Location: Natural History Museum, London
Year: May 2019
The Maple Leaf Trust seeks external event support for the first time to deliver its fundraising dinner
The Maple Leaf Ball is the main fundraising event for the Maple Leaf Trust and over the decades it has become the social highlight in the UK-Canadian calendar, providing the opportunity for 400 Canadians from across the UK to come together to meet, celebrate, reminisce and fundraise for two important charities. The Trust had never outsourced the most important event in their calendar to an external party before but had relied heavily on their internal team and a large army of volunteers instead.
A big leap of faith was needed to entrust their event to an external party
Having identified that professional event support was needed, the MLT appointed 1331 Events to help them produce their 2019 event. Having run some large dinners at the Natural History Museum previously, 1331 Events took full control of the planning of the event leaving the trustees free to focus on securing sponsorship, table sales and auction items.
“What a spectacular Ball. On behalf of the CCSF AND our scholars please accept our heartfelt thanks for the colossal effort you go to, to host the event, for believing in and partnering with our Charity. Simply put – our scholarship awards would not be possible without you!”Jill Cannon, Board Trustee & Past Chair, Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund
Deliverables
With plenty of experience of large scale dinners, 1331 Events brought new methods of managing the event to the charity, producing detailed briefing documents and on-site running orders for all suppliers and volunteers, writing scripts for the evening’s MC, and introducing escort cards as a way of registering guests and advising their seating location. Drawing on their years of experience they were also able to bring in trusted florists, entertainment suppliers, and manage all the other high end suppliers with ease.
Results
The evening was a huge success, raising over £157,000 for the charities and enabling the Maple Leaf Trust team for the first time to actually be able to relax and enjoy the event themselves.
“What a great night! I heard nothing but great reviews. Thank you for making it happen.”
Robert J Brant, Managing Partner (London), McCarthy Tétrault
