I was Executive Director of a large Museum for 30 years. The whole fund-raising process is frustratingly subjective. There are a ton of factors involved. For one, there is always al elemnt of the Board of Directors who are on the Board for social status, who want to have a lot of fund-raising events because they're fun, and they make social connections (which are also good for business.) Too often, fund-raising events are used for "networking."

When people on the Board suggested fund-raising events, I'd always suggest that we do some preliminary planning to come up with a budget, and a fund-raising goal. There were several occasions where, to do the event the way that the Board of Directors wanted to would have cost more money per person than we could afford to charge. The suggestion was usually made that we get corporations and businesses to sponsor the event, which in some cases meant that annual contributions that were unrestricted and helped pay things like salaries were re-directed to offset losses on a "fund-raising" event.

"Good press" and exposure have value, of course, but it is very intangible, and may or not pay the bills. There's also the old adage that "You've got to spend money to make money." That's true. But, if you don't spend money wisely, you'll end up losing money. I don't ever remember that truism..

Jerry