‘This is not your grandmother’s Easter Egg Roll’: White House seeks corporate sponsorships for Easter event

Guests participate in the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

The White House, through an outside event production company called Harbinger, is soliciting corporate sponsors for this year’s Easter Egg Roll, which is prompting major concerns from ethics experts and shock from former White House officials from both parties.

The sponsorship offers range from $75,000 to $200,000, with the promise of logo and branding opportunities, according to a nine-page document sent to potential sponsors and obtained by CNN.

The Egg Roll, which began during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration in 1878, has long been privately funded without taxpayer dollars, largely through the American Egg Board, which also provides tens of thousands of eggs for the occasion. And all money raised by Harbinger will go to the White House Historical Association.

But the solicitation for sponsorships marks an unprecedented offering of corporate branding opportunities on White House grounds running counter to long-established regulations prohibiting the use of public office for private gain.

“This is an enterprise. This is not your grandmother’s Easter Egg Roll where people lined up outside the gate and go and roll an egg and get a little gift bag and walk out,” said a former official involved in planning the event, which has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years.

The pitch document laying out sponsorship opportunities includes logos for both the White House and Harbinger, which previously produced the event during President Donald Trump’s first term and is offering “initial planning” and “event day execution” for sponsors that sign on. It features imagery of Trump, first lady Melania Trump, members of the Trump family, the Easter Bunny, and the White House press corps, including CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

“Sponsors of WHEER [White House Easter Egg Roll] provide financial support, activities, and giveaways to enhance the event while gaining valuable brand visibility and national recognition,” reads the document.

Among the offerings for prospective sponsors: “Naming rights for key areas or elements,” “Sponsor logos featured on event signage,” “Custom-branded baskets, snacks/beverages, or souvenirs,” “Mentions in official event communications and social media posts,” “Acknowledgment in printed or digital event programs,” and “Inclusion in press releases and media interviews.” Sponsors can also gain access to an “invite-only brunch hosted inside the White House by FLOTUS,” tickets to the event, and a private White House tour.

Upon viewing the pitch document, Richard Painter, who served in the White House Counsel’s Office under President George W. Bush, told CNN that it “wouldn’t have gotten through Counsel’s Office.”

“That would have been vetoed in about 30 seconds in my day,” he said. “We’re not running this like a football stadium where you get all logos all over the place for kicking in money.”

It’s not the first time the Trump White House has openly flouted norms and rules from the South Lawn. Earlier this month, the president touted a selection of Tesla vehicles accompanied by the company’s CEO Elon Musk. In 2020, the Republican National Convention was held in part on the grounds.

All money raised by Harbinger’s efforts will be placed into an account run by the White House Historical Association, a private nonprofit organization.

“For many presidencies, the White House Historical Association has collaborated with White House staff to facilitate a public gathering such as the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. And as we do with other gifts to the White House collection, we receive contributions and in-kind gifts that are used on the grounds that day,” the association’s president, Stewart McLaurin, told CNN.

It’s not unusual for a production company like Harbinger to be involved. The company, founded by former Mitt Romney campaign staffers in 2013, has produced large-scale corporate and government events, including Egg Rolls during Trump’s first term, March for Our Lives, media spin rooms at presidential debates, and Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to the US.

“There is a certain level of expectation by the public that these be amazingly grand affairs – memorable affairs – and every year, you try and top it with something new and different. But to do that, clearly, you need professional production companies. It’s beyond the White House Visitor’s Office and their little team of six people,” the former official involved in planning the event said.

Private contributions cover activity booths, artists, music, vendors, staging, equipment and décor, said a source familiar with the planning who was granted anonymity to detail specifics of the funding mechanisms. Any excess funding raised, that source said, will go toward other similar White House events, such as Halloween festivities and the Fourth of July. So far, one sponsor has been identified for the April 21 event, with other “successful conversations” underway, according to the source, who noted that the National Park Service, which oversees White House grounds, will be responsible for vetting prospective donors before gifts are accepted.

The White House, the office of the first lady, Harbinger, the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

In the past, according to another official involved in the planning of previous Egg Rolls, there was an agreement on reimbursement for the event’s cost between the National Park Service, the American Egg Board, the White House Historical Association and the White House. There have also been smaller-scale partnerships with organizations like NASA, the LEGO Foundation, and Disney. But any branding, the source said, was extremely limited due to severe constraints from the White House counsel’s office.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the American Egg Board told CNN that it plans to be involved in the Egg Roll this year.

“The specific details are being finalized now with the White House,” the spokesperson said, adding that details of the board’s partnership with the White House “are not shared publicly.”

It is unclear what social media channels would be used for the promised “mentions in official event communications and social media posts,” and whether they would be sent from official White House accounts. It’s also unclear whether the White House Counsel’s Office signed off on the solicitation document.

Painter argued the move runs counter to free enterprise. The Trump administration, he said, “just have a different attitude… that ‘America First’ somehow requires the United States to pick winners and losers in the private sector.”

Donald Sherman, the chief counsel and executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said he had “never seen anything like this before” associated with a White House.

“I understand that there are corporate sponsors for the Easter Egg Roll,” Sherman told CNN. “What I have not seen before is sort of the outright solicitation and the use of the imprimatur of the White House to give corporate sponsorship.”

Previous egg rolls have been a source of tension between those involved with planning and the Counsel’s Office. Multiple administrations had to tell Coca-Cola that thousands of Dasani water bottles donated for the event could not be served in Coke-branded coolers, for instance, because of the branding restrictions placed by the White House lawyers.

“I’m getting agita thinking of the conversations I used to have with the Counsel’s Office,” said the first former official involved in planning the event. “Sometimes it went too far – yeah – but their goal is to protect the president.”