In 2016, the Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center (CHSC) was experiencing significant staffing changes and realized they had a business luncheon coming up but didn’t have the capacity to pull it off on their own. We were brought on board to help them design, plan and quickly implement the daytime event at Tinkham Veale University Center.

While planning the luncheon, we discovered CHSC had not held a fundraising gala since 2012. Newly inspired by the success of the business luncheon, they were ready to consider bringing the gala back to life. We partnered with CHSC staff to relaunch the fall benefit (gala) in 2017.

One of the first improvements we made was to remove the silent auction, and instead, re-build it as a more profitable live auction; a shift that has also saved their staff countless hours of work. Since that first event, we’ve made incremental improvements that have gradually shifted the burden of event responsibilities from in-house staff to their planning committee (which we helped them develop).

Another improvement we made was in the guest experience, carefully curating the visual entertainment design. As we mentioned in our CHSC Donor Appreciation event post, CHSC’s guests include those who are Deaf or hard of hearing, so we always look for visually stimulating entertainment they can enjoy. Pictured in the gallery below are performers from Fire and Light Performing Arts and nationally syndicated cartoonist Jenny Campbell. As one guest put it, “the entertainment is great when you don’t have to hear it to enjoy it”.

Overall, our largest impact has been to help CHSC streamline their workload, freeing staff of event planning responsibilities so they can spend their time working with donors and sponsors. Since we’ve started working with them, CHSC has broken their event fundraising goals year after year.