Let’s get this party started: Charity galas make a triumphant return
Charity galas are back (in Sydney, at least). But just how necessary is the pomp and ceremony?
Call it a tale of two cities. While the nation watches with trepidation as Melbourne battles to suppress a burgeoning outbreak of Covid-19, the final touches on Sydney’s biggest charity night of the year are under way. On Thursday night, in a hangar otherwise languishing at Sydney Airport, the Gold Dinner will be held in all its glittering splendour – in accordance with the state’s Covid guidelines.
For organisers of Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital’s 150th anniversary gala, it’s been a bad case of 2020 deja vu. They have been forced to postpone the landmark charity event twice, owing to lockdowns in Victoria. The event, initially planned for May 28, 2020, was put back to June 16 this year and has now been postponed to an optimistic September .
Back in Sydney, the return of the Gold Dinner – which has raised $30m since 1997 – marks the first of a number of high-profile society events aimed at raising money for Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation.
All going according to plan, in the second half of the year the city will once again play host to a whirl of high-society fundraisers. The Silver Party – a younger, edgier affair in cocktail format – has moved its usual March date to November 27, securing Merivale Group boss Justin Hemmes’ waterfront Hermitage home at Vaucluse as its venue, with hopes for a record-breaking year.
The Australian has also learned that the SunSCHine Ball, another Children’s Hospital affiliate, which has raised $4m since it launched 11 years ago, will keep its October slot after cancelling last year’s event. In 2019, the charity gala raised $1.4m.
“There’s so much energy in light of Covid,” says SunSCHine chair Sarah Hogan, whose company MPA has been the presenting partner of the event since 2015.
“There’s a lot of money in Sydney right now, and also a lot of gratitude and awareness for what the hospital does for children.”
Hogan says interest in the event, which will take place on Friday October 22 at an undisclosed venue, is already high: “I don’t believe we’ll have to go to market with tickets; it’s likely they’ll sell out before we announce”.
The return of these marquee fundraisers is a relief, says chief executive of the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation Nicola Stokes. The foundation, which raises funds for the Children’s Hospitals at Randwick and Westmead, as well as the residential Bear Cottage in Manly and the neonatal and infant emergency transport system in NSW, was down $10m last year, out of an annual budget of $40m-plus. “It was a big financial hit to us and the amount of money we could contribute to the hospitals,” says Stokes. “And this is despite many donors choosing to give generously amid the charity ball freeze last year.”
The Silver Party, which raises money for the Kids Cancer Centre at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick, has become one of the most sought-after tickets on the Sydney social calendar, especially among younger philanthropists. In recent years, the Silver Party has helped to raise more than $1m annually for the Children’s Hospital – with parties held at some of Sydney’s most prominent homes.
Due to last year’s snap cancellation, the Silver committee fell short of its target by approximately $650,000.
But Silver Party chair Maree Andrews says last year “wasn’t all a loss”, noting that 95 per cent of 2020 ticket holders chose to either donate the sum of their ticket to the cause, or transfer it to this year’s event.
“We were able to raise $350,000 without the event even taking place,” says Andrews.
Choosing a venue for the Silver Party has just as much to do with the network of the homeowner as it does the property’s mise-en-scene.
Film director Baz Luhrmann and founder of Aussie Home Loans John Symond have both opened their residences to the Silver Party. In 2018 and 2019, the event was held at Boomerang at Elizabeth Bay and the Morans’ Swifts in Darling Point respectively.
“We really think about who’s supported us in the past and who might want to become more aligned with us in the future,” says Andrews, who has chaired the party for the past 15 years, since she was 24. “Those people really draw a certain calibre of person to the event, who is able to dig deeper for us as well.
“Justin (Hemmes) has been a silent supporter of the hospital for many years, and now he’s stepping up to a more visible role,” says Andrews. “Every year the party is a real collaboration between the owner of the home, the committee and the hospital.”
Silver’s committee – which include fashion designer Camilla Freeman-Topper, Hermes Australia managing director Karin Upton Baker, and Tamie Ingham – were forced to cancel last year’s event just days before it was due to take place. And yet Andrews is full of hope. “There is a real sense of optimism out there,” she says. “I hope that we’re in for a record-breaking year. I feel like it may very well be.”
According to Stokes, the Gold committee also managed to raise a respectable sum of cash despite the dinner not going ahead. Funds raised at this weekend’s 2021 Gold Dinner will go towards supporting mental health research and care at the Sydney Children’s Hospital.
High hopes of returning with a bang are shared by Monica Saunders-Weinberg, the daughter of Westfield Group co-founder John Saunders, who became chair of the Gold Dinner in 2019.
The dinner raised a record $3.3m for the Children’s Hospital in Randwick that year.
“People want to connect. They want to be given the opportunity to give to something that is going to make a difference,” says Saunders-Weinberg. “People are grateful for the fact that we have had a very different version of Covid than the rest of the world and they want to do their part and give back in a very meaningful way.”
Gold is known as much for bringing Australia’s most influential people together, as for putting on a spectacle that has Sydney’s upper social strata talking.
Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes, Afterpay’s Nick Molnar, fashion designer Alex Perry, John Symond, Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert, and Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Edwina McCann have all accepted invitations to attend this year’s dinner, along with A-lister Rose Byrne and personalities Hamish Blake and Zoe Foster Blake.
Presenting partners with Gold for the first time this year are Crown Sydney and Scape, a global student accommodation network with locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Crown Sydney chief executive Peter Crinis and executive general manager Mark Holmes will attend the Dinner, as will Scape chief Anouk Darling. When it comes to building excitement Gold is rarely outshone, with the location usually divulged only at the last moment and glamorous design wrought, over the years, by stars like Tony Assness, Silvana Azzi Heras and event supremos Team Event.
This year, the buzz is heightened by Gold’s decision to auction off its first NFT – an artwork created exclusively for the gala by Australian crypto artist Hipworth (real name Tim Meyer). Donors inside and outside the room can bid on the artwork with crypto currency, a method becoming increasingly popular in philanthropy circles worldwide. Bids placed on the NFT are being accepted through the independent Reserve, a leading Australian crypto exchange platform. The winning bid will be converted into cash and donated to the Children’s Hospital.
Yet not all charities have been quite as quick to pick up where they left off pre-pandemic.
Rather than push ahead with Sydney’s famous Chocolate Ball, chair of the FSHD Global Research Foundation Natalie Cooney has chosen to postpone her million-dollar event indefinitely, in favour of launching a new “foot soldiers” initiative called Muscles for Muscles.
In contrast to the Children’s Hospital, the challenge for the FSHD Foundation (FSHD stands for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a progressive muscle wasting disease that affects approximately one in 200,000 people) is to grow awareness of the illness among the community.
In May, the charity ran its inaugural Muscles for Muscles campaign – “we want it to be considered a ‘new Dry July’ or ‘Movember’,” says Cooney. “It’s a public eye event. It’s an accessible event … we raise money to build muscle strength in people who have muscle debilitations.
“The Chocolate Ball was always sold out. People wanted to go to it. They used to call it the Logies of Sydney but it wasn’t in the social pages because it was so underground and exclusive.”
It raises an interesting question: if society’s most affluent showed they were willing to dig deep in 2020 in the absence of the gala fundraiser, how relevant are glitzy charity galas?
Cooney, whose father, Macquarie Bank founder Bill Moss suffers from FSHD, says the Chocolate Ball isn’t completely retired and could take place again in the future. “But I think people really want to be a part of something. Having a high-end donor come to a ball and make a donation – that’s one thing. But I would enjoy that same donor to do the Muscles for Muscles squat challenge and get benefit out of it, in a personal and community sense,” she adds.
The Chocolate Ball isn’t Sydney’s only premier fundraising event that won’t be taking place in 2021. Hosted by Buildcorp founders Tony and Josephine Sukkar, a gala known simply as The Party has also announced that it won’t be happening in its regular format this year.
The Party raises money for suicide counselling services Lifeline and Smiling Mind, a program that promotes the mental health of schoolchildren in the NSW school system, via the Sukkar’s Buildcorp Foundation. The Buildcorp Foundation raises funds for mental health and suicide care – as, sadly, it is an issue affecting young men in the building industry.
In 2020, the Sukkars hosted their seventh annual party at their home, bringing together almost 800 people just before the Covid restrictions hit. The event raised more than $750,000 for their foundation. While Ms Sukkar cancelled this year’s party, she says patrons are still eager to donate, and so she’ll be replacing the big event with a series of smaller dinners. “There is still money coming in although we haven’t been able to host the party this year,” she says. “People have been very kind. Awareness of mental health issues in the community has increased and a lot of our sponsors and supporters have still been donating to the foundation.”
Cooney and Andrews agree that the emphasis on health, and health systems, has been one silver lining to come from challenges of the past 12 months. “Covid has only enhanced the importance of our health, and now everyone’s talking about it,” says Cooney. Andrews adds: “I do think people are more in tune with what’s important; with doing good and doing their part within the charities they feel strongly connected to.”
Indeed, the year off might have sharpened the resolve of these chairpeople. “It’s all about raising the most money for the cause,” says Andrews. “And when it comes to asking people for money, that’s probably my strong point. There’s no shame in my game. I’m not asking for a personal loan and if they want to support, they will support. And if they don’t, I’m very happy to move on too.”
Additional reporting: Elle Halliwell
Lifeline: 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout