Fundraising

[Christine Thorne]

How long before your scheduled event should fundraising begin?

[aschachat]

I don't think there is any set time, the sooner the better.

Andy Schachat
asch...@ttlc.net
Dover, N.H.
(603)767-2518

[Jay]

Hi Christine,

I think that Andy is right - the sooner the better.

Many companies operate on a calendar year basis, at least in regard to
their charitable donations and sponsorships. If you get to them too
late in the year, you may hear that they have expended all their
allocated funds for sponsorships/donations for the year (sometimes
that is just a convenient excuse, and easier than saying 'no'). Your
race is early in April, so starting to look for sponsors at the
beginning of the calendar year doesn't give you much time at all.
Start the previous summer/fall, and if a company tells you that they
have expended their funds for the year, ask if they will commit to
giving you a check in January from the following year's funds.

It also never hurts to ask a sponsor for a multi-year commitment. They
are tough to get, but if you can get one or two, they will reduce the
fundraising burden in the following years.

Jay

[Steve Moland]

My personal feeling is that most races start working on things too late by
half. IE 2 to 4 months should be 4 to 8.

There are reasons. If nothing else the running industry is in the biggest
boom ever, and resourses available for races is not going to be growing in
time.

The good news is that there are plenty of runners and the runners appear to
be willing to run more races per year than they did just a few years ago.

There are more good races than a runner can make it too, so lots of them are
planning what to run much earlier. This is particularly for women who bare
the burden of having to manage the kids and their now more active life
style. If your race isn't hanging around ready to be selected, you loose
with at least one faction of runners. Women are now the dominent number of
runners at a race.

The time to put up a calendar listing for next year is the day after this
years race, if you know the date. You may not have permits yet but a
calendar listing a guarantee to anyone on the planet that you have to
deliver a race on that day. You don't have to have your website ready, or
registration ready, nothing needs to be ready.

When you don't put up race results you leave a hole in the calendar(runners
often look for races based on results existing in a prior year because they
know most smaller races are very sloppy about putting up calendar listing
until very late)

When you don't put up a calendar listing ASAP, you leave a hole in the
calendar for your date and geographic area.

And what happens when there is a hole in the calender? Bingo, you win the
cookie. Some yet to exist race picks your date to start their race or some
other established race with a venue conflict chooses your date to move to.

Just like annimals who pee to stake out there territory, you need to stake
out your events territory (your date)

So it is with fund raising. Either you are standing in the door of a
potential donor or somebody else is. The early bird gets the worm.

I have a conflict of interest in the following, but it is all very true none
the less. More and more races have figured that having chip timing,
formalized announcing and music, start finish line bridges, trusses and
banner towers make for better attended races.

The chip timing companies love the ease and income of chip timing and are
less inclined to want to take on manually timed smaller races. They will do
some but then those will be races who get moving early.

As to announcing and race venue equipment, there are not enough resourses
available and the demand is growing very fast.

Promotion, fund raising, and getting good volunteers is all about starting
early, and getting committements early from runners, donors and especially
volunteers. Volunteers have other lives, they will plan some activity on
your race date unless you get them to commit to your date early. A "yes"
from them comes much easier when their calendar is open. Start early
because most of your competitors won't.

Regards
Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:road-race-directo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of
Christine Thorne
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 10:41 AM
To: Road Race Directors of Northern N.E.