A gala dinner in your own home
STAND Up’s 2015 gala dinner won’t feature long speeches, the need to dress up or even getting stuck in traffic on the way to the function centre.
Rather, in a unique initiative, donors will be able to purchase tickets – in reality tax-deductible donations – to an imaginary function and help Stand Up’s work without leaving their own homes.
“We don’t have the resources at the moment to put on one of these dinners, it takes months of planning and they’re very expensive to put on, so we are going to use our energy and resources to support the programs on the ground that we do,” Stand Up CEO Gary Samowitz told The AJN.
He said the inspiration was a major donor who said they had been inundated with invitations to various dinners and couldn’t attend them all.
“Instead of buying a ticket and the money you would have spent on a taxi, or getting your hair done, or a babysitter – just add that to the donation. It’s a fun, cheeky idea,” he said.
“The organisation gets support, and you can have dinner with whoever you want, wherever you want.”
Like a real event, Stand Up even has a silent auction to raise further funds. “We’ve got a whole range of weekends away, facials and magazine subscriptions,” Samowitz said.
“I’ve also done an appeal speech, it’s a YouTube video.”
Funds raised will go towards the organisation’s work in its three key areas – supporting Sudanese refugees, engaging remote Indigenous communities and inspiring Jewish Australians to pursue social justice causes.
The online auction closes on June 26, though donations will continue to be accepted after this date.
For more information, visit www.standup.org.au.
GARETH NARUNSKY
comments