Reflections on DIGNITY Photo Auction & Benefit (Part II)

In part two of our series about YP Acumen's DIGNITY event, we hear from YP Acumen Co-Founder, Erica Dhawan. Erica is a recipient of a Legatum Fellowship and will attend MIT's Sloan School of Management this fall to pursue her MBA.

As one of the founders of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund, I was incredibly excited to have our first YP Acumen volunteer meeting hoping to get at least 5 members involved in planning our biggest fundraising event: a photo auction with Nuru Project. When over 25 YPs showed up with diverse backgrounds ranging from fundraising, finance, advertising, and media, we knew we were in for something much larger than we ever expected. Ten team leads volunteered each running different functions and gave updates at our weekly conference calls or in-person meetings over the next 6 weeks. We had more emails than you can imagine from a team with hectic day jobs actively working to gain food and drink sponsorships, manage ticket sales, set our budget, and market our event to organizations and media.

The week before the event, our last meeting culminated the hard work of the volunteers: “We have sold over 180 tickets” said marketing lead Rabia Ahmed as we strategized a plan if we sold out…which ended up happening. “We have over 15 sponsors and donations” said sponsorship lead Nina West as we coordinated on-site delivery. “I will make sure all of our day of logistics questions are coordinated with Tribeca gallery,” said venue lead Wendy Wecksell.

What was most inspiring to me is the power of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund volunteers to self-organize and their dedication to fundraise and work as a team. The photos at the Dignity event depicted an exciting optimistic vision for development, but the buzz around the gallery and conversations inspired a call to action, which Young Professionals for Acumen Fund seeks to build through a movement for social enterprise and patient capital.