Event ROI worksheet

The spreadsheet behind Should you keep the gala? Event ROI with the staff cost counted. One tab for the event as it actually ran, one tab for what the same staff hours would return somewhere else, and one tab that turns the two into a verdict.

What is in it

Tab one is Event. Four revenue rows, gross by line: tickets, sponsorships, auction, paddle raise, and other, each with its own cell. Below that, direct costs by line, and a staff hours table with one row per role carrying hours and a loaded hourly rate, so the cost per role computes itself. A separate row tracks board and volunteer hours without costing them in dollars, because there is no defensible market wage to put on a trustee’s evening. The sheet computes four numbers from those inputs: the vendor style net that an event platform would report, the fully loaded net once staff cost is subtracted, the fully loaded cost per dollar raised, and the net per staff hour, which is the number the Decision tab uses. The sheet ships filled in with a worked example.

Tab two is Compare. It pulls the total staff hours from the Event tab by formula, so the comparison always uses the same number of hours the event actually consumed. You fill in an alternative, a major gifts push or a renewal mailing, with your own assumptions in the cells: how many prospects or pieces, what share responds, what the average gift is, and what the alternative costs beyond staff time. The tab computes that alternative’s net and its net per staff hour, side by side with the Event tab’s numbers, so the two are never read in isolation.

Tab three is Decision. It restates the keep, fix, or cut thresholds from the guide with your own numbers already pulled in from the first two tabs by formula, and returns a verdict: Keep if the fully loaded net beats the alternative, Fix if it is positive but behind, Cut if it is at or below zero. The verdict updates the moment you change an assumption on either of the first two tabs.

How to use it

Fill it in this order. Guessing at the comparison before the event numbers are real defeats the point of counting staff hours at all.

1. Pull last year’s direct costs from the event budget and enter them on the Event tab, by line.
2. Estimate hours by role from calendars or timesheets for the months the event actually consumed staff time, not just the day of. Set a loaded hourly rate for each role, salary plus benefits divided by annual hours.
3. Enter gross revenue by line. Check that sponsorships, tickets, auction, and paddle raise sum to what the bank deposit shows.
4. Read the fully loaded net and the net per staff hour the sheet computes. Do not move to the Compare tab until this number is real.
5. On the Compare tab, name one realistic alternative for the same hours, a major donor push or a renewal mailing, and enter your own assumptions for response rate and average gift. Use last year’s actuals for that line if you have them, not a hope.
6. Read the verdict on the Decision tab. If it says Fix, note which lever, the sponsorship floor, the auction, or the program length, you expect to close the gap, and by how much.
7. Rebuild the sheet the year after the event, with the actual numbers, to see whether the fix worked.

When not to use it

Do not use it on an event’s first or second year. The Compare tab assumes a mature alternative with its own history, and the Event tab’s staff hours will look inflated against a new event’s still forming routine. Track direct costs and hours from year one, but wait to run the verdict.

Do not use it if the organization has no comparable alternative for the staff hours, no major gifts program, no active mailing list segment, nothing else those same people could plausibly do with that time. The Decision tab needs a real Compare number, not an invented one, or the verdict is decoration.

Do not use it to justify a decision that has already been made. If the board has already decided to keep the gala regardless of what the numbers say, the worksheet will only produce an argument nobody wanted to have. Use it before the decision, not after.