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Archive for the ‘Fundraising’ Category

Fundraising is, without a doubt, extremely challenging work. For any of you with experience in this line of work, you will understand what I mean. For the rest of you, go out and volunteer your time with a local non-profit organization. After that, I think you will understand. While this can be a challenging profession, it continues to be quite rewarding in many respects. This article was drafted with the new fundraising coordinator in mind. So listen up, kids!

There are four major forms of fundraising. When one mentions fundraising to the average person, the image of a well-meaning person going door-to-door begging for support immediately comes to mind. While most of us have been there at some point or other, there is a lot more to this business than meets the eye. And yes, my friends, this is a business. We are in the business of managing relationships; relationships which, more often than not, are the key determining factor for success.

The first major form of fundraising is dealing with institutional grantors. These organizations are often the most difficult to deal with, due to the inherent bureaucratic nature of these types of organizations. On the other hand, grants and endowments from these organizations can often amount to incredible sums of money. For this reason alone, they should not be dismissed. You may have to invest a lot of time and energy into convincing these institutional organizations into supporting your particular cause, and this where the business of managing relationships comes into play. A single grant from one of these groups could secure the future of your non-profit activities.
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It seems like soccer fundraising is either a season-long effort or a quick hitter that doesn’t cover all your needs.

Well, the good news is that there are some ways to make money quickly, or even all season long, that merit your consideration.

What are your fundraising goals?

Many youth sports teams and leagues want:

1 – Fundraisers that can be done with little effort
2 – Fundraisers that may be done sporadically
3 – Fundraisers that will produce significant results

Soccer fundraising programs
In this article, we’ll examine several soccer fundraisers that are quick hitting and sure to score.

The three soccer fundraising programs are:

Bottled water
Shot cage and radar gun
Fast-food discount cards

Soccer Fundraising: Bottled Water
The first soccer fundraising program is selling bottled water. Consider for a moment that each team member will bring water to every practice and to every game. That’s at least a couple dozen bottles right there and probably a whole lot more.

Add in sales to spectators and you’ve got at least 500 bottles that could easily be sold. Sure, you can buy in bulk at a warehouse club, but you can add extra value to your soccer fundraising with private branding of your bottled water, either as a team or as a league.

The initial setup for each label is $75 and afterward, the unique label with your logo emblazoned in color costs nothing extra. Prices for the bottled spring water are wholesale, which allows your group a comfortable 50% profit margin.

When you think about it, doesn’t it make sense to capture the wholesale-to-retail markup for your group while building team spirit at the same time?
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It seems like soccer fundraising is either a season-long effort or a quick hitter that doesn’t cover all your needs.

Well, the good news is that there are some ways to make money quickly, or even all season long, that merit your consideration.

What are your fundraising goals?

Many youth sports teams and leagues want:

1 – Fundraisers that can be done with little effort
2 – Fundraisers that may be done sporadically
3 – Fundraisers that will produce significant results

Soccer fundraising programs
In this article, we’ll examine several soccer fundraisers that are quick hitting and sure to score.

The three soccer fundraising programs are:

1 – Bottled water

2 – Shot cage and radar gun

3 – Fast-food discount cards

Soccer Fundraising: Bottled Water
The first soccer fundraising program is selling bottled water. Consider for a moment that each team member will bring water to every practice and to every game. That’s at least a couple dozen bottles right there and probably a whole lot more.

Add in sales to spectators and you’ve got at least 500 bottles that could easily be sold. Sure, you can buy in bulk at a warehouse club, but you can add extra value to your soccer fundraising with private branding of your bottled water, either as a team or as a league.

The initial setup for each label is $75 and afterward, the unique label with your logo emblazoned in color costs nothing extra. Prices for the bottled spring water are wholesale, which allows your group a comfortable 50% profit margin.

When you think about it, doesn’t it make sense to capture the wholesale-to-retail markup for your group while building team spirit at the same time?

Soccer Fundraising: Shot Cage
The second soccer fundraising program is best suited for a league-wide effort. On Picture Day, during a tournament, or at any other event with high attendance, set up a soccer “shot cage” with a radar gun to measure velocity.

Every player will want multiple chances to show just how fast their shot speeds toward the goal. You can set up contests with prizes for various age ranges, team awards, Top Gun, etc.

Soccer fundraising featuring a radar-equipped shooting cage is actually an inexpensive event to host.
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Selecting the right fundraiser is the most important decision you’ll make. Among the key factors are the timing of your fundraisers each year, the quality of the merchandise, selling considerations, delivery considerations, and ultimately, the net profit to your organization.

Think of yourself as running a small business building a reputation for innovation and quality products. What are your financial goals versus expected unit volume numbers, sales revenue versus profit percentage, quality of goods versus cost, acceptable market price points, etc?

If you think like a business leader, then you’re on the right track.

First choose a type of fundraiser
There are different types of “best” fundraisers and you have to select what’s best for your organization at this particular time.

Your fundraising choices are:

1 – Event-based fundraisers
2 – Direct donation fundraiser
3 – Fundraisers with immediate product delivery
4 – Fundraisers with delayed product delivery

The first decisions you have to make are on the fundraiser category, selecting a fundraising company or distributor as your supplier, and then the actual fundraiser itself.

Decision factors
How do you make that decision? A professional fundraising consultant can often be a big help. You can also check the web, use your personal contacts, review your group’s past records, etc. Most importantly, take some time to gather the information you need to make the right decision.

You can design a simple survey that you can give to past organizers and other key influencers such as local merchants and organizational leaders. Offer clear choices to ease evaluation of replies. Print it out and get quality feedback from within and without your organization on what’s worked well before and what needs improving.

Then, put together a spreadsheet for evaluating and ranking fundraisers. Break the ranking criteria into categories with sub headings in text boxes across the spreadsheet. Numerical rankings should be assigned to what criteria are most important to your group at this particular time for this fundraiser.
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An essential part of fundraising is writing grant proposals and grant applications. An effectively written grant application can result in large sums of money for your fundraising group. Grant applications can be a long and tiresome journey, but in the end it will be worth it for your group! In the following article, we are going to help you understand grants and what they entail.

Grant Applications Broken Down

Most grant applications will include some or more of the following components:

Letters of Reference – letters from those who can testify to your experience and good character.
Formal Proposal – a detailed explanation of what the grant money will be used for.
A Business Plan – detailing the finer points of your financial needs.
A List of Resources – detail the resources you have, and the resources you need.
Complete list of Group Members – including both workers and volunteers.
Goals and Plans – detail the short and long term goals of your group.

The grant application will list all the material and documents needed for submission. It is vitally important that you follow all the directions exactly as they are stated when filling out the grant application. One mistake could make the difference between getting the grant and getting turned down. Many grant providers reject applications that didn’t take the time to follow the directions when submitting their application. Prior to submitting your grant application have someone in the group proof read it and make sure that all the information is correct and in order. After staring at the same document for days on end, it becomes difficult to notice any mistakes.
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