Breakaway fundraisers can temporarily use the Swan Ball trademark, according to a ruling from Judge Eli Richardson last month. For at least another month, the former FBI agent and assistant U.S. attorney will continue to referee Belle Meade’s high-society drama over a key fundraiser worth around $1 million for Cheekwood Estate & Gardens. At an Oct. 17 hearing, Richardson will invite additional evidence supporting each party’s claim to the Swan Ball mantle.Â
An ongoing sequence of interpersonal and institutional conflicts pushed the event’s organizing clique — formerly a committee under the Cheekwood umbrella — to incorporate as its own nonprofit, “SB Initiative Inc.,” in May. The official moves set off a summer-long legal battle between the beloved cultural institution and spurned elite with plenty of time, money and pride.
Charity gala committee contends leaders of nonprofit cultural attraction planned 'coup' to take control of event
This group sued Cheekwood in July to establish ownership of the “Swan Ball” trademark, Swan Ball intellectual property and related assets like “swanball.com” and a donor database. Plaintiff lawyers argued that the committee operated within (but independently of) Cheekwood for 60 years, choosing each year to donate the “fruits of its labor” to the historic estate. After growing friction between Cheekwood leadership and Swan Ball die-hards, the party planners want to take their talents a few hundred yards down the road to Warner Parks.Â
Cheekwood, the original 501(c)(3), has the upper hand with regard to legal receipts, having been the fundraiser’s sole host and beneficiary for the Swan Ball’s entire 60-year history. Cheekwood, with the help of PR firm Finn Partners, has also waged a public relations campaign against the committee since the fight became public in June.
“The Swan Ball, in its current form, is not sustainable,” Cheekwood lawyer Maia Woodhouse wrote in July — a month after SB Initiative’s first salvo, a strongly worded letter sent June 11. “Lavish spending, resulting in such low fundraising efficiency ratios, is contrary to Cheekwood’s charitable objectives and guiding values, and likely shocking to Cheekwood’s donors. Resistant to reform and modernization, and determined to continue the trend of lavish spending and charitable underperformance, your clients pretended to engage with Cheekwood while secretly conspiring to seize ownership and control of the Swan Ball.”Â
Cheekwood claims annual event run by volunteers falls short of national charity standards related to expenses
Woodhouse points out that, over the past three years, the event has converted an average of just 32 percent of fundraising into actual donations. According to charity-assessment nonprofit Charity Navigator, the industry standard for prestigious events is around 60 to 70 percent. While the implication that the Swan Ball is more a party for rich people than a purely charitable endeavor may scandalize country-club dining rooms, it likely isn’t a surprise for most of Nashville — which likely interprets the event as a parade of bow ties and Botox.
A quick perusal of 2024 auction items — which include a personalized South African safari and a private plane (sold separately) — indicates the considerable blessings enjoyed by its clientele. The event offers six tiers of individual and corporate underwriting, in order of affordability: cornerstone, premier, distinguished, principal, master and sponsor.
Cheekwood’s own financials paint an up-and-down picture inside the nonprofit, which relies on the yearly funding bump to supplement earnings from admissions, memberships, space rentals and individual fundraising. On high-level operating budgets from 2020 and 2021, Cheekwood lists Swan Ball net cash at $900,000 and $830,000, respectively. A more detailed audit reports revenues of $838,681 in 2022 and $1,168,640 in 2023.
To SB Initiative’s point, documentation by Cheekwood alternatively refers to the Swan Ball as a “special fundraiser” and an “outside fundraiser.” The organization’s 2021 audit separates Swan Ball financials from Cheekwood financials, further muddying their dependency relationship.
Longtime beneficiary Cheekwood files concerns as lawsuit continuesÂ
By airing out the Swan Ball’s awkward donation ratio, Cheekwood may end up winning the war even if it loses a few legal battles. In a city of disappearing institutions, the strife and lawyers initiated by SB have already impacted the Swan Ball brand, stoking conflict within a wealthy slice of Nashville that trades on reputation. Beyond whatever facts come out at the Oct. 17 hearing, a changing city increasingly made up of new residents is already primed to accept Cheekwood’s core allegation — a white-tie gala at a Belle Meade mansion is more self-indulgent than altruistic, and out of step with conversations about what matters to the average Nashvillian.
Unfortunately for both parties, controversy of any kind may speed up the process by which the Swan Ball becomes a relic of the past.
