Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

Many nonprofit organizations host golf tournaments to raise funds, but it’s not as common with public or even private schools.  Why?  A golf tournament can be a significant fundraiser for your school so I would strongly recommend considering one.

Here are five really good reasons to consider hosting a golf event, or partnering with another organization to plan a golf outing.

1. The Earning Potential is High

The first reason your school should have a golf outing is that these events are money makers, if they are done right. Here’s a list of eleven ways you can earn money at a golf tournament:

1. Golfer/team fee
2. Corporate sponsorship fees
3. Underwriting opportunities (meal, beverage cart, course fee, etc.)
4. Merchandise sales (your organization’s t-shirts, hats, hoodies, etc.)
5. “On the Course” contests
6. Mulligan sales
7. Raffles
8. Auctions
9. General donations
10. Separate dinner tickets for those who don’t play golf but just come for the meal
11. Revenue from an add-on of a walk-a-thon (held at the same time as golf outing and both groups come together at a shared banquet)

2. People are Familiar with Golf Tournament, So It’s a Natural Sell

Another reason that your PTO/PTA or school group should have a golf tournament is because they have become so popular. As a result of this popularity, you will have an easier time convincing people to attend. Certain incentives like an awesome course, a good crowd to network with, the ability to win some cool prizes, and the chance to escape the office for a day are all reasons people will be very open to your invitation. Of course, people will also want to support your non-profit, as well.

When it comes to fundraising, it’s best to stick to known entities. For the creative people who run non-profits, I know it’s sometimes frustrating to do what everyone else is doing. Where’s the originality? Where’s the stamp of your own unique personality? “Everybody has a golf outing. How boring!”

While the spirit of this thought may have validity, the fact of the matter is that if you want to ensure you raise money, you should stick to the events that are proven to do that very thing. Golf outings are designed to do exactly this.

3. It Offers Opportunities for Parents to Network

This reason can be a real selling point when you are trying to recruit teams to golf. Not only will your participants want to support your school, but many of them will also look forward to networking with other golfers who will be in attendance.

I realized this point very early in my nonprofit career. I would be making calls, trying to get folks to commit to playing in our outing and more than a few people would specifically ask me if certain individuals had already signed up or if it was likely they would be signing up. I came to see myself as a kind of a golf tournament match maker.

At the time, I was relatively young and working at a summer camp, and I didn’t realize it, but many of the campers’ parents were very aware of who the other parents were in the camp community. Our golf outing was the perfect vehicle for them to get to know one another and potentially create some new business connections.

Once I opened my eyes to this reality, I saw it happening over and over and came to view our golf outing not only as an excellent fundraiser, but also as a service to the parents of our campers and the camp alumni.

Once we actively started to help people make these introductions, the value of our outing increased and in the long run, greatly benefited our nonprofit.

4. It’s a Great Chance for You to Have Personal Contact with Donors

From the moment you arrive at your golf tournament (as the leader), there are literally dozens of items that need your attention. It is very easy to get pulled into handling one crisis after another. Before you know it, half the day is gone and you’re already exhausted.

On the day of the golf outing, the best thing you can do for your school is to be an incredibly gracious host. Golfers will be looking for you when they arrive. They’d like to feel welcomed by the “boss”. So, this is exactly where you should be. Greeting people when they arrive, seeing foursomes off at the tee box, milling around the cart corral – these are the hot spots for mixing and mingling for you.

Once players are off and away, a good place to visit would be one of the contest holes, like “Closest to the Pin” or “Longest Drive”. There is always a lot of fun going on at these special holes. You can encourage the players to bet high and really have a good, relaxed time with the players. They will really appreciate the time you spend with them in this way.

(If it makes you feel better, you can take a walkie-talkie or cell phone with you so that you can be reached by your staff in case of a planning emergency.)

I’ve always found that golf tournaments provide an excellent opportunity to share a few quality minutes with my important (read: bigger) donors. I can run new ideas by them, ask them for advice on a particular project and just make myself exclusively available to them for a few minutes. This has always been well received.

It’s also a chance to build better relationships with those who could become bigger contributors. A few laughs and some sincere camaraderie can go a long way toward developing your donor base.

However, if you’re back at the club house, working on organizational details, you’ll miss these incredible opportunities and in the long run hurt your cause.

5. It’s a Great chance to Honor People at the Banquet Afterwards

Since golf tournaments usually attract a large number of people from your community, it is a fantastic time to use the banquet after a day of golfing as a time to hand out some of your organization’s most prestigious awards. In fact, if you establish the post golf-outing banquet as your organization’s premier ceremony, you could draw people just to this event itself.

The mood is perfect for it. Everyone is gathered, they’ve spent a day in the great outdoors, having fun, and enjoying each other’s company. At the banquet, all the participants come together to share a meal and swap stories from the day of golfing.

As the leader, you can first hand out all the golf-related awards from the contests like “Closest to the Pin”, “Longest Drive”, and of course, all the teams who won the different divisions. This will be a good segue into the more serious recognitions.

When I worked for the summer camp, this is when we passed out our “Thomas Bean” award, which went to the person who best exemplified the ideals of a servant leader for the year. We would always have some wives and even mothers who would come to the banquet just to see the “Bean” award passed out. It became a great tradition.

I would recommend that you have a volunteer whose sole job it is to take pictures all day long. Of course, many pictures should be taken during you award ceremony.

Conclusion

If a school golf tournament is planned and run correctly, it can be a day filled with joy, excitement, humor, good will, and generosity. You can improve existing relationships with donors and develop new friendships that could lead to future support. You can also help develop the bonds that exist between people inside your community, and at the end of the day, you can raise thousands of dollars for your non-profit.

If you’re not running an annual golf outing, I would strongly urge you to get in touch with some local golf pros and leaders of other non-profits to inquire about their experiences and suggestions.

For more information on planning a school golf tournament see: Three Important Steps to Planning a Charity Golf Outing

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In this country, there is a wonderful relationship between schools and athletics. This is especially true of football. Football teams, both in high schools and universities, often provide the face of school spirit and a offers a common gathering space for the educational community to relax and enjoy themselves.

But, a football program is expensive to operate, and especially at the high school level, a significant fundraising effort is needed to provide essentials like uniforms, travel expenses, practice equipment, and assessment tools like video cameras and computers.

To address these specific needs, most schools have developed an active “Boosters” club, which is made up of people who have a strong love of football and school and who have committed themselves to making sure their team has what it needs to keep winning.

Last year WCVD Newschannel 5 in Boston published a report entitled “Student Athletes Forced To Pay To Play”, in which they highlighted a difficult situation at Hamilton Wenham Regional High School. Due to a serious budget shortfall in this district, they have been forced to adopt a “pay for play” policy, in which individual players and their families have to come up with the money to pay for all the season’s expenses.

According to the report, “It costs $282 per student for cross-country, $398 for golf, $409 for girl’s soccer, $508 for field hockey and $969 for football.

“Football started at $1,400 per student, but was reduced through private fundraising and gate receipts to about $969 per student,” Athletic Director Don Doucette said.

Obviously, this is a situation that most schools would like to avoid. But, that means a serious effort at raising large amounts of money must be made. And, it must be more than a few individual and separate fundraisers throughout the season. Football fundraising should be a sustained, coordinated, and multi-pronged attack that is carried out year round. The alternative to this aggressive approach is unfortunately seen in the fee structure above. continue reading

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Tournaments are a great way to raise funds for your school or other cause.

• You have commitment ahead of time so you know how many people to expect at the actual event.
• They are fun, competitive events that people enjoy participating in.
• You can hold additional fundraisers at the tournament: food/drink sales, raffles, auctions, etc.
• Tournament fundraisers are great for all ages!

Here’s a list of some of the most popular tournaments and links to resources to help you plan them:

Some of the best tournaments appeal to a wide audience:

Team sports tournaments are great for elementary to high school students (and even adults)

Volleyball: An Annual Volleyball Remembers a Special Girl

Basketball: A three-on-three basketball tournament or a Shoot for the Hoop game

Soccer: The Ultimate Guide to Running Your Own Soccer Tournament

Bowling: Bowling Tournaments for Fun and Fundraising

Not quite a tournament, but football contests can be fun!

Individual sports are also great… Tennis Tournaments a Successful Fundraiser in Any Season

And there’s golf tournaments of course: Three Important Steps to Planning a Charity Golf Outing

Think beyond traditional sports. How about…

Pool Tournaments are great for anytime of year: Annual Pool Tournament Fundraiser a Success

You could have a darts contest the same night as the pool tournament.

A horseshoe tournament might sound old-fashioned but it’s easy to add on to another outdoor event.

Dodgeball Fundraiser lets you re-live your school days.

or for summertime fun, a dodgeball tournament using water balloons!

For those who’d rather exercise brains than brawn:

Your fundraiser passes GO with a Monopoly game tournament.

Or choose another board game instead.

Bunko is a fun game that’s easy to learn.

A trivia night is sure to bring out the competitve spirit!

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Here’s a quick idea that I have seen work on more than one occasion. For your next group-gathering fundraiser, like a school carnival, ice cream social, or book fair, see if you can recruit some of your local high school athletes to work the event.

Imagine: football players scooping ice cream, cheerleaders doing face painting, basketball players running a free throw competition. Of course, all the players should be dressed in their team’s uniform.

It is amazing how much elementary or middle school kids look up to high-schoolers. And, if the high-schooler is the starting quarterback, captain of the cheer squad, or point guard for the hoops team, you’ve got a bona-fide celebrity on your hands.

You can include this celebrity attendance/participation in all of your marketing materials. It’s sure to draw a crowd.

I would also add that there is an additional revenue opportunity with the athletes there, as well. As long as it is very clear that the revenue generated goes to the school, think about charging for photographs or autographs from the players. This can be done in good fun and as long as the high-schoolers don’t get an inflated ego because of it, I know they’ll have a good time.

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Golden Eagle Pony Baseball held their annual Burrito Bingo fundraiser on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007 at the Blue Goose Fruit Shed in Loomis, California. Burrito Bingo is an event featuring a burrito dinner and 20 bingo games. They held the event this year to raise money for their league to fund the purchase of equipment, repair the baseball fields and also to buy a field prep vehicle. During the year the team also holds a raffle that is successful. Players are given tickets to sell for $10 and the league raffles off $1,500 for first place and they also purchase prizes for second and third place.

Everyone looks forward to the Burrito Bingo event. This can be either family or evening just for the adults. “That’s what is so great about it. Some bring their kids and they play bingo. Others want an adult night out so they don’t bring the kids. Everyone has a great time,” said Debbie O’Neil. O’Neil was an organizer of this year’s event.

Tickets for the event are $20 and this includes dinner and 20 games of bingo plus punch, coffee and then cookies for dessert. The group also sells soda, bottled water, beer, margaritas. They sell raffle tickets throughout the night for leftover prizes (3/$1 or arms length $10), extra bingo games, and also a 50/50 raffle.

The Secret to Success: Planning Early

Debbie O’Neil suggests that you start early if you would like to do this type of fundraiser. “You need to start early to reserve the hall for a date that will work best for you. An early start on prize donations helps too. We ask for donations from local merchants – we always purchase a grand prize for the last game of the night “black out”. This year we bought a Nintendo Wii,” said O’Neil. She tries to have at least 2 to 3 prizes per bingo game, so that if they have more than one winner they can “make everyone happy.”

“We usually have an A table (one prize list) and a B table (a second prize list) and each game is assigned to a table so the winner can pick from the prizes on that table. We sell raffle tickets thru out the night to raffle off left over prizes. I always try to make each game prize in the $30-$50 range,” said O’Neil.

Bingo Games Are Popular Favorites

To play the bingo games themselves, they just use the same patterns every year. “One is four corners, game two is Railroad Tracks, game three is any bingo and we always spell P, O, N, Y since that is our organization. Some game takes longer than others. We provide game patterns and a list of the prizes to each guest so that they can follow along and see what prizes are left,” said O’Neil.

Great Organization and Terrific Volunteers Make An Event Run Smoothly

Most of the shopping for the event is done the day before, because items need to be refrigerated. “We are fortunate enough to have a local Jimboys who provides us with our main dish; he does this in trade for a sponsorship. This is so nice because you don’t have to spend the day cooking,” said O’Neil. The group decorates the night before and preps as much of the food as possible. O’Neil has been very pleased because clean up usually goes really well because everyone always pitches in and helps when the event is over.

O’ Neil states that having a plan is essential to this burrito bingo fundraiser. “I would leave yourself enough time to have 2-3 meetings with your helpers. This year I had one person handling prizes, one handling decorations, one handled the food, 1 picked up the margarita machine, we always wear T-shirts that match and someone handled that and I was able to oversee everything and do the shopping. You can do all the shopping in 1 day,” said O’Neil.

“I always let people sign up for jobs so they do something they want to do. You need at least 6-7 servers and kitchen runners (restocking food). Usually 2-3 greeters are also needed. When the guest arrive we give them a ticket to provide at the dinner buffet, their bingo tickets, and they can buy drink tickets,” said O’Neil. They sell margaritas and beer which are “huge profit” items for the group. They also sell extra packs of bingo tickets in books of 10. The group uses their entire panel of board members. They have about 15 to 17 people. “Usually there are 2 greeters, 6-7 servers and kitchen runners to restock food. 1-2 people in the kitchen heating and filling bowls, 2 bartenders, then after everyone has eaten the servers move out onto the floor as ‘runners’,” said O’Neil. Runners sell raffle tickets, 50/50 tickets, check bingo cards, take out trash and do a little bit of everything.

Easy-to-do Publicity Makes An Event Popular With The Community

The event has been popular with just about everyone. For publicity they have used a number of sources that have worked well for them. “We rely on work of mouth, selling tickets thru the league, and the local paper. We actually have family members who come from out of town because they have so much fun,” said O’Neil. After running the event for four years, the group is confident that they have the logistics well-organized to create a successful and popular event. “I was told this year was the smoothest and most fun ever!” said O’Neil.

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