Unreasonable donation expectation

[Frank Cox]

I'm sure anyone who has a theatre (or any other kind of business I suppose) knows all about having people coming in all the time looking for donations and prizes and you-name it.

I have some "good for one free small popcorn" coupons that I give out when someone wants prizes for the tennis contest or the best looking sheep.

A guy who's an occasional customer came in while the show was on to last night to ask for prizes for a golf tournament. He wanted me to donate 100(!) movie tickets at no cost so he could give everyone who signed up for the tournament a free movie ticket.

I said, "You realize that's $1000 worth of movie tickets and each one will cost me money when someone uses it here because I have to pay the movie company for every ticket sold."

He said, "Sure, but you'll get people at the show so you should give me the tickets."

What makes this extra bizarre is that the guy who was asking owned a bar for thirty years before he sold it and retired a while ago. I know that quite a few people honestly don't understand how a business works and they might think that this sort of thing gets conjured up out of thin air somehow "because it's a business", but this guy actually had his own business for years.

Ultimately I gave him four of my ten dollar gift cards to give away at his tournament but he walked out of here mad because I didn't give him 100 free tickets.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Besides you donating 100 gift cards, what else would've been in it for you? A big banner at the Golf tournament? A mention of you in the marketing material?
And who are those people that would be receiving those tickets? Locals that have a chance to actually show up at your premises or people that are only visiting because of the Golf tournament?

[Frank Cox]

He said he would put a note on his advertising poster that "every entry gets a free movie ticket."

I've found in the past when I get strong-armed into giving away a few free movie tickets (but not 100 at a time!) that the people who win these things usually will come to the show once because they have a free ticket, but they rarely buy any popcorn or drinks and I probably won't see them again unless they have another free ticket.

[Steve Guttag]

It's the new business model! All theatres, free tickets! You make it up on volume and "exposure." This will get more people past the concession stand. It is the ultimate in loss-leader. It is amazing when people think YOU should give away things as if it doesn't cost you. Like it is phoney money or something.

[Mike Blakesley]

100 tickets is a huge ask and is ridiculous for a small theater.

Most people here never ask for anything specific; they'll ask for a donation and if we want to give tickets or popcorn or whatever they're fine with what they get. If someone asked me for 100 tickets, I'd have to get something back.

I have a friend who is constantly promoting 5k runs for various causes. They always want a donation of about $100 and in return they'll put your business name on the T-shirt that all the participants get. They promote four or five of these runs a year, and they always get the same 25 participants. I donated to one or two of those but then quit, because how many T-shirts do those same people need, anyway? And who reads a long list of names on the back of a shirt? Nobody.

I used to give away free passes, but it's easier to keep track by using gift cards. Either way, a lot of times they don't get used. If we give away a coupon for a bucket of popcorn those ALWAYS get used. People love our popcorn even if they don't go to movies often, I guess.

[Martin McCaffery]

Our theatre is a non-profit,so we do have sympathy for other non-profits who are usually considerate about the ask, so a few passes won't hurt us. We're also an arthouse, so we know most of the movies won't appeal to whomever gets the coupon. The part that really bugs me is that the one single idea many of our board of directors have for everything is Let's give them something for free. Pass, popcorns, discounts. That's going to bring them in! We will pack the house for a Polish movie about a donkey if we just let everyone in free! And to further entice them -- Free Popcorn. They'll be so happy they'll just keep coming back and buying stuff.
So sick of saying no, it doesn't work that way. (had a committee meeting this afternoon that was just full of ideas for giving things away).

[Jack Ondracek]

I get the occasional auction fundraiser, most from groups I haven't heard of. I ignore those.

Of the more memorable asks: One was from a worker at the local tire company when I went in to buy, at full retail, a new set of tires. Discounts were not asked for or offered. The worker bluntly asked if he could have free tickets. I said, "Sure!. Can I have some free tires?".

Free shipping was my request when a freight guy asked for tickets.

I don't think they get it when they ask. They pretty quickly make the connection when you suggest something of theirs in trade.

As for the guy who suggested the giveaway would result in more traffic through the theatre: Maybe so, maybe no. I happen to like doing the occasional giveaway, but it's almost always on my initiative that I choose to do so with my stuff... not someone else's.

Frank: For the size of your business, I'd say handing out the 4 $10 gift certificates was extremely generous.

[Mark Lane]

We get request for donation all the time. Once and a while I will toss the a couple of passes. I can chalk it up to the 2% allowed by the studios. I sometimes donate an extra movie poster or other swag the studios send.... but mostly I just ignore the request or tell them "sorry".
They never offer a value in exchange for my "donation".. My name printed on a banner or a t-shirt has no impact on my bottom line. People seem to think that is effective advertisement. I can come up with better ways to promote the theater. I can give away tickets anytime I want.. I don't need a golf event to give my profits away.
You where more generous than I would have been.. I would not have given your beggar anything.


We got roped into helping with the annual Halloween party.. This kid's party is a long held tradition.. This past year they were short on staff as the people who normally run their popcorn machine was out of town.
To help them I had to pay staff members to work the party. The popcorn machine was so dirty, I doubt it had ever been cleaned.. it was gross and I would not serve from it until we cleaned it. It was also damaged and I wasn't comfortable having our young employees work the machine knowing it was damaged and never maintained, so we made the popcorn at the theater and brought it to the party. Since we were handing out the popcorn I was going to use our popcorn since it would be associated with theater. We paid for the labor, and the supplies, We were scolded by upset members who hosted the event for not doing it the right way.. They where upset with us because "that is not the way they do it". -- Never again. I will not be a part of that event again.
Some people are so unappreciative.

[Leo Enticknap]

The part that really bugs me is that the one single idea many of our board of directors have for everything is Let's give them something for free.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's character in Chinatown, a nonprofit is not in business to pay dividends to its stockholders, but it is in business, and it is still a business. Having worked for, volunteered for, and been on the board of them, the problem is that, IMHO, the people who are most invested in small to medium sized nonprofits are those with little to no experience of working in for profit businesses, which has left them with an underlying mindset that the bottom line doesn't matter that much. Typically, the most influential people on these boards are retirees who spent their entire careers in government or education. While there are often some board members that do have this experience, they tend to be the ones with less time to devote to the nonprofit and less inclination to play the political games that have to be played in order to win support for your arguments.

I think what we have to be clear about, and which some of those asking for donations mentioned above are not, is that sponsorship is not the same thing as philanthropy. If you sponsor a nonprofit or charitable activity/event, you expect to get something in return: in most cases, advertising and favorable publicity. If you make a philanthropic donation, you're mainly after a tax deduction (which obviously, a nonprofit can't receive, because it's tax exempt anyways). While it might sound politically incorrect to ask "What's in it for my organization?" when asked for a donation, it's something you have to do if you want to protect and advance its mission.

[Mike Blakesley]

It all depends on the situation, like you say. Most of the requests we get are for established events, or sometimes they're fundraisers where the donation is going to be auctioned off. One big cardinal rule I have is, if they send me a letter or call on the phone, I never donate. They have to come in the door. This is great for people who don't know who I am, because they come in the store and ask for a donation but they don't know that I own the theater, and it's closed during the day, so we save a lot of requests that way. If they ARE in the know and they ask for a donation from the theatre, if I don't want to donate very bad, I tell them they have to come into the theatre when it's open. That weeds out about 80% of them.

[Darin Steffl]

Since I bought the Theater in March 2020, we have had tons of donation requests. It's more than I ever thought we'd get. Anyone from school events, church fundraisers, silent auctions for people with health issues, benefits for scholarships and those in need, city events, etc. I say yes to some things but I wonder if we should have something more concrete like what qualifies for a donation and what doesn't.

Some larger businesses like our local telco has a donation request form on their website. Picture attached.

The things we've donated have always been gift cards to the Theater so I can keep track of how much we give away and how often they're used. I have not given cash donations to anything except Relay for Life. I obviously don't know every customer that walks through our doors but I wonder if there's sense in asking people when they last came to see a movie with us? Or maybe ask for a receipt from their last visit. I don't really think it would work but it seems that so many people like to live in our 7,000 person town but shop in the big city 15 minutes away instead. But since we're local, they ask us for donations instead of the bigger multiplexes or retailers in the big city. I rarely see any local events with donations from Target, Walmart, or multiplex theaters.

At our local Chamber meetings, this questions always comes up. How do we handle donation requests from people who rarely shop local, then expect local businesses to donate instead of the big businesses they actually shop at? It's not really fair to ask for donations from a business you don't patronize.