The app for a fundraising gala
A gala is a hospitality event that happens to raise money, and the money is raised in the fifteen minutes when the room is paying attention. Everything before that is logistics, and logistics is where an app helps.
A planning figure: forty-five tables of ten, which is the size at which finding your table becomes a real problem.
What a gala needs that is not the ask
A gala and fundraiser app carries the run of the evening, the guest and table directory, the sponsor and donor recognition, and the photographs afterwards. event67 does all of that under the organisation's own brand. It does not take donations, sell tickets or run an auction, so a fundraising platform handles the money and event67 handles the evening.
Guests who need to know where they are sitting
The single most asked question of the evening. Put the running order and the table assignments in the app and the front-of-house team stops answering it three hundred times. Note the limit honestly: event67 has no seating-chart builder, so table numbers arrive as guest information rather than as a visual plan you drag around.
Recognition that sponsors paid for
Sponsor pages tier-ordered from Platinum to Bronze with logos, bios and websites, and sponsors attached to specific parts of the evening. For a gala this is a contractual deliverable, not a nice touch, so it is worth checking the tier list against the signed agreements.
A room whose attention you can measure
Reactions during the appeal, and a poll afterwards. Development teams almost never have a read on the room beyond the total raised, and the total raised arrives too late to change anything.
Photographs the development team can use on Monday
A gala produces the best photography an organisation gets all year and most of it stays on guests' phones. The shared album collects it in one place with moderation, which for a donor-facing organisation usually means moderated rather than open.
An evening in five movements
After ticket sales close
Import the guest list
Tickets and tables are sold in your fundraising platform, because event67 does not take payments. Export the confirmed guest list, import as CSV, send branded invites and check delivery per recipient.
Uses the branded app.
Reception
Arrival, and the count the caterer wants
QR check-in on arrival with a live count in the console. A repeat scan returns already checked in. For a plated dinner, an accurate arrivals number at 19:15 is worth real money.
Uses check-in.
Dinner
The running order, in a pocket
Courses, speeches, the appeal, the entertainment. Guests can see what is coming without asking a server, and a push announcement moves the room when the running order slips, which it always does.
Uses the running order and push announcements.
The appeal
Reaction, then the ask
Reactions stream during the beneficiary story. The ask itself, and the giving, happen in your fundraising platform. event67 can carry the link and the announcement; it cannot take the donation.
Uses reactions and polls.
The following week
Thanks, photographs and the record
The album is ready for the thank-you communications. Engagement analytics show which guests actually engaged, and the reports archive keeps every photo and poll for the annual review.
Uses the shared album and analytics.
Setting up a gala app
Five steps, starting with the one that saves the argument later.
Confirm what your fundraising platform owns
Tickets, tables, donations and the auction stay there. Write down the split before you start, so nobody expects a paddle raise in the app.
Create the event and brand it
The organisation's own logo, colours and type. The contrast checker warns on any pair below WCAG AA and confirms before saving.
Build the running order
Reception, courses, speeches, appeal, entertainment. Timed, so guests can see what is next.
Load sponsors against the signed agreements
Tier order matters commercially here. Check it twice.
Set photos to moderated
For a donor-facing evening, moderated is almost always the right posture. A reported photo auto-hides regardless.
What a 450-guest gala costs
Four hundred and fifty guests activate. Fifty are free and the rest are billable once for the evening. Guests who buy a table and send colleagues who never open the app do not appear on the bill.
- activated attendees
- 450activated attendees
- billable, after the first 50 are free
- 400billable, after the first 50 are free
- for the whole event, at $5.00 each
- $2,000for the whole event, at $5.00 each
For a nonprofit board reviewing event costs, the useful fact is the ceiling: no single event can ever cost more than the cap, whatever the turnout.
The money, which event67 does not touch
This is the largest gap on any page in this family and it is unambiguous. If you are looking for auction software, this is not it.
- No donations, no giving, no payment processing of any kind.
- No silent auction, live auction, bidding or paddle raise.
- No ticketing or table sales.
- No donor CRM, no giving history and no pledge tracking.
- Forms exist and collect responses, but they cannot collect money.
- No seating-chart builder. Table assignments can be communicated; they cannot be designed here.
Last updated
What it costs
- Free up to 50
- activated attendees, on one live event
- $5
- per activated attendee beyond 50
- $4,750
- the most one event can ever cost, whatever happens past 1,000
Activated means the person claimed their invite and opened the app. Not when you import them, not when the invite is delivered, and not if they register and stay home.
Questions people actually ask
Can guests donate or bid in the app?
No. event67 does not process payments, take donations, or run auctions of any kind. Your fundraising platform does that. event67 carries the evening around it: the running order, the guest directory, sponsor recognition, announcements and the photographs.
Can we show table assignments?
You can communicate them as guest information and in announcements, but there is no seating-chart builder and no visual table plan. If drag-and-drop seating is central to how you plan, keep the tool you use for it.
Is this appropriate for a nonprofit budget?
The free tier covers one live event up to fifty activated guests outright. Beyond that you pay per guest who opens the app, and the per-event total is capped, so a gala that doubles in size does not double this line.
How do sponsors get recognised?
Tier-ordered sponsor pages with logo, description and website, plus sponsors attached to specific sessions in the running order. There is no lead capture, so sponsorship agreements should promise visibility.
Will guests in their seventies use it?
Some will and some will not, and a gala should never depend on it. Keep the printed running order. The app earns its place through the photographs, the sponsor recognition and the arrivals count rather than by replacing paper on the table.
Keep reading
Other kinds of event
The features this leans on
Run the evening, not the money
The running order, sponsor recognition and the photographs. Your fundraising platform keeps the donations.