When Special Events Fail
The headline might seem extreme, but there's proof that it's true.
A recent story caught my eye, and based on what the legal filing said, it was an amateurish firing.
A New Jersey hospital held a special event to raise money for the organization. There’s nothing problematic about that. However, the special event turned out to be a living art body painting exhibit inside the hospital. The event, put on by the hospital foundation, led to the hospital board firing the CEO because, as the board put it, the CEO failed to stop the event and eventually created violations within the hospital's sexual harassment policy. He is now suing citing a violation of his contract based on the fact that he had no direct involvement or knowledge of the event prior to its existence and that dozens of other people had knowledge of and had approved of the activity..
This one’s hard to undress, so to speak.
While I won't comment on the righteousness of the firing of the CEO, I do want to comment on the event. It's hard to imagine but appears to be true, that multiple people thought this event would be a good idea. I am, as almost anyone would note, a proponent of philanthropy, in particular for healthcare. But when a special event causes more consternation than dollars raised, you have to wonder about the judgment of those who made the decision to have the event in the first place.
In addition, as has been said many times, the return on investment for special events is so much below building individual-based relationships for medium-sized annual gifts, major gifts, principal gifts, and planned gifts. If the same amount of effort was put into finding two or three people who believed in the hospital, possibly had a good experience, and wanted to see healthcare more vibrant within this New Jersey community, probably more money would have been raised, and without question, less consternation would have been developed from putting on the event.
An incident where the emperor had no clothes, but some saw through the mirage, so to speak.
