After a bomb scare on Nov 28 played havoc with their biggest fundraising event of the year the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) held an online auction to try to recover some of the lost revenue.
Elissa Beckett, CANFAR’s exective director, says the charity lost about $100,000 in ticket sales and bids when the gala and auction that was to conclude the Bloor Street Entertains fundraiser was cancelled.
CANFAR held an online auction from Dec 5 to Dec 12. Beckett says CANFAR is still collecting the money but she estimates it will make about half of what it would have made at the fundraiser auction. The lost ticket sales are unrecoverable, she says, and it’s unclear how many people will ask for refunds.
Beckett says there’s nothing else CANFAR can do to make up the lost revenue.
“Bloor Street Entertains takes about a year to put on,” she says. “We start to organize it in January.”
Beckett says they have received support from sponsors and those who took part in the fundraiser.
“Some people have given extra donations, some people donated extra items to the online auction, some people just called and expressed their support,” she says. “None of our sponsors even thought about asking for their money back and they could have.”
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