Fundraiser: Children’s Support League 2010 Heart of the Home Tour
Date: April 23 & 24
Co-Chairs: Stephanie Dauer and Eileen Ruby
Beneficiary: Children’s Support League of the East Bay
Event411: Tour five unique homes in Piedmont area, including a 1900′s craftsman, a Tudor mansion, a newly renovated Mediterranean, a jewel box bungalow, and a restored Tudor estate and enjoy an alfresco lunch and shopping for gifts, fashions and home accessories at the Boutique located in the Piedmont Community Center.

What makes a successful event?

You can’t determine the success of an event without knowing what your goals are, so that’s your starting place. It’s a given that you want to help your cause, so what’s the best way to do that? Is fund raising at the event itself your primary goal, or are you trying to engage people with the cause so they will give more later? Do you want them to become volunteers? Who do you want at the event? Is your goal to have a big crowd, or are you looking for a smaller group of larger donors?

How do you motivate a volunteer committee?

In our experience volunteers want to be effective at helping a cause they care about, they want to be part of something, and they want to have fun. If you want them to care about the cause, you have to find a way to move them, usually by having someone tell his or her story. To help them be effective, you have to be clear about what you need them to do. To help volunteers be effective, assign specific roles and give them the tools to make their jobs easy. Being a part of something and having fun is all about how you treat people. Neither one of us likes it when we go to a meeting or event and the leadership is huddled together instead of interacting with the committee, so we try not to do that to volunteers.

If you could have done something differently in your last event, what would that have been? What would you do the same?

We were on last year’s committee for the home tour that we’re co-chairing this year. We’re not changing a lot because CSL has been generally successful in our fundraising, in organizing our volunteers, in making the tour goers happy and in making it fun and easy for the homeowners. We’re tweaking a few things:

• Better record keeping so we don’t have to rely entirely on people’s memories.

• Weeding through old volunteer manuals to get rid of duplication and make the job descriptions more user-friendly

• Maximizing revenue in areas where we think we could make a few thousand more here and there – more direct solicitations of board members, negotiating a better price from our lunch vendor in exchange for advertising, slightly higher ticket prices, etc.

• We are also meeting with the chairs of the SF Junior League home tour, which has a big VIP event, to see if we can learn ways to new revenue streams next year.

What are the qualities that make an event Chair successful? What is one of your best practices?

Follow-through, enthusiasm with realism, focus on goals, communication skills, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, creativity. We have been very clear with ourselves and our volunteers about what we are trying to accomplish, and who has what responsibilities.

When you set out to Chair an event, what goals do you set for yourself?

One of our friends who is a fabulous party planner has the mantra, “What can you give people that they can’t get somewhere else?” Our goal is to offer our attendees something special, provide a satisfying experience for our volunteers, and raise as much money as possible for our beneficiaries.

What is the most difficult part of chairing an event?

Accepting that no matter how hard you try there will be things you can’t control, and you have to roll with the punches.

What was your impetus for becoming involved in philanthropy and volunteer fundraising?

It’s what we learned from our parents. You can’t be as fortunate as we are and not do something for someone. Volunteer fundraising is an opportunity for personal growth, a chance to help other people, and it’s fun to be part of something.

Name one woman who empowers you or who has empowered you and tell us why.

We both are indebted to Jan Howland who is both the historical memory of our organization, the person we can count on to do whatever we need her for, and a person whose advice we seek and listen to.

What three words would you use to describe yourself?

Eileen – realistic, goal-oriented, funny

Stephanie – creative, organized, calm

If your house were on fire, what would you grab?

Eileen – I was actually confronted with this decision in 1991. The big Oakland Hills fire never made it to my house, but the police told us to be prepared to evacuate if necessary. We packed clothing, cosmetics, etc as if we were going on vacation, because we wanted to at least be comfortable if we were out of the house for a while. I took most of my jewelry because it’s so portable so why not, photographs for sentimental reasons, and paperwork like insurance policies and passports.

Stephanie – My kids.