Guests at Exploratorium’s April gala immediately knew they were at a party. Outside the museum on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, acrobats swayed from the tops of 15-foot poles, while a quartet of violinists in bright floral costumes played an accompaniment. Through the entrance, women on stilts served donors champagne flutes. Farther inside, guests were met with a rainbow of light fixtures while acrobats and musicians swung from the ceiling on illuminated hoops.
All these details echoed one idea: Play is serious business. That theme represented the Exploratorium’s latest step away from its tradition of black-tie galas featuring the standard fare of award presentations and program talks. Museum officials believe the event’s new, playful form ties directly to the museum’s work and could make the party a powerful event that people look forward to each year.
Sculptures That Move
Opened in 1969, the Exploratorium features interactive exhibits that teach rigorous science with a healthy dollop of fun. Visitors learn about mechanical advantage — the boost in force provided by tools such as levers — by hoisting themselves in the air via chairs attached to pulleys. Rotating exhibits include the “Strandebeests,” sculptures constructed from hundreds of small, interlocking plastic tubes and powered by wind to mimic organic movement.
For the gala, the main exhibit hall was transformed into an adult playpen with cocktail-themed science experiments. Donors made drawings using a pen and a giant table, called the Drawing Board, that was suspended like a pendulum below a stationary pen. Rubik’s Cubes, gyroscopes, and wind-up robots were placed at tables for guests to tinker with during dinner.
The gala was the “most intentional” event the museum has thrown in recent years, according to Blair Winn, the museum’s Acting Director for Institutional Advancement. Several years ago, the museum began moving away from its traditional gala format. Over time, it dropped the awards ceremonies and put a cap of 15 minutes on remarks. Tuxedos became optional.
Though the museum has seen two rounds of layoffs in recent years — 9 employees in 2013 and 30 last year — the gala’s high returns guaranteed it would continue, says Ravin Agrawal, who chairs the board of directors’ development committee. The revamped event has netted more than $1 million in contributions in each of the past three years.
The 2016 gala pulled in more than 500 guests and more than $1.6 million on a budget of $400,000. Although the 2013 gala was a high-water mark in total revenue — $1.9 million — both table prices and attendance have increased steadily in recent years, according to Mr. Agrawal.
$272,000 in 15 Minutes
Mr. Winn, who joined the museum in August 2015, says a main goal of the new gala is to ensure that guests grasp the museum’s mission. “We felt that too often people were leaving our gala with a lot of information but not clarity about who we are, what we do, and why we’re different from everybody else.”
Awards ceremonies, he adds, are inherently difficult; it’s a challenge to keep more than 500 people engaged and listening for several hours.
It’s the Exploratorium. It doesn’t need to be the same thing that other people do.
One way this year’s fundraiser grabbed the collective attention was a pledge event to pay for one of Exploratorium’s programs. Throughout the year, the museum hires high school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods as docents, or “explainers.” The teens guide guests through the museum’s interactive exhibits, explaining the science. In addition to job experience, the students receive training related to science and museum operations, part of the museum’s efforts to engage women and minorities in science.
At the gala, Exploratorium officials introduced the program, then asked for pledges to support it. Each table had a tablet on which donors could make their pledges, and the dollar amounts (though no names) flashed across large screens for everyone to see.
Though some members of the group’s board and the gala committee were uneasy with the ask, it raised $272,000 in a little more than 15 minutes, enough to fund 43 explainers. Such pledge events may find their way into future galas, according to Mr. Winn.
‘People Are Clicking’
Aside from dollars and cents, the gala also raised the Exploratorium’s profile. Several attendees asked about joining the museum’s board, and several corporate executives expressed interest in sponsoring future galas. The new format has led to more repeat donations and increased interest from potential donors, Mr. Agrawal said. “People are clicking, they’re engaged, they’re coming back.”
Increasing corporate underwriting will be one of the museum’s main goals for the next gala, according to Mr. Winn. A gala that “can produce 600 people for a night and raise more than a million and a half dollars is an attractive group for a lot of corporations to be a part of.”
Ultimately, the Exploratorium hopes to build the event into a brand — a signature date on the city’s social calendar that draws major corporate support.
While it’s not yet clear what the 2017 gala will look like, one thing is certain: It won’t be constrained by traditional visions of galas. “It’s the Exploratorium,” said Mr. Winn. “It doesn’t need to be the same thing that other people do.”
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to note that the museum says it laid off 9 people in 2013, not 80 people as some news reports at the time suggested.
