Gift Bags

I came across this piece on Bloomberg about the ever shrinking gift bag due to the lack of sponsors and the economy.

Post-Lehman Galas Give No Tiffany as Gift Bags Shrink (Update1)
By Patrick Cole

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Guests at the Parish Art Museum's 2005 summer gala received a limited-edition bag from Coach Inc. This year, Kelsey Grammer, Joel Grey and some 500 other attendees got a nylon bag, a journal and a cookbook.

Even the bottles of Estee Lauder perfume and Hampton & Co. neckties left on diners’ chairs couldn’t lift the cloud of the gala’s 25 percent budget cut and the failure to attract a corporate sponsor.

“It’s clearly an indication of the correction in the economy,” said Terrie Sultan, the Southampton, New York-based museum’s director.

Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last September, the gift bag, a nonprofit’s way of saying “thank you” for buying a gala ticket, has gotten simpler and even vanished for many events this year as corporate sponsors reduce their support or back out entirely.

In a survey of professional fundraisers and consultants by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University released this month, about 86 percent of the 188 respondents said that the economy is having a “negative or very negative impact” on fundraising this summer.

About 60 percent believe the economy will continue to affect their work the rest of this year, and fundraisers for arts, culture and humanities organizations are “less confident” about the current conditions for giving, the survey said.

‘Community of People’

“The fun of a gala event is the community of people who are coming together, and that is more important than the things they are receiving such as a journal or a notepad,” Timothy L. Seiler, director of the philanthropy center’s Fund Raising School, said in a phone interview.

Before the economy tanked, common donor gifts at galas included custom-made Kate Spade bags, pricey anti-wrinkle cream, splits of Moet & Chandon Champagne or a $250 gift certificate toward the purchase of a $1,000 wristwatch at a Tourneau LLC store.

At Whitney Museum of American Art fundraisers, bags cradling a Tiffany & Co. bowl could trigger elbowing and shoving by patrons fearful that they’d miss out, said Bret Silver, the institution’s former director of marketing and events.

More recently, dance aficionados who paid as much as $2,500 to see Mikhail Baryshnikov at his arts center's gala in April got a T-shirt with a lavender-colored ribbon around it. Urban Stages Theater, an off-Broadway company, nixed the goody bag at its 25th anniversary gala in May and placed baseball caps on chairs.

No Longer Needed

“I don’t feel they’re necessary anymore,” said Silver, now Jazz at Lincoln Center’s chief officer of external relations, who eliminated gift bags and even a CD as gifts at the nonprofit’s May fundraisers. “In these times, the most effective use of the staff’s time is raising money on programs, not putting together gift bags.”

For the Aug. 1 Southhampton Hospital Foundation’s “Centennial Celebration,” Brooks Brothers didn’t repeat as the event’s lead sponsor but still contributed $50,000 in gift cards. Honorary chairman Christie Brinkley donated items from her jewelry and sunglasses lines.

The gift bags, which included Brinkley’s products, $100 Brooks Brothers gift certificates for the men and some DVDs and CDs, were “very good,” Kathy Lucas, the foundation’s director of special events, said in a phone interview.

“I think it’s nice when people can go home with something,” said Lindsay Lever, the manager of the American Cancer Society’s annual “Taste of Hope” event, who gets calls all year from companies offering their products for gift bags. “To get rid of gift bags would be a mistake.”