Gold Dinner set for June 2021 return
New presenting partners and a bevy of fresh board members — the nation’s premier fundraiser, Gold Dinner, is back for 2021
The Gold Dinner is staging a triumphant return to Sydney’s social calendar, with the 2021 event scheduled to take place on June 10. The announcement comes after the 2020 gala was called off because of the pandemic, one month before it was due to take place.
Its return is a beacon of hope for the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation — the Gold Dinner is the source of the foundation’s biggest single donations. In 2019, it raised a record $3.3 million dollars for the Children’s Hospital in Randwick.
Chief executive of the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation Nicola Stokes told The Australian 2020 was “a big financial hit” to the foundation, greatly affecting “the amount of money [it] could contribute to the hospitals.”
This year will mark Monica Saunders Weinberg’s second year as chairperson of the Gold Dinner. The daughter of the later John Saunders, co-founder of the Westfield shopping centre business, Saunders Weinberg stepped into the role in 2019.
She will be backed by a dynamic board full of fresh faces: Qantas’ Loyalty chief Olivia Wirth, Airbnb’s country manager for Australia and New Zealand Susan Wheeldon, Warner Music president Dan Rosen, Fashion entrepreneur Joshua Penn, travel CEO David Goldman and chairman of REA Group and Rugby Australia Hamish McLennan have all been welcomed into the Gold Dinner committee for 2021.
They will join existing board members Alina Barlow, Emma Cooper, Emma Van Haandel, Guillaume Brahimi, Karl Stefanovic, Kathryn Carter, Mikey Filler, Phil Schofield and Richard Weinberg, Monica’s husband.
All funds raised by the 2021 Gold Dinner will go towards supporting mental health research and care at the Sydney Children’s Hospital.
The notoriously exclusive event, which is built on a strategic guest list that‘s peppered with some of the country’s most influential businesspeople, was first held in 1997 and has raised more than $30 million for the Children’s Hospitals in the years since.
Crown Sydney and Scape, a global student accommodation network with locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, have signed on as the 2021 Gold Dinner’s new presenting partners.
“Scapes’ commitment is to ‘Shape and Shelter the Minds of Tomorrow’, so it is very natural to extend this commitment to the youngest minds of our future,” said Scape CEO Anouk Darling of the partnership.
Crown restaurants Nobu and Amare will curate the menus for the evening, which will be held at an exclusive location that is famously disclosed just a few days before the event to the 500 people paying $1500 a head for the invitation-only dinner.
“The venue will be incredible,” revealed Saunders Weinberg in an interview with The Australian.
“I am so proud and honoured to be in collaboration with our committee, generous partners and key stakeholders, who have all dug deeper than ever to not only evolve our mission… but to significantly impact the lives of the future.”
Saunders Weinberg has been a long time patron and supporter of the Children’s Hospital, having attended multiple Gold Dinners, including the inaugural event in ’97. Since joining as chair, her ambition to refresh and diversify the event’s structure has led to more men joining the Gold Dinner organising committee.
“Traditionally it was always women on the committee but I wanted it to be both,” said Saunders Weinberg. “If we expect men to treat us equally then we should treat them equally.
“All the men on the committee are fathers and have had experience with sick children.”
Innovation has been another focus, and the chair says her and the board are committed to “pushing for new and exciting ways to evolve the entire experience and platform for fundraising.”
It is understood the 2021 event will involve the auctioning off of an NFT (non-fungible token) created by an Australian artist, with bids for the artwork being taken in cryptocurrency — a first for the charity.
Saunders Weinberg hopes the 2021 Gold Dinner will set another fundraising record, following a year in which many ordinary Australians were given insight into what life is like for people living with mental illnesses.
“People got to understand what it feels like to be withdrawn… when you can’t participate in life and you can‘t feel joy. That’s what people with mental health issues feel on a daily basis,” said the chair.
“People also want to connect. They want to be given the opportunity to give to something that is going to make a difference.
“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.”
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