Here are a couple of hot tickets this week. Pulaski Technical College hosts its Diamond Chefs preliminaries Tuesday at its Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute. On Thursday, inside its Jack Stephens arena, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock holds its 12th Taste of Little Rock.
Oh, you want a mingling more exclusive, of more consequence? Well, try this one out.
At the Hope Ball for the 20th Century Club (whose lodge is a year-round residential center for cancer patients who need it) earlier this month, an auction item billed as "Dinner for 10 at the Governor's Mansion" was finally, after protracted bidding by Barry Griffith and others, sold for $14,000. That's a cocktail reception, a tour of the mansion, and dinner in the dining room (not the Grand Hall used for events, but the room just inside the front door, across from the parlor).
I am not a man very much inside the halls of power. I am a man very much inside the halls of banquets. So, in the excitement of the moment, with a typed contract for his review before him and an ice bucket of champagne sweating on the table, Griffith, the winner, was asked if he thought such an evening was perhaps a little overpriced. "I don't think so," he said.
Folks, that's what you call a really dumb reporter question.
I was about to thunk him with another pate breaker from the Fourth Estate, maybe a "What will you most look forward to?" when I was interrupted by the governor himself.
"Do you have a business card?" he asked Griffith.
Now there's a moment. When the 46th governor of the state of Arkansas asks you for your contact information, gol', you've done good!
"Thanks for your support," Hutchinson said, shaking his hand. "It'll be fun."
On a lark I called up the Beebes' former mansion administrator, Ron Maxwell. I asked whether he'd ever heard of a dinner with the Beebes going five-figures at auction.
"No, because Gov. Beebe would not have allowed the mansion to be used that way."
The last governor made it a habit of offering prints of Pat Matthews' Arkansas flag signed by both the artist and the governor. Now, Mike Huckabee, Maxwell seemed to remember, did open up the mansion for charity auction dinner parties, but he set the limit at two a year.
ARKANSASGIVES DAY
Heather Larkin and Sarah Kinser over at the Arkansas Community Foundation are gearing up for ArkansasGives Day.
This Thursday -- 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. -- the website ArkansasGives.org will be fielding hopefully thousands of credit card donations to Arkansans' charities of choice.
Now, the last I reported, the foundation had wrangled more than 100 nonprofits across the state to participate. That number, Kinser told me recently, is now about 350! These include some pretty big institutional nonprofits, such as the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and CHI St. Vincent hospital system locally, and the U.S. Marshals Museum in Fort Smith (which isn't built yet).
The website allows givers to search participating charities by name, or all charities by type or by county. There's also a link to all participating charities, arranged alphabetically. In other words, while most participants will arrive at the homepage with a charity in mind, conceivably some will bring only charitable hearts in search of a good cause.
That's the really neat thing about this push. It's an eye-opener. Each charity has a brief mission statement, and you can kind of shop. Many, such as Lyon College or Senior Citizens Activities Today, have missions pretty easy to imagine, but others, such as the Center for Women in Transition, may be news to you.
All donations will be made using a major credit card, and it's this part that interests me most, because credit card transactions are free to you and me but they're not free. Each credit card will take 15 cents off the top of every ArkansasGives transaction, and another 2.89 percent of the donation total, Kinser said. (This rate may be higher for American Express.)
The goal of the foundation is $1 million, so that transaction fee is a huge boon to the credit card companies. In January, at the news conference, I asked if there was any fee forgiveness in light of the nature of the "purchase" here -- a charitable donation. Nope.
Larkin said that, in effect, the credit card companies aren't very impressed by the "but it's for charity" appeal. (To be clear, the donor will receive a tax deduction for the full value of the donation.)
"These fees are competitive with other processing fees we have researched. For reference, many nonprofits use the Network for Good platform for online giving services, which has a 3 percent transaction fee," Kinser said.
I reached out to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, where an old newspaper colleague of ours, Alex Daniels, now works. I asked whether there was anything on the horizon that would circumvent these transaction fees. A "different way to donate." They directed me to a few stories they've done already this year about credit cards and giving surges (single-day campaigns), but there really isn't a ready alternative.
To donate by method other than cash or check, there are electronic fund transfers from your bank account and donor-advised funds. Both are for people who give to pre-selected nonprofits regularly, even monthly. Electronic fund transfers also grant those nonprofits some access to a private account that a credit card normally "gatekeeps" (controls or limits access to).
These are what nonprofits refer to as their "donor base." These are the dearest patrons and benefactors and not the target audience of a one-day campaign like ArkansasGives.
If Larkin and Kinser are reluctant to crow much about these credit card fees, it's no mystery. On a day such as this, at the moment of giving, the transaction itself must be the fewest number of keystrokes and mouse clicks as possible. This is increasingly the case away from your computer screen -- food trucks and farmers market vendors accept major credit cards, and the attendant hardware is little more than a smartphone accessory with a headphones jack.
Those merchants -- and we, too, when we think about it -- bristle at the 3 percent fee, but no one's willing to test buyers' (or donors') pay-tience.
MO' CHESTNUT
The first time I saw Morris Chestnut I was a freshman in high school. He was a senior and the star halfback of a South Central Los Angeles high school -- who says halfback anymore? -- running, running his way to the campus of the University of Southern California -- but then he was gunned down in an alley. Ricky!
That was Chestnut's breakout role in Boyz 'N the Hood.
The next time I may see him is Saturday at the Designers Choice Fashion Preview Presents "The World of Fashion: Culture Meets Couture." He'll fly in to host the show alongside our own KLRT-TV, Channel 16, news anchor Donna Terrell.
The event's a benefit for the Timmons Arts Foundation and at the Metroplex, 10800 Colonel Glenn Road. There's a VIP red carpet reception at 6:30 p.m. (tickets $75). General admission is $40 and doors open at 7. Showtime is 7:30.
Featured designers include Brandi Tate, Remi Hodges, Anthony Lemon, Teiraney J. Ousley, Audrey Funk, Sheila Scott, Stephanie Thomas and Mariya Wright. Korto Momolu will again be the evening's celebrity designer, while Es'e Aze'Nabor is guest designer.
Tickets are available at Jeante; Uncle T's Food Mart; Butler's Furniture Depot; or at DCFPLR2015.eventbrite.com.
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High Profile on 03/29/2015