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Your gala made money. This is always great!


But I want you to look at one more thing: how much of your team?s time did it take to make that money?


Because these are two very different questions.


And for Executive Directors and Development Directors who are already wearing a million hats, I think the second one matters A LOT.


One of the gala performance metrics I want more nonprofit teams looking at is Revenue Per Estimated Planning Hour.


Basically: How much money did this fundraising activity raise compared to how much time your team spent making it happen?


The Same Amount of Money Can Take VERY Different Amounts of Time to Raise


Here?s my favorite way to think about this.


Let?s say I offer you $100 to mow my lawn. It?s not a huge lawn. It?s not tiny. Just your average lawn.


I hand you a lawnmower and you think, ?Heck yeah. I can knock this out in 20 or 30 minutes and make $100.?


Great deal.


But then imagine instead of handing you a lawnmower, I hand you a pair of scissors.


Same lawn. Same $100.


Are you still excited about that deal?


Probably not.


And this is exactly what can happen with the different fundraising streams in our galas.


Two activities can both make money. But if one takes a fraction of the time to produce that revenue, that?s something I want us paying attention to.


The Metric: Revenue Per Estimated Planning Hour


This is where Revenue Per Estimated Planning Hour comes in.


And when I say planning hours, I mean ALL of it.


The committee meetings. The emails. The follow-up emails. The donor calls. Driving around town picking up silent auction baskets. Finding wine donations. Tracking down live auction packages. Calling donors about the paddle raiser. All of those little tasks that happen behind the scenes and add up FAST.


In my estimates, a gala can easily take more than 500 hours to plan. Depending on the event, it could be closer to 650.


So when we?re talking about hundreds of hours of your team?s time, I really want to know where those hours are going and what they?re producing.



Let?s Look at a Real Example


Let?s say we have an event that raised $61,000 across its fundraising streams.


Here?s how the revenue broke down:


If we stopped there, you might look at that $7,000 silent auction and think, ?Great! Our silent auction made $7,000.?


And it did.

But now let?s add the estimated planning time:


Now we have a very different picture.


When we calculate Revenue Per Estimated Planning Hour, here?s what we get:


I don't know about you, but when I see $59 per hour sitting next to $1,333 per hour, I want to evaluate.



This Is Where the Numbers Get REALLY Interesting


Look at it another way.


In this example, one hour spent on the paddle raiser generated more revenue than 23 hours spent on the silent auction.


Or look at this:


The paddle raiser generated 66% of the fundraising revenue using only 14% of the planning time.


The silent auction used 55% of the planning time to generate 11% of the revenue.


That tells me SO much more than, ?Our silent auction raised $7,000.?


And to be clear, this is not me saying every organization should immediately get rid of its silent auction. That?s not what these metrics are for.


Maybe your silent auction has another really important purpose. Maybe your donors love it. Maybe you have an incredible committee that handles the entire thing and it barely touches your staff?s time.

Great. Those things matter too.


I just like to have the numbers in front of us when we make that decision.


Your Team?s Time Is Part of Your Gala ROI


You all are some of the most spread-thin people I know.


You?re running development programs, managing donors, working with boards, writing grants, planning events, managing teams, and doing about 47 other things at the same time.


Your time matters.


So when we evaluate whether a fundraising activity is ?working,? I don't want us to only ask:


How much money did it raise?

I also want us asking:

How much time did it take to raise it?


Because the same amount of money doesn?t always take the same amount of time to raise.


And once you start looking at your gala this way, you may see some really clear opportunities to put more of your team?s time toward the things that are already working hardest for you.


So, back to our lawn.

If you?re going to mow it, I want you using the lawnmower. Not the scissors.


Revenue Per Estimated Planning Hour helps us figure out which is which.


To take this further, check out our Goal Setting and Ticket Price Calculator to dig into more of your gala numbers and ROI.


And be sure to check out the rest of the Gala Performance Metrics series as we keep breaking down the numbers I want you looking at before and after your event.