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Post by coachp83 on Feb 14, 2022 21:41:48 GMT -6
For those that have used companies like vertical raise, snap raise, etc... What was your thoughts on the company or companies you worked with? We have a few big fundraisers but something like vertical raise would give us a chance to branch out a bit and hit up extended family and people that may not be right in the community. Some of the numbers they advertise are pretty impressive for a three week campaign but that might not be the norm so I'm curious to hear what the successes or perhaps failures are with these models.
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Post by cqmiller on Feb 15, 2022 0:36:00 GMT -6
I've used SnapRaise before... used another company the past year (starting year 2 with them on the 22nd this month).
I would say this... you know if your community (players) have people in their lives likely to donate, or not likely to donate. If they aren't, it doesn't matter what the company says/does, you know your return will be "low" from what you are hoping. If you have a ton of willing donors, you are probably giving up a lot of money (whatever their % is) that you could have kept if you just made sure your kids were well-informed on what to tell anyone they know who may want to donate.
At the end of the day, what are you trying to get out of it? I only use 2 fundraisers for my players each season... this online one, and then the discount cards everyone does. We focus HEAVILY on the kids participating in these fundraisers and then the coaches/parents sell banners for stadium, secure donations, anything else on top of that. We have benchmarks for what we need the money for and then each benchmark a kid meets with fundraising they are given a "reward" for meeting that benchmark.
With the new financial rules (and my school being free breakfast/lunch schoolwide). If I call something a "spirit pack" or a "football shirt", then kids on fee-waivers have to be given one regardless of whether they fundraise or not and I'm stuck paying the bill. We've made everything a reward if you complete something. For instance, I've got a breakdown of a new helmet, plus reconditioning, plus decals on a helmet for as many years as an average helmets lasts calculated out for the parents. In order for me to buy a helmet for your kid to use for 4 years in my program, I have to pay the initial cost of the helmet, plus reconditioning, plus decals, which ends up about $175 per year. All other safety equipment, game jerseys, and REQUIRED equipment adds up to between $500 and $600 per player, per year. If we don't have that amount of money come in, we can't run a football program. So we split all those items into tiers and if a kid fundraises to tier 1, he will get Reward 1. If he fundraises to tier 2 he will get Reward 2. This continues up and you can earn more and more stuff as you continue to fundraise.
Our goal is that parents do not have to pay a single cent for their kids to participate in our program... but they may only get the equipment necessary to compete on the football team if we don't do a good job fundraising. If a kid can get $400 from all of his family all over the country donated online, and we get to keep $320 of it (that's normal around here for the online ones), then the kid has already reached tier 1 an is almost on tier 2. If he keeps at it and can get a little more, he's at tier 3... then we get to cards and he's pushing for the custom hoodie/sweatpants that the players help me design and the other items the kids WANT, but you can only get thru fundraising.
We've had success with it, but you always go into all those fundraisers with the idea of "if each kid just gets ____, then we get to keep _____, which doesn't seem that hard". Unfortunately you never raise what you hope.
The companies on the other end are a means-to-an-end. If you can find a rep or a company that reinvests into the kids (our guy donates A LOT of $$$ back to me so we can run this national clinic we are having this Friday/Saturday at the school, then you are making more than that 80% on the paperwork you filled out in the long-term.
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Post by realdawg on Feb 15, 2022 4:34:55 GMT -6
We are currently doing one.....as others have mentioned, how much you make really depends on the type of kids and community you have. We serve a pretty rural, poor community. So we are going to make a couple grand. I saw on twitter a school about an hour and a half away in a much more suburban, upper middle class community had brought in about 10 grand. So know who you are.
We do 3 fundraisers each year. We do a golf tournament, we sale the cards, and we do the online thing. The best thing about it is the online thing doesnt require alot of work from me. Our golf tournament is pretty successful, but it takes alot of work. We did really well with the card sales last fall but again, there is some work involved. The online thing doesnt require me to do a whole lot except encourage the kids to participate and make some posts on social media.
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Post by mrjvi on Feb 15, 2022 7:06:25 GMT -6
If I have an assistant who wants to organize a fundraiser I say go for it. In the last 25 of my 40 years I have never fundraised and won't. If our football budget can't handle new stuff when needed, we do without.
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Post by shocktroop34 on Feb 15, 2022 7:36:51 GMT -6
Many schools have to fundraise in order to operate. Every area is different. For the past three years I've used Fanangel. I've done all of the research. It gives back the largest percentage of all the other crowd sourcing companies. I want to say it's nearly 90%. Actually, this is directly from their website: "Low fees -- ~90% of every donation goes to the beneficiary. FanAngel keeps 7% and the credit card fees are 2.2% to 2.9% + $0.30/donation. Your program gets the rest. Compare that to other sports crowdfunding sites that charge between 20-30%!!!" You'll be hard pressed to find anyone else that gives back that much. The first one I ran was only a couple of months and we raised 8k. The second one we ran for about 5 months and we raised 13k. The third one we ran (during the season going into playoffs) for about a month and raised 7k. There is leg work in the fact that you have to get your players gathered and get as many emails and phone numbers as possible. Once they are entered, you literally watch the money roll in. The check comes about a week after your end date. Very professional people. Reach out to don.turnbull@fangel.com I personally am very reluctant to endorse companies of any kind for anything. But I've seen the evidence on this one. It will be the only one I deal with. This is also the only fundraiser we do. www.fanangel.com/ |
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lws55
Sophomore Member
Posts: 244 
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Post by lws55 on Feb 15, 2022 7:48:13 GMT -6
I used snap raise in the past and was very disappointed in them. They nickle and dimed us for every penny and then when it was time to cut the check they took for ever to get it to us. That was my last year as an HC so I haven't been in charge of fundraising and I am at a school now where the booster club does all the fundraising (such a blessing!). Maybe snap raise has gotten better but if there is another company out there I would look at them before snap raise. Also, make sure and read the fine print.
When they tell you they will give you a higher percentage for a certain number of emails make sure it is total emails and not per kid. We had well over the number of emails sent out to bump us up to the next percentage level but since every kid didn't have the minimum emails (you will always have kids that don't participate, or parents that don't want to participate by helping their kid with the emails) we were left at the lower percentage. That was not explained to us when we signed on to do the fundraising.
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Post by coachp83 on Feb 15, 2022 8:25:05 GMT -6
Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far. The feedback on snap that I have read has never been all that good, so I would tend to shy away from them. Sounds like high fees and poor customer service. I will take a look at fanangel, that's one I have not researched a lot. I would say this though, I know a lot of coaches look at the percentage they keep, and I get that, but I would also say that 80% of a big number is still more than 90% of a small number. In other words, if a certain platform has a system that, for whatever reasons, generates more donations, then it may be more 'profitable' to go that route, even if you are giving up a larger percentage of the revenue. Given this, I'd be curious if any of you have found that a certain platform has better participation rate than others or that people are more likely to donate with one platform over another. cqmiller - Who is the company you're going with now? We also do card sales as well as a golf outing. If we go with the online option it would become our big spring fundraiser. realdawg - Those are the three fundraisers we would end up using. I like the online option for the reasons you gave, pretty simple, minimal work relative to other options, and also gets us away from asking the same people we do for our other two fundraisers. We are fortunate in that we are in a pretty affluent area where I think this type of fundraiser will do well. |
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Post by cqmiller on Feb 15, 2022 11:29:39 GMT -6
coachp83 it is a local guy that used to work for Varsity Gold way back in the day. Company is called Flames 6 Incorporated. I can get you his info, but he works in the UT, ID, NV, WY, CO area. Places he can drive from here. When Varsity Gold blew-up 1000s of guys who used to work there created their own companies.
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Post by groundchuck on Feb 15, 2022 11:45:42 GMT -6
We used Adrenaline which was an off shoot of Varsity Gold. Sold cards. Was a good fundraiser.
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Post by stuffcoachessayvids on Feb 19, 2022 8:21:09 GMT -6
I have no experience w/ snap raise, etc.... BUT We used something called the giving zone which is a donation site and attached it to a liftathon and in turn made a weightlifting competition. Our kids asked for donations of a flat rate (whatever someone would give) or weight per pound. People felt like they were giving to something and encouraging guys to do their best as opposed to "here take my money". We then held a weight lifting competition and invited other schools. Our kids donations were their entry fee and the other kids paid a $25 entry fee which covered T-shirts and medals for weight classes. made it a "Friday night lights" event in March. Bench, Clean and Dead Lift. Called the giving zone a week later and they finalized everything. Our basketball coaches do a Free-throw Shoot-a-thon and set it up the same way.
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