Around here (other places, too, I’m sure) is a fundraising model that’s become quite popular. It goes like this: throw a big event for free (get sponsors to underwrite costs), bring a lot of people—new friends and old, invited by a large group of volunteers (more on that later) and once you’ve wowed your audience with how wonderful your organization is, make a persuasive ask for a meaningful donation (ideally, a multi-year pledge). Disclaimer: I am sharing no non-profit state secrets here by revealing the formula. If you’re a somewhat engaged community member in my neck of the proverbial woods, you’ve been invited to one, two or umpteen such events for very, very worthy causes.
Usually, these events take place at some big venue known for holding large functions. The volunteers bringing guests in are generally known as “table captains.” Fill a table, be a nice host, pass out the cards for the meaningful donations at the appointed time. Try to look comfortable as you do so.
True confession: I abhor these events as much as I adore the organizations that have asked me to sign on as table captain. That’s to say I generally refuse these requests. I’ve used two babies as excuses, and while having four kids isn’t the worst excuse it wears thin so I’ve started taking the tact of honesty. I want to like these events; I see that they are wonderfully effective and even can be fun—and still, I just can’t stand going. I don’t want to eat the food; I don’t want to feel overwhelmed by so many people I like—along with too many I vaguely know—in one place. Maybe I could help in some other way, thank you very much.
I assumed the table captain role just once, for the Enchanted Circle Theater. I did so because as a former board member, I really, really and I mean really am besotted by their work—and I wanted to share it with some potential donors (who happened to be my friends!). Besides, Priscilla Kane Hellweg, the Executive Artistic Director, is a very dear friend and I could not say no.
The work the kids do moves me to tears. The work Enchanted does—integrating arts for schools, training teachers, using arts to give voice and substance to learning, helping parents learn to read aloud—moves me to tears. The site-specific plays (although some travel easily) created about Holyoke Massachusetts’ mills—Between the Canals—or the upstairs/downstairs world of Wistariahurst—the Skinner Servants’ Tour—and now Sojourner’s Truth also move me greatly. And to have the premiere of Sojourner take place in the venerable Academy of Music Theatre to a jam-packed house, well, so what if I fudged my no-table-captain vow to be a row (that’s row, not table) captain? I was happy to do that, and thrilled to hear how, for ESL teacher Vionette Escudero, getting to collaborate in the classroom and learn from and with Enchanted Circle educators has pulled rich stories and beautiful English from her students; many of her students are up to five years behind grade level in English. Stories, stories have the power, in all these ways, to educate and bring us together and lift us up.
One funny, quick aside about volunteering for this: as one of 62 row captains (of those I saw, I was frankly frightened by how many I knew), my “row” (broken up as some seats in two rows), was way up in the nosebleed section of the balcony (in this gorgeous old theater, those are totally fine seats). Before our guests arrived, I was catching up with my friend Stephanie, another mother of four, who said, “Oh, we’re up here because we got our lists in at the last minute.” Famously, she told me about having four kids that one thing she’d learned was that you never have to bring anything to a potluck ever again because getting there is enough. A few minutes later, my friend Adi, also a high-up balcony row captain, offered her take on our seats, “They knew we wouldn’t complain about being way up here.” All I could do was smile at the different rationales for an evening in the boonies. For the record, I loved our seats and our section.
Sojourner Truth, if you (like me) don’t know much, is a person, a woman, worth knowing about—an historical figure we’d call brave or stupid today, in that she stood up for her convictions with dignity and strength. She spoke her mind. What’s more, and so apt about Enchanted Circle Theater creating a play about her, is that a great deal of what she did was this: she shared her story. She couldn’t write, but she had scribes write for her and she spoke publicly. She understood the power of her story.
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The David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies in Florence, Massachusetts, collaborated to make Sojourner’s Truth happen, and the organization has done so much to ensure that her story will endure and will continue to reverberate (including having a statue of her created and installed in Florence). On the weekend of April 16-18 a symposium about Ruggles will take place.
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I think I have two take-home messages here. One is that not only do stories have the power to change people’s lives, legacies are important, and should be carried forth carefully and respectfully. The opening of the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum—by anti-abortion advocates trying to extrapolate her positions in their favor without regard to the fact that abortion—as it exists now—is entirely different than it was when Anthony was alive. This is not a case of holding up a legacy; this is a case of mangling a very important legacy. Second message: volunteer in ways that make you happy, in ways you are pleased to participate, and if you are not so moved, it’s really, truly okay to say no, not this time.
