"In the beginning, there's a lot of excitement because it's your first time going. "They're becoming really competitive for people's time," says David Lubotta, a Toronto entrepreneur who is a principal investor in a U.S.-based philanthropic magazine called Privilege. High school was never this social, or expensive - ticket prices vary from $150 for single Power Ball tickets to the Daffodil Ball's 10-person table for $50,000 - which prompts the question: How do people avoid fundraiser fatigue? Montreal is still talking about its smash soiree, the Canadian Cancer Society's Daffodil Ball (April 28), while Calgary can look forward to the Adult Adolescent Recovery Centre Gala (June 1). Vancouver's season kicked off with The Diamond Ball for the Canadian Cancer Society (April 16) and will culminate with Jacqui Cohen's Face the World Foundation Gala (June 11). In Toronto it begins with Fandango, a benefit for Bridgepoint Health held this year on May 7, builds through events such as the National Ballet's Black and White Ball with a Touch of Pink (May 26) and culminates in next week's triple threat: the Power Plant's Power Ball, the Gerry and Nancy Pencer Brain Trust Gala (both held June 2), as well as Fashion Cares to raise money for the AIDS Committee of Toronto (June 4).
Though no Canadian city comes close to the requisite excess that is de rigueur in New York, where Uma Thurman and hotelier boyfriend André Balazs chaired an event for the Hudson River at which table prices topped $100,000 - or London, where the globetrotting glitterati recently convened at Elton John's White Tie and Tiara Ball for his AIDS Foundation - we have come to expect a laundry list of big ticket events from May to June each year. "Fundraisers are proms where people carry an Amex Black Card in their cocktail bag," she says.Īnd as the competition among charities is fierce, each passing year sees the events graduate to higher levels of spending and hoopla as fundraising targets are raised. And lastly, allow the band - sadly, a samba or a tired jazz ensemble not much better than the one you heard in the summer of '69 - play on well past midnight.įor Susie Wall, a correspondent for CTV'sĮTalk Daily and a regular on the Vancouver social circuit, the key difference between the prom and the fundraising event is that attendees are not flipping burgers overtime to pay for their tickets. Announce raffle winners in place of the evening's reigning couple.
Offer muddled-mint mojitos instead of punch. Emblazon the pink decorations with the logos of corporate sponsors. Pose with colleagues for a "complimentary commemorative" photo. Swap the gymnasium for a venue such as the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Nowadays, those who give generously to myriad medical and arts-related causes are treated to a mad rush of fancy food, dress-up opportunities, and entertaining nights out of the sort their children have.Ĭonsider the Brazilian Ball, which raised close to $2.5-million this year for the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Toronto General Hospital:Īrrive in a limousine instead of Dad's station wagon. Call it classroom amateurism evolved into class-act altruism. "There's probably nowhere else I could wear this I love the costume feeling," Stoller says of the fundraiser, which took place last week.įor philanthropic society types, spring is increasingly a time to revisit their high-school years - albeit to hyperbolic proportions. "I was an ugly duckling," she says.Īlmost 30 years later, in a floor-length red gown by Oscar de la Renta and diamond and ruby jewellery, she is one of the best and brightest guests at Toronto's Brazilian Ball, held at the Metro Convention Centre. Linda Stoller, a vice-president at the Bank of Montreal and a chartered accountant, never made it to her prom.
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