Nonprofit Gala and Awards Ceremony Washington DC

Brief: As its largest fundraiser of the year, this Virginia-based international youth development non-profit hosted an annual gala to raise funds to support its mission. The gala featured silent and live auctions, and presented its Sizanani Award to Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), for his lifelong dedication to addressing systematic inequality. For a third year, Event Accomplished was delighted to assist the organization.

Concept: Once again, our goal was to bring the organization’s mission and work closer to the gala’s supporters and attendees in Washington, DC since its programs are held in South Africa. We made intentional choices about our design and program elements to achieve this objective while maximizing our event budget. Here are some examples:

• The campers always have craft activites while attending the organization’s youth camps. This year, the campers made God’s Eye crafts, which allowed us to use them as our centerpieces.
• The Taratibu Youth Association, a Maryland-based ensemble of young artists representing the performing arts of the African diaspora, performed a South African Gumboot Suite: Bawo. The performance told the story of the Soweto Uprising, the children’s protest for the education; with the song Bawo sung in Shona and Zulu.
• Catering servers wore South African-design vests
• Since the organization is expanding its services within South Africa and throughout the African continent, we had impact videos that reflected that goal.
• We selected wines from South African producers and wineries.
• For background music, we played South African musicians and composers.

Scope: Event Accomplished developed pre-event communications with attendees, managed on-site registration, volunteer coordination, graphic design and printing, vendor sourcing and coordation, and on-site event management.