Any event planner worth her Manolos knows that the gilded age before the Great Recession has given way to a grueling hangover, even for those who waft through life on a vapor cloud of Annick Goutal, fishtail hems trailing in their wake. Charity giving is just one of many categories stymied by newfound thrift.
Into this dank milieu enters Nashville’s queen bee of event planning, Elizabeth Scokin, who this past fall brushed the cobwebs out of checkbooks with a new fundraising program benefiting the Tennessee Art League. Called “Art, Dine, Design,” it consisted of a series of twenty intimate dinner parties in the Nashville area, with the goal of fêting at least ten paying guests each. It began with an Arabian Nights-themed event at Morton’s of Chicago, which featured belly dancers and sheiks.
“People get tired of giving money all the time to charity,” Scokin explains. “I had to think outside of the box. It can’t be the same old, same old all the time. “Art, Dine, Design” has been a great fundraiser because people have had fun, and it has generated people giving again, writing a check to a charity again, which maybe they hadn’t done in three years because of the economy.”
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