How often do we see something and immediately think that we can do it better? And then how many times do we actually prove that we can?
Six years ago, when I moved to New York City from Bengaluru, India, I was invited to the St. Sava Annual Gala. It was a black-tie event that had been organized for years, and it was honestly the best gathering of successful Serbian people I had attended up to that point. Over two hundred guests from the tri-state area, comprised of accomplished professionals with promising careers, attended with their families and friends. If you wanted to see a high-profile Serbian networking event – this was it.
What I realized the day after the gala, was that I was extremely grateful to the people that had dedicated their time and energy to bring us together. It had made it so much easier to expand my social circle within our community, which is important when you move to a new city. All I had to do was to attend, and the rest was completely taken care of. What worked really well was that we all gathered and started creating new bonds – there was an instant value created. It would have been even better if there was an additional inspiring message that would energize people to get further involved with our community. A mantra I began adopting while in Serbia was that every time I see or experience something I’m not fully happy with, I always have a choice – to accept things the way they are, or to do something about it. In this case, I felt compelled to offer my help in organizing the next St. Sava Annual Gala.
After actively participating in the organization of four St. Sava Gala events, it was time to pass the baton to others who were very willing to help. I called Father Živojin, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Sava in New York, in order to provide him with the recommendations for new volunteers when he told me that the church would not be organizing the Gala that year. There we were – all that goodwill and good intentions, but it was just not going to happen in 2019.
If the church doesn’t organize this event – who will? In a way, I was facing an internal dilemma with a similar frame to the one from 5 years ago. The questions kept on emerging. Should I take on this challenge and ask my friends if they want to join? Who would support the event? Who would help with organization?
One conclusion from my previous philanthropic work gave me the confidence to proceed. You do not need an invitation to do something good – there are enough people with genuine desire to help others that will enable a positive idea to come to light. So we started small – six of us got together at Kafana for brunch and started debating if the idea could actually be executed. We had a lot of open questions and challenges ahead, especially because we had no legal entity to back us – but we all had goodwill. In the following days, we started conversations with the Divac Foundation about organizing the event together as I had worked with them previously on other projects. The foundation was very open to the idea, even though they had to consider both reputational and financial risk, while the outcome would depend mostly on our team in New York. In a week’s time, we all decided that we are all-in and ready to start. This was a true leap of faith on their part, which, as they told me later, they did not regret. We collectively decided that the best use of fundraising proceeds were the Divac Scholarships.
To say that we had to be efficient in order to organize an event of this size in only eight weeks is an understatement. In the process, the team of six grew to a team of fifteen incredible people, each with something different to contribute. Even though there was a balance of rough patches and high-fives, I was impressed with how well this team managed to deliver even though we had never previously worked together. Personally, those eight weeks were two parts a sense of fulfilment and one part pain and stress. One thought was clear and everyone relied on it – we are here to do something good for our community and for Serbia.
The First Annual Serbian Philanthropic Gala gathered 350 guests mostly from the tri-state area, and even other cities in the United States of America. We were all very proud with what we achieved and the responses we got from those who attended. It was not perfect, but everyone who contributed felt that they achieved a lot by dedicating their time, unique qualities, and talents to this event.
Several weeks after the event, the gala team got together to reflect. It was clear that we can do even more together. There are a lot of good ideas out there and people who are asking themselves: “Wouldn’t it be great if someone did this for Serbian people”? We formed the Serbian Philanthropic Association to be the voice that can respond to that question.