# The Bear Who Slept Through Our First Fundraiser in Decades

When the [Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center (AWCC)](https://alaskawildlife.org/) decided to host Ruts for Dinner, we were doing something we hadn’t done in literal decades: hosting a major fundraising event.
That meant we had the opportunity to start from scratch.

We knew we wanted great food, drinks, an auction, and all the things that make a fundraising event fun. But we also knew one thing from the beginning: it had to feel like AWCC.

We didn’t want to host a traditional gala that simply happened to benefit a wildlife organization. Our mission needed to be part of the experience.

## What Is Ruts for Dinner?

Ruts for Dinner is AWCC’s new signature fall fundraising event, held right at the Center during one of the most fascinating times of year in Alaska’s wildlife world: rut season.

Guests travel from Anchorage to AWCC in Portage for an evening of wildlife experiences, education, dinner and drinks, and live and silent auctions; all while surrounded by the animals and landscapes they are there to support.

Rather than bringing our mission into a traditional ballroom, we bring our guests directly into the mission.

Throughout the evening, AWCC’s animal care and education teams introduce guests to wildlife behavior and biology, including the sometimes dramatic, cheeky, and bashful rituals of rut season. Guests experience the Center after hours, meet the people who care for our animals, learn something new, and see firsthand what their support makes possible.

For our inaugural event, that mission-centered approach led to one of my favorite moments of the entire evening. It involved a box full of love letters and a black bear who completely refused to participate.

## Meet Kobuk

Kobuk came to AWCC in the spring of 2016 after being found orphaned in Valdez, Alaska. Dogs had chased away his mother, and the young bear eventually became dependent on searching through trash cans for food. That behavior could have led to dangerous conflicts with people, so Kobuk was rescued and transferred to AWCC, where he would have a permanent home.

Since then, Kobuk has thrived. He enjoys enrichment filled with treats like honey and blueberries, interacting with his animal care team and—importantly for this particular story—climbing trees.

Kobuk’s story is exactly the kind of story we wanted Ruts for Dinner guests to experience, not just hear about from a podium. So naturally, keeping with the theme of the evening, we asked them to write him love letters.

## Love Letters for Kobuk

As guests arrived at Ruts for Dinner, we invited them to create a “love letter” to Kobuk using scented, non-toxic markers. It was fun. It was a little silly. But there was a purpose behind it.

Scent is one of the ways our animal care team provides enrichment to the animals at AWCC. Novel smells encourage animals to investigate and engage with their surroundings while providing opportunities to express natural behaviors.

Our keeper team collected the letters, tucked them inside a cardboard box, and placed the box in Kobuk’s habitat. We were ready for the big reveal.

Kobuk was not. He was sound asleep about 100 feet up in his favorite tree.

It was fall in Alaska, after all, and he was preparing for a long winter slumber. Apparently, even a box filled with scented fan mail wasn’t enough to interrupt a really good nap.

So we carried on. Guests gathered at Kobuk’s habitat while our education team shared information about black bear reproduction, behavior, and how bears prepare for winter. The evening continued with wildlife experiences, dinner, drinks, our auction, and plenty of fun.

**Eventually, the last guests headed home. Kobuk? Still snoozing in his tree.**

## The Rest of the Story

The next morning, I returned to AWCC to help clean up after the event. By then, Kobuk had checked his mail. 

He had gone absolutely crazy on the box during the night. It was torn apart and scattered throughout his habitat. The letters were everywhere. Kobuk had investigated the different scents, ripped into the cardboard, played with everything, and clearly had a fantastic time with the enrichment our guests had created for him.

And suddenly, we had the perfect ending to a story our guests thought they had missed.

That afternoon, I sent our post-event thank-you and survey email. Along with thanking everyone for supporting our inaugural Ruts for Dinner, I was able to give them one important update:

**Kobuk finally came down from his tree and devoured your love letters.
**

Figuratively, of course. He didn’t actually eat them. But he had thoroughly enjoyed destroying them. It was a tiny addition to a standard post-event email, but it brought our guests right back to something they had experienced the night before.

And they responded.

We had a terrific response to our post-event survey, giving us valuable feedback about our first fundraising event in decades and helping us think about how to make the experience even better in the future.

## More Than an Auction

Looking back, that demolished cardboard box represents exactly what we hoped to accomplish with Ruts for Dinner. After decades without a major fundraising event, we didn’t want to simply recreate the traditional gala model. We wanted to build an event around who we are.

That meant giving guests opportunities to interact with our animal care and education teams. It meant incorporating wildlife experiences throughout the evening. It meant teaching people something new while they were having fun. And, yes, sometimes it meant asking grown adults to write love letters to a black bear with scented markers.

Auctria helped us manage the fundraising side of the evening: the auction, bidding, and the many moving pieces that come with an event. That allowed us to focus on creating an experience centered around what makes AWCC special: the animals and the stories behind them.

And when the evening didn’t go exactly according to plan? That became part of the story, too.

Kobuk gave us one more opportunity the following day to connect our supporters to the mission. Instead of receiving just another “thank you for attending” email and survey link, our guests got the ending to a story they had helped create.

They weren’t simply attendees at a fundraiser. They had participated in an enrichment activity for an animal in our care. They learned about black bears. They met the people doing the work. They supported AWCC. And the next day, they got to see the impact of one small part of their experience.

For our first fundraising event in decades, that was an important lesson. **Keep the mission at the center. Let people experience the work they’re supporting. Find ways to continue the story after they go home. And never underestimate the stewardship potential of a black bear with a box full of love letters.**

------ 

Special thanks to Becky Chambless, CFRE for the expert advice. Becky is the Director of Development at the [Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center](https://alaskawildlife.org/) and the Founder and Owner of [Ember Consulting.](https://www.emberconsultingllc.com/)

[Follow Becky on LInkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-chambless-cfre-39305b96/)

Becky is Experienced Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) with a demonstrated history of creating long-term, sustainable relationship-based funding in the nonprofit sector. Skilled in nonprofit organizations, program evaluation, event management, volunteer management, and instructional design. Strong community and social services professional with a Bachelor's Degree focused in Business Administration and Management with a Nonprofit Management Emphasis from Alaska Pacific University.

Special thanks to [Alaska Premier Auctions](https://www.alaskapremierauctions.com/) to see all of the amazing work they do as a valued partner. 
[Alaska Premier Auctions on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/AlaskaPremierAuctions)
[Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/alaskapremierauctions)