Donor seating is politics. Handle it like politics.
A wedding has a difficult uncle. A fundraiser has a major donor who cannot be near the trustee who blocked her grant, a sponsor who paid eight thousand dollars for a table of ten that must stay a table of ten, and a chief executive who confirms at four o'clock on the day. The room is bigger, the money is real, and the mistakes are the kind people remember.
Nobody builds seating software for this, so here is the specific version
Every feature below already exists for weddings. What follows is what each one is for when the room is a ballroom and the guest list is a donor list.
The sponsor's ten stays a ten
- A table someone paid for is not a seating preference, it is a deliverable. Put that party in a crew and the seating keeps them together; pin the seats and nothing moves them, however many times you re-run.
- Table numbers stay yours. The room is drawn to your floor plan, so table 4 is where you told the venue table 4 would be.
Board and donor politics, in writing, privately
- State a keep-apart once and it is enforced on every re-run. It is never shown to a guest and never printed on the chart.
- The reason is recorded next to the rule, so the person covering for you in March knows why those two are never at the same table without having to ask.
The four o'clock change
- Eleven registrations arrive, two VIPs cancel, the award winner brings a guest. Mark it, re-run, and everything you pinned holds while the rest of the room closes up.
- You get a list of exactly who moved — the difference between telling the venue "here is the new chart" and telling them what changed on it.
Head tables, VIP seats and holds
- Mark a seat VIP, pin a named person to it, or lock it so nothing is ever placed there — a camera position, a wheelchair space, a seat held for somebody who has not answered.
- Dietary requirements come in with the registration and go out as a counted summary, with allergies listed by name rather than tallied.
You can ask 400 guests who they would rather not sit near — and never see the answers
Every other seating tool asks you who cannot sit together, which means the chart is only ever as good as what people have told you. At a fundraiser, the things that matter most are precisely the things nobody tells the development office: the grant that was refused, the firm that was passed over, the two board members who no longer speak.
Our RSVP form asks each guest, confidentially, who they would rather not sit near. The answers feed the seating and are never shown to you, never printed, and never attached to a name on any chart. Nobody has to accuse anybody of anything, and the table works anyway.
One event, or the whole year
A single gala is priced by the size of the room — $75 up to 300 seats, $150 up to 500, paid once. If you run several seated dinners a year, the Season Pass Pro covers all of them for $899 a year.
Building the guest list, the crews and the rules is free and has no time limit. You pay when you want the floor plan, the seating and the registration link — and never again for that event.
Questions gala and conference organisers ask
How do I keep a sponsor's table together?
Put the sponsor's guests in one crew and the seating keeps them at one table — that is what crews are for. If the table is already promised as table 4, pin those seats and nothing else in the room can move them, including a later re-run after fifty registrations change.
Can I seat two donors apart without anyone knowing why?
Yes, and this is the part most tools have no answer for. A keep-apart rule is enforced, never displayed to guests, and never printed on the chart. The reason lives in your account, not on the table plan the room reads at the door.
What happens when the chief executive confirms on the day?
Mark them attending and re-run. Everything you have pinned — the head table, the sponsor tables, the award winners — stays exactly where it is, and the rest of the room closes up around the change. You get a list of who moved, so you can tell the venue what is different rather than sending a second chart and hoping.
Do you handle table sponsorship and VIP seating?
Seats can be marked VIP, pinned to a named person, or locked so nothing is ever placed there. That covers a head table, a sponsor's ten, a photographer's gap and the seat you are holding for someone who has not answered.
How big an event can this seat?
Up to 500 seats self-serve. Above that we quote it, because rooms that size usually come with a staging plan and a running order rather than just a guest list.
Can the caterer get the dietary numbers?
Yes — collected from the guest with their RSVP, counted by requirement, and exported as CSV with allergies listed separately by name, because allergies are read individually and never tallied.
Send us the guest list and we'll seat your next one
Genuinely: export your registrations however they come out, tell us what cannot sit with what, and we'll build the chart and send it back. Free, no account needed. If it's useful, keep going. If not, you've lost an email.