So you're an athletic director?
Word on the street is that you’re sitting on a mountain of gold and you only give it out to varsity football (and you hate girls’ soccer). Sound familiar? Unfortunately, many parents and kids might feel this way, and sometimes you get an ear full.
The truth is that typically, there is very little money to go around and you generally try to spread the money as far as possible. Many kids and parents don’t know about you spending your own personal time seeding fields in the late fall or early spring, painting fields late in the evening, organizing gymnastics equipment on the weekend – because there is insufficient money to pay for these needed services.
Many students love you – walking through the hallways during school hours, you’re flooded with waves and greetings. “Hey, Mr. Brown, you going to the game tonight?” “Hey, Mr. Brown, I didn’t see you at the match last night?” “Hey, Mr. Brown...”
Again, cherished by all ... until they don’t get what they want. Then that love quickly devolves into open scorn. “What do you mean, we don’t get new uniforms this year? – Football got new helmets!” “Why can’t we go a tournament this year? The boys’ varsity is doing two tournaments!!” The complaining comparisons continue throughout the year - every year.
Again, there are very limited resources for the school, and fundraising is the main life support. Fundraising is a hassle! All aspects are a pain - preparing for them, scheduling them, collecting the money, accounting for the money, distributing the stuff that has been peddled. Everyone wants money, but nobody wants to fundraise – let alone manage a fundraiser. If you’re a seasoned AD, at some point you’ve probably found this kind of email or phone message from an admin in charge of managing fundraising:
“Hey Mr. Brown, its John Green. We’re receiving 2000 frozen pizza kits tonight (or boxes of candy bars, or pies, or sweatshirts, or ice sculptures, or baby chinchillas, etc.) for the team’s fundraiser. Well unfortunately, I can’t be there because (fill in the blank). Can you be there to accept delivery, and just wait for a few minutes while the players arrive to pick up their orders? Oh, and by the way, Bill Jenkins and Joey Johnson can’t make it because (fill in the blank). Can you take home their 27 frozen pizza kits – because they have to stay refrigerated? I’ll pick them up from you this Friday. Thanks.”
At CCD, we want to streamline fundraising and make life a little easier for you and your coaches. Our theory is, if a team wants to raise money, they should: 1) say specifically what they want, 2) say specifically how much it costs, and 3) (most importantly) ask those whom are likely to support the team.
A girls’ volleyball team shouldn’t need to solicit all of their friends, every one of their relatives, their parents’ coworkers, neighbors – especially that creepy guy at the end of the cul-de-sac, passers-by at the local grocery store, ... They shouldn’t need to sell 400 pizza kits to retain 25¢ on the dollar to raise money for new uniforms. You, the coach, and the school shouldn’t need to worry about managing the receipt of the money for the pizza kits or worry about managing receipt and distribution of the pizza kits. Finally, the team shouldn’t need to wait 5 months to see the money from the pizza fundraiser.
With CCD, that same girls’ volleyball team could easily campaign for donations to raise $1527.36 for new uniforms by asking their closest relatives and friends to kindly give money on-line at www.crystalcleardonations.com. In this way, donors know who is getting the money and how the money is being spent. The school keeps about 94% of the donations and they receive the money in mere days after the donations are provided online.
As an AD, you could let your teams fundraise at CCD to easily and quickly obtain money for what they need. In this way, you could truly stay the great AD that everyone likes, while dispelling the myths that you hoard money and only support varsity football ... or basketball ... or whatever.
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