Anyone put together a restaurant fund raiser for an NPO?

[ceile]

I have a meeting today w/ a potential partner, and I have no idea how this works. Is it a percentage split (say the NPO gets 30% of the nightly take)? Is it a flat rate? $10 gets you this and it goes directly to the NPO?

[Chan790]

1. Yes, more than one.

It can be done any of those ways or anything else you and the restaurant want to set up.

The one we did was called Tips for Literacy and we got servers from 19 Hartford-area restaurants to donate 50% of their tips for the night and asked the restaurants to commit to match. We ran the event on a Tuesday, usually the slowest restaurant night of the week. We did all the advertising and promotion, got the local weatherman to mention it on-air. We put out donation cards and information on the tables, supplied the servers with promo-gear. My executive director was happy but I think it flopped, we put in 100+ workforce-hours into the event to net $5000.

Generally the idea is that you drum up extra business and in-exchange they give you a share of the night's receipts. I don't generally think of them as being all that successful an endeavor.

[KurtNYC]

2. I did one at a church with a pro kitchen

got the food donated, suggested $10 a plate and paid the church $150 plus we cleaned it all up.

I am against asking servers to give up part of their tips, especially if they won't be in the meeting to say "no".

[Chan790]

3. Actually Kurt, so was I.

It was literally the fundraiser that my Executive Director shoved upon me that I was forced to make work. He dreamed it up so every time I tried to provide input or forward input from servers, he'd just give me a "do it the way I want it done" answer. As I said, he was happy; I thought it was a flop.

I'm pretty sure the servers under-contributed versus what their owners pledged them for and I don't blame them. I was a barista right out of college and I'd have flipped on any of my managers if they'd committed to give away my pay without asking me.

[KurtNYC]

4. Most restaurants that I worked at were little fiefdoms

I think I totally understand your story. I was runner in a pooled tip situation and also a line cook that would get tipped by FOTH.

The cook thing worked well. It was an open kitchen so you were cooking in front of the customers if they cared to watch. You also had more contact with FOTH and could see the customers piling up or waiting for their food or whatever situation there was. It also prevented yelling, cursing, fighting about who's ticket wasn't coming up fast enough. We got a very good wage for line cooks PLUS a small tip from each of the servers (and pretty much all the food you could eat every night). So you walked out the door with a full belly and cash in your pocket.

That was the best one. But also worked at a dysfunctional stylish sit down seafood chain and a sprawling indoor / outdoor, live music in a big side bar Mexican restaurant in south Orange County. Now THAT was a fiefdom. Lots of cash changing hands (so I assume some pretty loose bookkeeping). Servers were making $100 to $150+ per shift and this was decades ago. Certain rooms were high dollar customers only so managers could stir big tickets onto your tables if you played ball. There was one customer who was an importer of adult toys who would regularly arrive with his posse, get drunk and then throw money around. He would buy the plates that the food was served on, drinks for tables he had annoyed, stuff like that. Managers hooking up with waitresses, dish washers paid in cash, employees living in the parking lot (in the faux covered wagons which were up on blocks), bands, booze, coke, drunks, fights, waiters in fist fights with guests. Needless to say there were no NPO fundraisers there.