The Taste Event
With the help of Ampleen, 11th Annual Taste of Greenwich House, one of NYC’s premier fundraising events, become more sustainable. A non-profit founded in 1902, Greenwich House was founded to help New York’s increasing immigrant population adjust to life in a new country. Today, it offers programs in social services, arts and education to New Yorkers. The idea of “sustainability” is in their DNA but, green fundraising is still a very new concept to the organization.
Our Challenge
The challenge was to make our guests feel special as we did so in last 10 years while going green this year. New Yorkers are not exactly known for their conscious consumption: they seek luxurious experience. Another challenge — this annual event is all about taste experience – over 50 restaurants provide a sample -size food to promote their restaurants.
So, how did we do it?
Like many projects, its success hinges on an accumulation of small steps. The project was initiated with communication with key stake holders to set goals and priority – identify the organization’s core value. We identified that cutting 3,000 plastic plates would give the biggest impact. Generally, eco-products are more expensive and every penny counts for a non-profit. So, we we sourced materials from the most reasonable eco-product vendors and found a sponsor to pay for it. We created a “Green Team” in our volunteer group and trained them to become green ambassadors encouraging guests to use the same plastic cup throughout the evening. We worked with event facility’s manager to utilize for recycling, composting and recovery strategy. We also communicated taste vendors to do the same as our green team.
In the end, our green taste event was delivered for the first time to NYC.
3 Lessons Learned
Here is our 3 Lessons Learned from the project:
1) Gain the buy-ins early from everyone Involved:
It’s crucial to educate everyone involved in the event why we are doing things differently. Especially, over-worked organizers’ staffs need to be motivated to take an extra mile to do the right thing.
2) Tap into the Millennials to gain the support:
Millennials are well aware of the climate change and they are prone to support the green concept. Also they are the biggest age segment in workforce today.
3) Make “Going Green” everyone’s agenda:
Fundraising event involves different stakeholders — Board members, Executive Directors, organization’s staffs, volunteers and the event’s gests. We need to know who are the decision makers for the event and communicate with clear yet sophisticated language that “going green” is everyone’s agenda.
Great thing about the green fundraising event is every participant involves the fundraising event has a good intention to support non-profit organization’s mission. We just need to extend their intention to the larger mission that’s saving our planet.
What do you think? We would love to hear about your experience.
(Note: a picture at Greenwich House’s Annual Taste Event — our green posters were everywhere!)
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