you will get the value of the gift cards back. 

 

6. Event Capacity - When can we find out from Mark the capacity for the gala? I familiar with putting on events with 300-500 guest. I think we can majorly increase attendance at our Gala. Mark has a site visit and tasting at the hotel on Thursday. More to follow . . .

 

7. Deadlines - I would also like to know what the deadline is to register people for the Gala, so I can create a timeline to work backward on numbers to hit. The registration deadline is almost always two weeks prior to the event, so for Mid-Year South, the registration deadline would be February 1st and for Mid-Year North, the deadline would be February 15th.

 

8. Also, when does he plan to put Mid-year registration online? When is the soonest we can print up tickets? Not sure where he is with this piece. Given he hasn’t selected the meals yet, I’m not sure when he plans to launch registration.

 

9. Do I, as a board member design the tickets or do you do it? (sorry if this is a stupid question, I really just don't know how the board normally works?) Same question for the day of program - Who makes it? when is the deadline to get it printed? who get it printed? Staff would design the tickets. That said, you mentioned using a perforated ticket for previous events. I welcome samples if you have some from previous events. Staff also designs the program and the program is printed in-house. I prefer three weeks prior to the first mid-year as the deadline to confirm all donations and sponsorships. That said, since we print in-house, we do have some wiggle room.

 

10. Cost - Do we know how much we are charging for the Gala yet? We can determine the ticket price once we have the meal costs confirmed. Should know meal costs for both venues by Monday.

11. Food - Do we know what we are serving at the Gala yet? Should know by Monday.

 

Looks like the rest of this stuff we have to wait until next week. I'm very anxious to get tickets printed so we can start selling (I'll send you some ticket examples later tonight when I get home). Most of the time the success of an fundraiser all has to do with the amount of time we have to sell and ask for donations. I already told some San Diego divisions I'll be visiting their January DCM. We need to push these tickets at their January DCM. I would prefer to get the tickets in the hands of the LTGS in San Diego area by December so when they are going to Holiday parties or club visits they can be selling tickets.  

 

 

 

From: Kassandra Angel <xxxxxx@cnhkiwanis.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2018 9:19 AM
To: Anna Wu <xxxxxx@gmail.com>; GUY BLAIR <xxxxxx@comcast.net>; 'xxxxxx@earthlink.net' <xxxxxx@earthlink.net>; Debbie S <xxxxxx@extrahandsadv.com>; Robert Larsen <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Cc: xxxxxx@pacbell.net; Jennifer Chaves <xxxxxx@cnhkiwanis.org>; xxxxxx@cnh.simplelists.com
Subject: [Kiwanis] Gala Cmte Teleconference | Thurs., Nov. 29 @ 4:15 PM

 

Dear Gala Committee,

 

As a friendly reminder, our next teleconference meeting will be Thursday, November 29th at 4:15pm. One of the topics for discussion will be the sponsorship levels; attached to this email is the CFC Donor Form for your reference. A meeting agenda with additional supporting materials will be sent at a later date.

 

To participate in this meeting, the conference number is 877-839-6205, and the pin is 7055.

 

As always, please feel free to contact me if you should have any questions.

 

Yours in Kiwanis Service,

 

Jennifer Chaves

Executive Director

 

Sent via Kassandra Angel

 

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