Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa

In the case of AQ, the donors are treated like investors, the ALS patients
like customers, and the research like the product.
Approaching ALS pragmatically as “a business problem awaiting a solution,”
Augie set out to develop AQ as he would a corporate brand, making himself,
as it were, the “face” of that brand. Recognizing that there were lots of worthy
causes competing for charitable dollars, he distinguished his own, in part, by
insisting that all dollars raised go fully and directly to medical research. “There
will be no set-asides for overhead,” he promises, “and our books will be made
available to anyone who cares to see them.”
Augie’s insistence on transparency was well received and has produced
impressive results. Just 24 months after its inception, AQ has raised more than
$12 million and is on schedule to meet, or exceed, its three-year goal of
$18 million. A number of independent fund-raising activities have contributed
significantly to the cause. Among them: online auctions; ironman competitions;
golf tournaments, including one conducted by ClubCorp that raised over
$600,000 for AQ in one day; and Clubs for a Cure, an ongoing industry-wide
initiative launched by the Atlantic Club, of Manasquan and Red Bank,
New Jersey, that hopes to generate $3 million.
For the past two years, however, the most conspicuous and
successful fund-raising event has been one held on the closing
night of the IHRSA convention.
Christened “The Bash,” the first one was held in Las Vegas in
March 2006, and featured such celebrities as Lance Armstrong
and the Doobie Brothers; it raised nearly $3 million, setting a
record for the most productive single-day fund-raiser in the
MDA’s history. It was followed, in 2007, by the Black and Blue
Bash, a black-tie and blue-jeans affair featuring singer John
Ondrasik and author Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays with
Morrie, which attracted 1,000 attendees and raised over
$2 million.
The 2008 sequel, the Beach Bash, will take place this month,
on March 7, during IHRSA’s 27th Annual International Convention
and Trade Show in San Diego. It will feature Today Show
host Natalie Morales and NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott,
whose close friend and former NLF player, Eric Scoggins, was
diagnosed with ALS early last year.
Each Bash builds on its predecessors’ successes and always sells out
the 1,000-plus seats, notes John McCarthy, IHRSA’s executive director
emeritus and chairman of the ’08 Bash committee. McCarthy credits
Augie’s flair for theater, along with an intense sense of unified purpose
within the industry, for the overwhelming support. “The goal, as always,”
he says, “is to make ‘giving’ a fun, social, and enjoyable experience,”
he indicates. “We want everyone to be glad that they participated and glad
that they gave.”
Targeting unmet needs
Augie, for his part, attributes much of AQ’s stunning fund-raising performance
to donations from executives with the foresight to “engineer
savvy philanthropy into their corporate genetic code.” This, he points out,
represents a dramatic change from the way things used to be. “The
relationship between business and philanthropy has changed radically
over the years,” he explains. “There was a time when giving was a
common tax strategy, a kind of fiduciary afterthought. My experience with
AQ has taught me that those days are long past.”
Nieto, singer Paula Abdul
www.ihrsa.org | MARCH 2008 | Club Business International 65