A Donor Paid My Client $2,500 to Cancel Her Event. It Was the Best Gift She Got All Year.
I got a phone call from a client this week.
She was excited. Like, super-duper-even-added-one-of-those-celebration-emojis-in-a-text-before-she-called excited.
The kind of excited where you can hear someone grinning like the Cheshire Cat through the phone.
The kind of excited that usually means “we got a major gift” or “the board finally did something” or “I found the other 7 matching winter gloves that I assumed my kids lost last year, but now I have them for the upcoming snow and I don’t need another trip to Target for that specifically and my life is great.”
But that’s not why she was calling.
She was calling to tell me her event got canceled.
And she was THRILLED about it.
I feel like I should explain.
The House Tour That Came Back from 2019 (and Probably Should Have Stayed There)
Here’s the setup. My client’s organization used to do this beautiful house tour event.
Gorgeous homes in the community. You buy a ticket, walk through fancy houses, ooh and aah at kitchens you’ll never be able to afford, and for a little extra, you could have lunch or dinner in one of the dining rooms.
Pretty nice event.
It worked great. Pre-2019. Before, you know, global shenanigans.
They tried to bring it back this year. Same concept. Same community. Same fancy houses.
Different result.
Twelve tickets sold.
Twelve.
Out of a goal of... well, significantly more than twelve.
They were about $2,500 deep in costs. Deposits, printing, (definitely not even including planning time), the whole thing. And the event was approaching fast with an audience that could comfortably fit in, what Enterprise Renal would consider a medium to large SUV.
And then one of her donors - a person who genuinely cares about this organization and has been around for years - called and asked a question that changed everything:
“How far into the event costs are you?”
My client said, “About $2,500.”
And the donor said:
“If I write you a check for $2,500, will you just cancel it? It’s a friendraiser, not a fundraiser. It’s not working. Let me cover what you’re in for, and let’s put that energy somewhere else.”
I’m sorry, what!?
A donor PAID THE ORGANIZATION to stop doing an event.
And it was the single best fundraising outcome of the entire fall.
Oh, you might be thinking. “Patrick, that’s not a success. The event failed.”
No. The event was going to fail.
The cancellation made it success.
‘Cause you know what ACTUALLY happened when they canceled?
They recovered $2,500 in sunk costs - money that would have been lost entirely if they’d pushed forward with an event that a dozen people were attending.
They freed up 3 to 4 weeks of staff time that was about to be consumed by an event that wasn’t going to raise meaningful money. That time can now go toward donor calls, appeal writing, and fall stewardship - you know, the stuff that actually raises money.
They deepened a major donor relationship - because that donor didn’t just write a check. That donor said “I see you. I see the struggle. And I care enough to tell you the truth.” That’s not a transaction. That’s a partnership. That donor is more entangled with the organization today than they were before the event was even planned.
They avoided the sunk cost spiral - the voice that says “well, we’re already in for $2,500, we might as well push through and hope more tickets sell.” That voice is a dirty, dirty liar. That voice has cost the nonprofit sector more money than any meme coin your investment bro buddy convinced you to purchase. “Bro. Dodgecoin. To the moon, I’m telling you!”
My client hung up the phone that day lighter than she’d been in weeks.
Not because the event failed - but because she finally had permission to stop pretending it was going to work.
And? That permission was worth more than $2,500.
The Permission Nobody Gives You (So I’m Giving It to You Right Now)
In the world of nonprofit events: nobody ever tells you it’s OK to stop.
The board says “we’ve always done the gala.” The committee says “people expect it.”
The legacy donors say “I love the golf tournament.” And you - the person doing 97% of the work - sit there thinking “this isn’t working but I can’t be the one to say it.”
Oh hell yes you can.
You absolutely have permission to cancel an event that isn’t working.
You have permission to NOT do the house tour. Or the golf tournament. Or the gala. Or the 5K. Or the wine tasting. Or the trivia night. Or the spaghetti feed. Or whatever annual tradition has been slowly dying for years while everyone pretends it’s still thriving.
You don’t need a donor to call and offer to cover your costs (though that would be nice and also please tell your donors this story because apparently it’s a thing that can happen).
You just need the courage to look at the math and say: this is not the best use of our time, our money, or our team’s energy. And we’re going to stop.
Now, not every struggling event needs to die. Sometimes an event has a bad year. Sometimes the timing was off. Sometimes it rains. Life happens.
But here are the signs that your event isn’t having a bad year, it’s having a bad existence:
1. The net revenue doesn’t justify the effort. Run the Return-on-Effort test we talked about a few weeks ago. If your event raises $30,000 but costs $22,000 and consumes four months of staff time - you didn’t raise $30,000. You created $8,000 before accounting for labor. Is $8,000 worth four months of your development director’s life? (The answer is no. The answer is always no.)
2. Some audiences aren’t coming back post-COVID. This is the one nobody wants to say out loud. Some events worked beautifully in 2018 and simply do not work in 2026. The audience shifted. The habits changed. The willingness to buy a ticket and show up on a Saturday night is different now. That’s not your fault. But continuing to plan for 2018’s audience in 2026’s reality IS your fault.
3. It’s a friendraiser pretending to be a fundraiser. This is what my client’s donor nailed. Some events are great at building community but terrible at raising money. And that’s fine - IF you call it what it is. But if you’re reporting to your board that the house tour is a “fundraising event” and it’s netting $800 after costs, you’re not fundraising. You’re hosting a party and calling it a revenue generating strategy.
4. Your team dreads it. This is the canary in the coal mine. When your staff starts sighing every time the event comes up in conversation, when the committee meetings feel like a chore, when nobody volunteers to lead it and it always defaults to the same exhausted person - the event is dying. Events should generate energy, not drain it. If your team is more relieved when it’s over than excited when it’s happening, that’s your sign.
5. You’re continuing it to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. This is the big one. The real reason most zombie events survive isn’t because they work. It’s because nobody wants to tell Bob on the board that his golf tournament needs to go. Nobody wants to have the “we’re not doing the gala this year” conversation with the committee chair who’s been running it for a decade. The event isn’t surviving on results. It’s surviving on avoidance.
If three or more of those sound familiar - it’s time. Not to “rethink” the event. Not to “reimagine” it. Not to “scale it back.” To cancel it.
Cancelled clearly, decisively, and with gratitude for what it was and honesty about what it isn’t anymore.
Now, killing an event doesn’t mean killing the revenue. It means redirecting the effort toward things that actually work.
Want to know what I recommended my client is do with the time and energy she got back from canceling the house tour? Good. I was gonna tell you anyway.
Personal donor meetings. Instead of spending October managing an event, she’s taking her top 20 donors to coffee. One-on-one. Human to human. Those conversations will raise more money than the house tour ever did - and they’ll build relationships that last longer than a Saturday afternoon.
A non-event. I’ve written about this before, but I love this. Send a letter that says: “We’re NOT having a gala this year. Instead of buying a ticket, spending money on a dress, hiring a babysitter, and sitting through a three-hour dinner - would you consider just sending a gift? Here’s what it’ll fund.” Non-events regularly outperform actual events. Because you’re respecting people’s time AND their money.
Small, intimate gatherings. Instead of one big event that nobody comes to, host three small ones. A backyard dinner for 9 donors. A behind-the-scenes tour for a few prospects. A coffee gathering for board members and their guests. Smaller. Warmer. More personal. More entangled.
Every single one of those takes less time, less money, and less emotional energy than the event she just canceled. And every single one will produce better results.
That’s not giving up. That’s leveling up.
Sometimes the most courageous thing a fundraiser can do isn’t plan a better event. It’s cancel the one that’s not working and redirect that energy toward the things that are.
You have permission.
OK! Your Turn!
Tell me:
What’s the event at your organization that everyone knows isn’t working but nobody will cancel? And what would you do with the time if it was gone?
Name it. Be honest. And then ask yourself: if a donor called today and offered to cover your sunk costs to cancel it - would you say yes?
If the answer is yes, you don’t need the donor to call. You just need to make the decision yourself.
Send me your answer: patrick@dogoodbetterconsulting.com
And if you want help evaluating which events are worth keeping, which ones need to go, and what to replace them with – that’s exactly what we work through inside Do Good YOUniversity. Event evaluation templates, non-event frameworks, and a community of fundraisers who are all learning to do less and raise more. www.DoGoodYOUniversity.com
Together, we’ve freaking got this.
-Patrick
P.S. To the donor who wrote that $2,500 check: you are my favorite person this month. Not because of the money, but because you had the courage to say what nobody inside the organization could say. You saw the truth. You named it. And you solved it with honesty and a checkbook. If every nonprofit had one donor like you, half of the archaic events in America would be dead by December. And the sector would be better for it.
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