The collapse of the gala: Can charities cope without big fundraisers?

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Camrose Open Door found itself scrambling to stay afloat. 

The central Alberta youth non-profit found itself struggling to bring in donations amid a rising caseload. According to Imagine Canada, it lost 75 percent of its public donor funding in just two months. Jessica Hutton, Open Door’s executive director, says a major foundation that supported them stopped giving. A cancelled charity golf tournament set Open Door back roughly $25,000.

Hutton says Open Door managed to stay afloat through a series of smaller grants and provincial government support – in fact, they’ve managed to double their staffing to accommodate the Facebook Live group sessions that have replaced their in-person group sessions. But much of their new-found funding is short-term. The provincial government’s emergency funding will run out by the middle of 2021. Since the pandemic began, Hutton has questioned whether Open Door can remain viable long-term. “How do you keep an organization going when the economic outlook of our country is threatened right now?” she says. “I don’t have the answer to that.”

Raising money has rarely been so difficult for Canadian organizations of all stripes. Physical distancing orders have forced the cancellation of big fundraisers like charity dinners, golf tournaments, and runs from coast-to-coast-to-coast, hampering the critical efforts of social impact organizations when they’re needed the most. But some organizations are staying afloat by pivoting to digital fundraisers. Others are realizing that depending on large-scale events to make ends meet isn’t as surefire a strategy as it may have seemed pre-pandemic. To survive the pandemic, Canadian social impact organizations will need to drum up dollars from as many different sources as possible – including those they never counted on before the pandemic.

Imagine Canada estimates the non-profit sector could lose up to $15.6 billion due to the pandemic — unfathomable losses at a time when food banks and other social services are seeing demand rise. And about 40 percent of Canadian social impact organizations rely on galas, tournaments, dinners, and other fundraising events for revenue.

Paula Attfield, chair of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Canada, says the shortfall faced by non-profits isn’t just due to cancelled charity dinners. Door-to-door canvassing has been virtually impossible during the pandemic. An Imagine Canada survey found a 66 percent drop in in-person solicitation among Canadian charities over the course of the pandemic, along with a 52 percent drop in “other fundraising/donations,” and a 72 percent drop in traditional event-based fundraising. “All of that had to cease during coronavirus,” Attfield says.

Even organizations that haven’t necessarily lost out on donations during the pandemic have had to rethink their fundraising models at the drop of a hat. Islamic Relief Canada (IRC), a Burlington-based charity that supports humanitarian relief in 40 countries, was forced to cancel all of their April iftars, the evening dinners when devout Muslims break their fast during the month of Ramadan. Reyhana Patel, IRC’s head of external relations and government relations, says the charity had to move everything online in a matter of weeks.

“Ramadan is the busiest time. It’s when a lot of the money comes in because most people give their zakat contributions that month,” she says, referring to an Islamic practice of giving a certain percentage of their annual income to charitable causes. Giving during the month of Ramadan – a time when zakat contributions are considered to be ‘double-blessed’ – is especially popular, so Islamic Relief Canada couldn’t just cancel these events. Instead, they brought these iftar dinners online.

In normal times, the organization held what Patel called ‘ambassador iftars,’ where those breaking their Ramadan fast for the evening would pick an IRC project or cause to donate to. This year, IRC had food donated to each participant in their homes, and then turned on Zoom to dine together virtually. Patel says despite this physical distancing, IRC’s revenue hasn’t been hit that badly. “We haven’t seen a drastic decrease with all the government grants and the money that’s come into the charitable sector,” she says.

After a massive explosion at a dock warehouse in Beirut, Lebanon in early August, IRC also found themselves raising funds in a new way. “If something like this were to happen [last year], we would be organizing dinners and walks and just getting people in rooms together,” she says. There would be a mix of online fundraising and in-person donations. Instead, IRC pushed its call for donations through webinars and social media. International news outlets also latched on to the catastrophic explosion, which Patel believes drove more people to give.

One might assume IRC donations were reduced to a trickle this year. “In times of crisis, we find that people like to give more,” she says. Still, Patel expects IRC’s growth will slow a bit compared to last year. And the lack of physical gatherings means the organization isn’t renting halls or holding physical meetings – although Patel notes they are now spending more than they previously spent on content for digital gatherings. 

Some organizations were better equipped to deal with a loss of fundraising events revenue than others, simply by virtue of how they raise money. SickKids Foundation preemptively cut their annual fundraising goal of about $180 million by about 20 percent because of the pandemic. But Colin Hennigar, vice president of major gifts, says the organization may actually exceed its reduced goal for 2020. “We have a diverse revenue portfolio investing in numerous areas,’ Hennigar says. “If one dips, the others make up for it.” Major corporate donors, along with wealthy individuals, have continued to give to SickKids, he says, in spite of the pandemic.

The organization’s door-to-door campaigns were basically impossible during the height of the pandemic, he says, but the public is becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of door-to-door fundraisers for SickKids Foundation. Community events, however, still haven’t recovered. “That has slowed down just because we can’t bring together those people as much as we can,” he says. However, SickKids Foundation has managed to keep donations coming in through one major virtual event they’ve held for the past four years. Starting in 2016, the Great Cycle Challenge calls on cyclists across the country to set a personal riding goal for one month while raising money to fight childhood cancer.

As it turns out, that format has been perfect for the COVID-19 pandemic – it not only respects public health restrictions, but also captures a desire for collective action that is still alive and well.  “We’ve seen an incredible outpouring of support this year,” he says. “People are home, they’re looking to be active still…and also an ability to give back so they don’t lose out on that virtual community feeling of doing something to support SickKids.”

Not all social impact organizations are heavily reliant on traditional fundraisers, either. Take the United Way. Kris Gibson, director of workplace campaigns for United Way of the Lower Mainland, says fundraising dinners and similar events make up around 5 percent of their revenue in a given year. United Way focuses on workplace-centred campaigns, where employees run their own fundraising effort and then donate all proceeds. “It was never a key part of our revenue necessarily, so I don’t see it having a significant impact on our overall revenue,” he says.

Regardless, Gibson says the organization has found the challenge of moving these workplace giving campaigns online to be daunting. “We’ve really had to step and reimagine how we could replicate that, if at all, into a more virtual environment,” he says. These campaigns don’t kick off until September so, as of publication time, it remains to be seen whether they’ll pay off or not.

Throwing a coast-to-coast-to-coast virtual benefit concert like Food Banks Canada’s “Stronger Together” campaign – a prime example of digital fundraising during the pandemic – is no small feat. Technical difficulties plagued the event last April when hordes of Canadians decided to open their wallets all at once. Food Banks Canada’s website crashed under what the organization jokingly called “the weight of your generosity” in a Twitter post to donors. ‘Stronger Together’ may have seemed to be a cumbersome attempt at a classic benefit concert fundraiser during COVID-19. Still, it raised $8 million for hungry Canadian virtually overnight, and showed just what was possible for social impact organizations.

Organizations across Canada will need to carefully reconsider the role of fundraising events in their mission, be they golf tournaments, fundraising runs, dinners, or community barbeques. Some can be replicated as carefully choreographed Zoom events. Others might not be worthwhile. This won’t be easy. But the sector is proving that thriving with – and in spite of – the challenges of fundraising during COVID-19 isn’t impossible.

Plus, Attfield points out that for all the upheaval Canada’s social impact sector has seen over the past eight months, the job of a fundraising professional at its core remains unchanged. “It’s about communicating well with your donors. It’s about being authentic. It’s about asking for money. All of those basic fundraising skills are still incredibly important.”