How do you persuade people to give their money to a charity? Throw a gala. But not just any gala. “You need to make people feel that they’ve been given a unique experience and at the same time done some good,” says Lady Alison Deighton.  She should know. During “the season”, which tends to be July and September, the former banker-turned-private-investor can attend up to four fundraising events a week. “The messages are all worthy but you’re doing sporting, theatre, art events – you get experience fatigue, gala fatigue,” she says. “I do think we are all becoming keyed into the fact that we are responsible for things outside our immediate circle. That what is going on in another realm does ultimately affect us. But there are millions of worthy causes.” The crucial pocket-emptier, then, is that singularity. “If you feel you’ve been given a wonderful experience and done good for the world, that will reflect back on society and then hopefully onto your life – it’s great, right?” Deighton says, brightly.  Such enthusiasm has served Deighton well in her latest project: chairing a fundraising gala, She Inspires Art, for the charity Women For Women International. She was introduced to the charity, which helps provide practical and pastoral aid to women survivors of war, in 2009, but their true collaboration came about two years ago, when she provided seed funding for a project in Nigeria.  “We started a programme for 302 women in a centre that focussed on market trading as a viable way of generating self-sustaining income for women who were sinking into poverty and desperation,” she recalls. “I was kept very well-informed by Women For Women, given regular information about what was being done, results afterwards, how the women were faring, even concerns and issues that they wanted to improve upon for their next project. So when Brita [Fernandez Schmidt, the executive director] asked me to replicate a very successful art auction that Women For Women had held several years ago, which I had attended, and had really enjoyed, I agreed – but I felt that we should do something slightly different.”  To that end, Deighton, who is a keen collector of modern art with a socio-political bent, decided to hold an art auction with a special focus on performance art. “We needed to do something really startling, capture a whole new audience and new interest. I began talking with my curators who look after my collection, and we realised that what was really interesting to us and to the museum-going community was performance and installation art.”  Interesting – but devilishly difficult to organise. It has taken Deighton and her curators, Tamar Arnon and Eli Zagury, untold hours of cajoling and list-making to draw in a group of artists willing to donate works, and to perform at the She Inspires Art gala on September 16. The final roster is impressive: new and original works up for grabs include an original bronze of a ballerina by Kevin Francis Gray; two liquid stools by Zaha Hadid; an antique coral piece from the Italian jeweller Massimo Izzo; a number of sculptures by Jonathan Trayte; paintings by George Shaw, Fabienne Verdier, the Chinese artist Zhu Jinshi and the poet and visual artist Etel Adnan; an oil-based ink on black screen-printed paper painting by Idris Khan; and a ruby ring by Sevan Bıçakçı. All will be available at auction, and can currently be viewed, and bid on, online here.  Deighton also persuaded Bonham’s to host the event in their newly-refurbished Bond Street offices; One Fine Stay to put the artists up during their London sojourn; and the artists Amanda Koogan and Kohei Nawa to perform throughout the course of the evening. The 270 tickets sold out within weeks. All proceeds will go towards funding two projects: one for Syrian refugees that are flowing into northern Iraq, 80 per cent of whom are women, and a second programme in Nigeria.  As a collector, Deighton must have her eye on some of the pieces, I venture. “Yes! It’s my husband who’s saying no, no, no,” she laughs, before growing serious. “All these artists were selected because they are very much in demand, their works are beautiful, one-off, and rare to get. And there might be a good price obtainable, we’ll see.”  Several online bids have already been placed. “The end goal is a happy artist and a well-funded Women for Women. So I know what I’m driving towards, and I’m driving there very ruthlessly.”
For those with deep pockets, there are thousands of worthy causes vying for attention. So what makes the difference? Lady Alison Deighton, the chairwoman of Women for Women International's fund-raising evening, She Inspires Art, has the secret