Palm Desert staff recommends case-by-case review and study sessions for high-profile event funding requests

City staff reviewed the city’s outside-agency funding and event sponsorship program and asked the City Council for guidance on how to handle several large, recurring event requests, including DesertX, Fashion Week, Food & Wine, Living Desert, the McCallum Theatre, and Eisenhower Hospital.

The presentation outlined the program’s priorities, applicant requirements and timeline. Applicants must document alignment with community needs, other funding sources and, if claiming nonprofit status, provide proof. Organizations must have been established for at least five years and provide direct benefits to Palm Desert residents. Staff said applicants are restricted to one city funding source per year; an applicant that applies for outside-agency funding may not also qualify for event sponsorship or CDBG for the same request. The city opens the application portal in early July (the speaker said the portal would open “tomorrow”), accepts applications through April 30, the outside-agency committee convenes May 29, and staff recommendations are delivered to council alongside the budget (noted as “the 26th”); applicants are notified of awards on July 1. For fiscal 2024–25, staff reported outside-agency awards totaled about $521,000, event sponsorships $186,000 and CDBG just under $400,000—roughly $1 million combined.

Thomas Sowell, the city’s public affairs manager, told the council the sponsorships “do provide marketing value to the city and promote our brand,” but that the dollars the city gives to events are not the same as the city’s paid advertising campaigns. Sowell said the city’s advertising vendor, IdeaPeddler, handles paid media buys for the city while event sponsorship dollars are generally used by event organizers to defray event overhead and help them attract additional sponsors.

Councilmembers pressed for more robust, scientific ROI data on large requests such as Fashion Week and Food & Wine; one asked for sample sizes and median/mean attendance figures rather than a single percentage estimate. Councilmember Quintanilla and others suggested using study sessions to review these larger, multiyear or higher-dollar requests so council could more fully evaluate marketing and branding benefits before the budget is finalized. Several councilmembers noted that some events (for example, Eisenhower’s childcare request) do not fit strictly into marketing/branding and may require a different evaluation path.

Staff said some of the events are currently treated as outside-agency requests on a multiyear basis and that the city can continue that approach if the council prefers. Several councilmembers said they favor a hybrid approach: keep DesertX on the regular meeting agenda (it is a biennial event and may come before council directly) while scheduling study sessions for recurring branding/marketing events (Fashion Week, Food & Wine, Living Desert, McCallum) so the council can review consistent metrics and hold organizers accountable year over year.

Councilmembers also asked whether IdeaPeddler’s tourism-marketing contract overlaps with the city’s sponsorships. Sowell said some cross‑pollination exists—IdeaPeddler executes media buys and the city uses events in its campaign channels—but IdeaPeddler does not directly manage the sponsored events. FG Creative was described as working with the El Paseo Business Improvement District and Palm Springs Life on street‑level campaigns that intersect with Fashion Week and Food & Wine.

Staff returned a set of questions to the council: whether the six named events should remain in the outside-agency program, be considered under economic development/marketing, be evaluated ad hoc, or be placed in a separate review process. The council’s working direction was to evaluate the larger branding/marketing events on a case-by-case basis with study sessions and to keep DesertX and similar items on the main agenda when appropriate so the public can follow deliberations and the organizations can present staff-prepared justifications for the funding.

Staff said they will prepare follow-up materials for the council, including more detailed methodologies for ROI estimates and the option of aligning the timing of those event funding reviews with the city’s budget cycle so any commitments can be reflected in the adopted budget.

Ending: The council did not take a formal vote in the meeting on funding policy; members gave staff direction to prepare study-session materials and to continue evaluating large event sponsorships with the goal of having commitments available for the next budget cycle.