Dogwood Festival needs $250K by Nov. 1 or it will have to shutter
The free Dogwood Festival, which draws about 200,000 people a year to Piedmont Park for three days every April, is in a financial bind.
The nonprofit organization has been running in deficit mode since the beginning of the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of the 2020 festival. On Tuesday, it began seeking an additional $250,000 on its website, dogwood.org, from individuals, corporate sponsors and foundations. If it doesn’t raise that amount by Nov. 1, the long-running festival will shutter.
“We used to make a profit every year,” said Brian Hill, executive director since 2008. “But since COVID, costs have gone up 25-30%. That’s labor, security, rentals, staging, all the infrastructure. Festivals are failing around the world.”
Board chairman David Shutley noted the event, which features 250 artists and live music, remains popular and busy: “The patrons love it. The artists love it. It’s a big cultural event for Atlanta. But the financial model is not viable anymore.”
The festival is considering a ticketed model if it can’t pull in enough sponsorship money moving forward.
“It would be a nominal fee like so many arts festivals around the country have had to do,” Hill said.
Sponsors, which typically number 30 every year, shifted dollars during the pandemic to digital marketing and have not brought that money back to live events, he noted. This means a sponsor that once gave $40,000 might offer only $15,000.
“They can quantify and target their customers better online,” Hill said. “For a live event, they only know how many samples they handed out and how many emails they collected.”
Since COVID, the festival has had to sell its office and exhausted its $500,000 in reserves it built up during its salad days. The fundraising effort is a way to find new financial resources and educate the public about the festival’s value.
“We need more community stakeholders,” said Hill, who had planned to retire this year but will postpone his departure while this crisis is being addressed.
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