Applicant orientation is Monday; applications due by Feb. 26
Applications are now available for nonprofit organizations interested in becoming beneficiaries of the 2010 Black Tie Dinner.
Black Tie Co-Chairs Ron Guillard and Nan Arnold said this week that beneficiary applications are available online at BlackTie.org, and that an optional orientation session for potential beneficiaries will be held Monday, Feb. 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Seminar Room on the second level of the Sheraton Dallas hotel downtown.
Gillard said that the meeting used to be mandatory, but that the application process has remained consistent for several years so that most applicant organizations have been through it before.
Organizations that have not been beneficiaries before, however, can use the orientation seminar as a chance to ask any questions they have and get more comfortable with the application process.
"We would love to have some new organizations apply to be beneficiaries this year," Guillard said.
Guillard said that to be selected as a Black Tie Dinner beneficiary, an organization must have nonprofit status as determined by the IRS, which means that the organization can’t be politically oriented. Organizations also must use the majority of their funds to provide direct services, and they must be able to show direct benefits to the LGBT communities in North Texas.
Beneficiaries are also required to buy an ad in the Black Tie Dinner journal and to buy a poster to promote the dinner’s annual car raffle. Cost for both is $900, Guillard said. Each beneficiary organization has to sell at least 25 of the $100 raffle tickets, donate at least 50 volunteer hours to Black Tie and have at least five tables affiliated with it at the dinner.
Tables at Black Tie each seat 10, and individual tickets are $300. That means, total cost for each table is $3,000.
But, Guillard said, that $3,000 does not come out of the beneficiary organization’s pocket.
"The organization just has to find five people willing to be in charge of filling one table and to be affiliated with that particular organization," he said. "The beneficiary organizations need to be financially sound, and they need to show they have 50 people willing to support them."
Completed beneficiary applications must be returned to the Black Tie board by 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26, and the list of 2010 local beneficiaries will be announced by March 31, Guillard said.
Each year, Black Tie Dinner gives about half of its proceeds for the year to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. The other half is divided between as many as 20 local beneficiaries.
This year’s Black Tie Dinner, the 29th annual, will be held Nov. 6 at the Sheraton Dallas hotel. Guillard said the Black Tie board is already in the process of choosing a keynote speaker for the event, as well as considering candidates for the Kuchling Humanitarian Award, the Elizabeth Birch Equality Award and the Media Award.
For more information about the dinner or the beneficiary application process, or go online to BlackTie.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition February 12, 2010.