'Golf As Fundraising' Seminar Held

[WUTiger]

This weekend I taught one-day college seminar called Golf As Fundraising.

A dozen undergrads and master's students got introduced to how to organize and carry out a benefit golf tournament that hopefully would make money, not lose money.

For guest speakers, I had the head teaching pro from my home course, the general manager of a 36-hole private club, a realtor who is the area scramble guru, and one of our part-time instructors who runs a major chamber scramble.

And, I even got corporate sponsors to cover our morning bagels and lunch sandwich buffet.

Among things the guest speakers told us:

• Start your planning a year out if at all possible.
• Make sure everyone has a good time, and make them want to come back next year.
• Don't try to "conquer the world" on your first scramble; set small, manageable objectives.
• Have a couple of side games - closest to pin, long drive - but not so many that it detracts from the game. And don't sell mulligans.. it just slows things down, and two mulligans a person becomes six mulligans in some groups.
• One one-day events: After 6 hours, you start to lose people.
• Know the finances of your target audience. Don't overcharge - or undercharge - for your tournament.
• If you have a 2017 tournament pending, approach potential corporate sponsors in the Fall 2016 during capital budgeting for the next year. Otherwise, you may end up getting $400 left in petty cash rather than a much larger donation. 

Two in the class were exchange students, young women from mainland China and Mongolia. Both wanted to learn about golf and meet people who played it.

The class included a running team-based planning exercise based on one of three tournament scenarios:

• Raising $20 million for a new recreation center for our University.
• Funding a summer recreational baseball league for underprivileged children.
• Raising money for a group that is resettling Mideast war refugees to the area.

Some of the most interesting insights came from non-golfers who had worked other types of fundraising activities.

General feedback: Do it again next year.

[newtogolf]

1 hour ago, WUTiger said:

This weekend I taught one-day college seminar called Golf As Fundraising.

A dozen undergrads and master's students got introduced to how to organize and carry out a benefit golf tournament that hopefully would make money, not lose money.

For guest speakers, I had the head teaching pro from my home course, the general manager of a 36-hole private club, a realtor who is the area scramble guru, and one of our part-time instructors who runs a major chamber scramble.

And, I even got corporate sponsors to cover our morning bagels and lunch sandwich buffet.

Among things the guest speakers told us:

• Start your planning a year out if at all possible.
• Make sure everyone has a good time, and make them want to come back next year.
• Don't try to "conquer the world" on your first scramble; set small, manageable objectives.
• Have a couple of side games - closest to pin, long drive - but not so many that it detracts from the game. And don't sell mulligans.. it just slows things down, and two mulligans a person becomes six mulligans in some groups.
• One one-day events: After 6 hours, you start to lose people.
• Know the finances of your target audience. Don't overcharge - or undercharge - for your tournament.
• If you have a 2017 tournament pending, approach potential corporate sponsors in the Fall 2016 during capital budgeting for the next year. Otherwise, you may end up getting $400 left in petty cash rather than a much larger donation. 

Two in the class were exchange students, young women from mainland China and Mongolia. Both wanted to learn about golf and meet people who played it.

The class included a running team-based planning exercise based on one of three tournament scenarios:

• Raising $20 million for a new recreation center for our University.
• Funding a summer recreational baseball league for underprivileged children.
• Raising money for a group that is resettling Mideast war refugees to the area.

Some of the most interesting insights came from non-golfers who had worked other types of fundraising activities.

General feedback: Do it again next year.

I'm going to be running a golf fund raiser for a local High School club next year.  I have run corporate outings but not as a fund raiser.  This information is right in line with what I've read and been told.  If you have any additional information you can share, please PM me.  Thanks

[WUTiger]

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

I'm going to be running a golf fund raiser for a local High School club next year. ...

Joe,

I'll be typing up a "memo to myself" from several pages of notes I took during the day's activities. Plus, I have some excellent "open source" golf benefit planning documents and checklists from Hole In One - International. (The guest speakers remarked that the HIO material was excellent.)

Will contact PM you when I get it ready.