Historic Albany's Socially Distanced Feast
One of Historic Albany Foundation’s biggest fundraisers is their annual A Moveable Feast. Guests dine at various private historic homes in the city of Albany and then reunite at HAF’s central location for dessert and auction bidding. The event was scheduled for April 4. Once the seriousness of COVID-19 was apparent, they moved to cancel the event — the day their invitations hit mailboxes. But it’s how HAF responded that provides such a great example of how organizations can still engage their supporters, build up their community, and support their mission even when things go virtual.
From HAF’s Executive Director Pamela Howard:
One of the personalized menus designed by HAF for their event guests
“Having to cancel A Moveable Feast could have dealt HAF a devastating blow. Feast is one of two major fundraisers of the year, and with nearly all funding sources drying up overnight, we had to figure out how to make the event work, for us and our guests who look forward to it every year. We already had a strong Honorary Committee and quite a few corporate sponsors, none of whom asked for their donations to be returned. In addition, The Renaissance Hotel let us out of our contract and we didn't have to pay any fees, — they only requested that we set a date for next April, and we did.
Since we were going to use an online bidding platform for the auction this year anyway, it lent itself perfectly for taking a chance on a virtual event. Jokingly, we called it Stationary Feast. The name stuck and we ran with a new, fun branding campaign that worked!
We were also fortunate that we had a lot of art around the office that had been donated to us. We decided to include the art and what other items had been donated, and created the auction site. The timing of the world outside falling apart also meant that our usual auction donors – restaurants, theaters, and experience-based venues were all shutting down and couldn’t be asked for donations this year. We had to use what we had, and we offered an auction of about 65 unique items. Almost all the items sold.
On Saturday, April 4, we took to Facebook and the internet and people responded! Over 80 homes, including two international ones, joined in the fun, shared photos of their dinners, beverages and themselves, bought virtual tickets, made donations, and bid on the auction. We even made the Times Union Seen!
And the results? We hit the fundraising goal that we set for the original event!”