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Food Service My staff in a regional office of a national organization had been holding a successful annual full-feature auction event for many years. The event was a great activity that pulled staff members together. It allowed individual staff to assume important leadership roles as volunteers outside their regular work duties. It was a modest-sized event, drawing about 120 people, but the net proceeds were always impressive. Among the features was a very good evening meal served family style that was usually dished up quickly, with large bowls and plates of food either on tables when attendees were invited to be seated for the meal or served immediately thereafter . It was enjoyable, taking little time away from fundraising activities. The event planners did not consider the meal to be the central focus of the evening, but attendees occasionally mentioned having good food when commenting about what they enjoyed about the event. I suspect that subtle message about good food didn’t register with event planners the year they decided to cut costs. One of the cost-cutting ideas was to reduce the expense of the meal, thus boosting net revenue. The notion was well meant, and members of the planning committee who were in charge of finding less expensive catering did what appeared to be a credible job locating a less expensive alternative. Unfortunately, the lower-cost meal service did not go well. Maybe the caterer misjudged the help needed to serve or the amount of food required to feed the number of attendees. Or maybe the caterer simply undercut the service, skimping on quality and quantity to meet the bid price per meal. Either or both are possibilities, because service was slow and faulty, the quality of food was poor, portions were skimpy and served cold, and there was not enough food for everyone. The result was 9 Food serviCe 87 FUndraising evenTs almost always feature some form of food and drink service. this may seem like common sense. after all, potential bidders and raffle ticket buyers need to be kept comfortable. attendees cannot be expected to keep their mind on event activities if they are thirsty or hungry. they may leave the event to get refreshments. Maybe they will return , but even if they do, event planners have lost valuable fundraising time. attendees leaving because there is no food or drink, because food is overpriced , or because the wrong kind of food is served would be particularly likely if the event were oriented toward families and children were present. if there is no appropriate food or drink on-site, once the kids become thirsty or hungry, families will leave. event planners often give too little thought to the kind of food and drink to offer or to the level of service to provide. they may consider food and drink service more an inconvenient obligation than a fundraising opportunity or requirement. To Serve or Not to Serve When should food and drink be made available? provide food and drink when and where needed to keep people happy and focused on the objective of the event—fundraising. at well-planned events, fundraising opportunities are set in motion immediately upon attendees’ entry. as a result, if attendees are likely to be hungry or thirsty when they arrive, food and drink must be readily available when attendees arrive at the event site. an event starting on a weekday at 6:00 P.M. will probably be attended by many people coming directly from their places of work. they will be hungry when they arrive. some attendees may not have eaten since breakfast. sometimes a snack will be all that’s needed at first, but if the event is longer than an hour or two and takes place during a normal meal time, heavier food is a lousy meal, if you were among the (un)lucky ones to get served, that affected the mood of attendees. People grumbled about the food during the event, but most remarkable was the discussion among attendees long after the event. When asked about the event, people invariably mentioned the food was bad. Consistently , the key and often only thing people recalled about the event that year was bad food. Fortunately, the food that night was not as bad as it could have been. I don’t recall anyone becoming ill. Poor-quality food is an unfortunate yet familiar feature at many events. National survey results indicate event attendees rate food low on the list of...

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