Party with a Purpose

With over $430,000 raised for several nonprofits including Ashoka, Oceana, City Year and Generation Engage, GOOD Magazine seems to have had a pretty great year. In celebration of its one year anniversary GOOD Magazine, the magazine for “those who give a damn,” launched a series of parties across the country.

Lucky for me, one of those parties occurred in Washington this past weekend.

An interesting crowd gathered at the Hirshhorn Museum on Independence Avenue to celebrate the successful year with music, drinks and modern art. As mentioned in previous FLiP features, GOOD is a magazine that covers the movement in this country toward “pragmatic idealism expressed through business, politics, culture and more.” Thus, the mix at the soiree in Washington included about a 1,000 nonprofit professionals, philanthropists and general party-goers.

Upon approaching the glass windows of the Hirshhorn, the GOOD party scene appeared young, energetic and dressed far better than I. However, upon walking around the circular structure and joining the line to enter, I was relieved to find attendees wearing everything from little black dresses to jeans and a bustling group of people eager to get the night started.

The party covered two floors of the gallery and the plaza. Patrons had the opportunity to tour the exhibits on the lower and third level of the gallery and listen to sets by several DJ’s (Dave Nada and Jacques Renault) on the third level’s gallery bar. Guests out in the plaza not only got to listen to the DJ (Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation), but also got to lounge by the shallow reflecting pool and check out several nonprofit organizations featured at the event.

Virgin’s Re*Generation and Hope Equity each had features in the plaza. In addition to free buttons and information, each station was manned with individuals eager to chat about the organization. Re*Generation, an initiative developed to raise awareness about youth homelessness, featured Re*Generation artist photography. Hope Equity, a program of Heifer International that functions as a sort of financial portfolio for your social investment, had a table set up with information and free organic t-shirts.

Overall the party was great. The lighting was fantastic, the music pumped late into the night and the crowd was definitely excited.