Fundraising events hit by COVID in the Midlands means huge losses to non-profits

Each year, non-profits hold large fundraisers to go towards operation budgets for the year. A lot of these events happen around the holidays, but COVID-19 social distancing protocols put a hold on large gatherings.

For some charities, that comes at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have been donated.

For the Junior League of Columbia, this year would have been the 35th annual Holiday Market at the State Fairgrounds. Last year, the Holiday Market raised $250,000 from ticket sales. These funds were put back into the community through donations and services centered around healthy living, as is the Junior League’s main focus.

“There’s not been another situation that’s caused a break in the annual planning, but we knew with the unknowns related to COVID, with merchants who travel from all over the country, and then the hundreds of volunteers and thousands of participants, it just wasn’t in our best interest or the interest of the community to gather those groups,” said Anna Edwards, president of the Junior League of Columbia.

Similarly, Central South Carolina Habitat for Humanity had to postpone its biggest annual event, the Fall Gala, which happens every November.

“The average gala helps us build three houses, so it’s about $300,000 that we raised that evening,” said Roy Kramer, executive director.

Habitat rescheduled the event for the spring after deciding that even a virtual fundraiser would be untimely during the election season and the pandemic, according to Kramer.

The non-profit is proudly debt-free, but will need funding to keep normal operations going. The biggest need for Habitat is money for land acquisition.

With shutting down Habitat’s Re-Store for a month during the summer, the group lost $70,000 and is behind in the budget.

“We won’t catch it (the budget), but we’re surviving,” said Kramer.

Additionally, Kramer has seen a 5% decline in mortgage payments from homeowners hit by the pandemic.

Thanks to generous donations from contractors for building supplies, Habitat has not gone a day without working and did not fall behind on its 2020 projects. To keep volunteers safe, Habitat had to limit each site to five volunteers instead of the normal 30 volunteers per day.

“The needs continue. Although the people resources might be minimized, it’s important that we continue to raise funds and contribute so that those people who can make $2 out of $1 can continue doing the work,” said Edwards.

Habitat for Humanity has many other smaller fundraisers that are still happening this year, such as the upcoming Home for the Holidays project that aims to raise $100,000 to go into the operations budget.

Mary Louise Resch, director of philanthropy at Habitat, said that for every dollar raised, they use 93 cents for operations.

Both the Junior League and Habitat for Humanity re-focused some of their efforts on COVID relief in the past seven months. The Junior League created a relief fund and grant application for non-profits in need. Habitat donated more than 4,000 hazmat suits at the beginning of the pandemic in addition to hand sanitizer and masks that were donated to them.

Epworth Children’s Home had to cancel two of its smaller community-focused fundraisers this year, including the Alumni Barbecue and the Food Truck Rodeo.

The Food Truck Rodeo raises around $10,000 annually, according to Lisa Fusco, senior director of development and communications for Epworth.

“We’re doing some of those things through social media instead,” said Fusco about other fundraising efforts. “We’re improvising that way.”