On the Charity High Wire, It’s ‘the Net’ That Counts

The new hip word is net.

No, not as in stockings. As in that the gourmet extravaganza, the American Wine and Food Festival for Meals on Wheels on Saturday night, netted more than $250,000.

That’s because the most important addition to a big charity bash is not the music, the flowers or the tablecloths--but the adding up of expenses once the night is over. Successful benefits have to be mindful of the rule: “The committee giveth--and the committee can take it away.”

The Meals on Wheels blast at Universal Studios is a good example of how a charity event, in six years, can become a textbook fund-raiser. Sponsored by the Wolfgang Puck Charitable Foundation, the night runs a lot on the energy of Puck and three of his Spago staffers--Tom Kaplan, Pam Slate and chef David Gingrass.

This year, according to Kaplan, much of the food was donated (especially by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute), the wines were donated, USAir and Southwest Airlinesflew in the chefs and others and the Westwood Marquis put all the chefs up. The ticket price was kept to $150--about half the cost of the average black-tie, hotel-based benefit--and the gross for the evening, for which 1,400 tickets were sold, was about $375,000.

Without such underwriting, Kaplan believes, “the night would have cost as much as we are raising.”

Of course, that would never happen. Or would it?

Some of the most interesting reading these days is the little slip of paper, required by Los Angeles city law to be included in every benefit invitation, which lays out the anticipated expenses and the the cost of the tickets. Also included--the previous activity of the charity, including expenses versus net.

For example, according to the enclosure in the invitation, on Friday the California Raisin Advisory Board “hosts” the second annual birthday celebration for Ray Charles. The black-tie party at the Beverly Hills Hotel benefits Ear International--and will also be an opportunity to preview the Claymation commercial starring Charles.

The Raisin Advisory Board is helping to underwrite the benefit--and its $25,000 contribution and the fact that it purchased several tables will probably make an immense difference in the evening’s total net. Last year, the first year out, no such commercial sponsor existed--so the event grossed $27,500 with expenses of more than $12,000.

Those figures are just too representative of many charity events in L.A. Not only do expenses eat away at a great deal of the profit to the charity--but the gross totals are themselves sometimes very small.

“A lot of the problem is the committees themselves,” one professional fund-raiser, who refused to be quoted by name, insisted. “The committee gets bogged down in the details of making it fabulous. They forget the bottom line.”

She then offered what she said was her most recent horror story. The chairman for a recent massive benefit decided that the hotel’s tablecloths “just weren’t attractive.” So she ordered dozens of new cloths and matching napkins made up--and the charity paid for them out of the profits of the evening.

At any hotel event, the same fund-raiser pointed out, the costs are up. “Figure at least $50 for the meal and some wine--and that’s for chicken.”

That does not include the cost of flowers, of printing invitations and programs, of mailing. Or of special sound systems, of the cost of putting even a “donated” star on stage, since musicians have to be paid, and flown in, and the lights have to be paid for, and a special conductor has to lead the band, and. . . .

Roz Wyman, who puts on the Betty Clooney Foundation “Singers Salute the Songwriters” evening--the totals for the third annual event were a profit of $370,000 after subtracting the $150,000 cost--says: “Everybody performs free except the musicians. We limit the rehearsal schedule. You just have to hold in those costs and you have to try for underwriting. It is just essential.”

And cutting expenses is also essential, as Mimi Orth, a board chairman for Sojourn, pointed out. Last weekend’s benefit honoring Keith and Bill Kieschnick, she said, brought together about 400 people--with a ticket price of $150. The charity was expected to net $75,000 for the evening--and last year netted $70,000 from a gross of $100,000.

The big trick, of course, is to have the event completely underwritten. That will almost happen Friday night, when Comic Relief will be hosting the premiere of “Punch Line” with Sally Field and Tom Hanks, the party afterward and a special comedy performance that will be shot for Home Box Office. Total expenses for the evening are “estimated at $12,500 for professional fees. All other expenses will be underwritten,” according to the Social Service Department Information Card.

Now that makes for interesting reading.