Questions for phone conversation with Aspen re: lessons learned from POWER's bowlathon.

[Nikki]

The following is a short list of questions that I prepared for the
phone conversation that Manish and I will have with Aspen of Power re:
lessons learned from Power's bowlathon which I want to share with you
for any comments you have or additional questions folks in the working
group might want to have asked during the brief 15 minute phone
conversation. My terminology might be a little rugged as I don't hold
degrees in finance or business.

1) We have been discussing potentially holding a walkathon. I've been
trying to come up with a more creative or less common type of athon
that still has mass appeal so that it would not be a limiting factor
in the number of participants, sponsors and donors. Do you have any
suggestions for attractive alternatives to a walkathon that isn't cost
prohibitive to put on?

2) Do you use some ratio of cost to potential estimated income to
decide what is your net financial goal for a bowlathon event?
Approximately how close do you come to the goal you set for your
bowlathons?

3) What factors go into setting the registration fees, minimum funding
goals of each team captain, each team, each team member or individual
who registers for your bowlathon? Do you perform a gross cost analysis
and use that to calculate the different funding tiers?

4) What forms of outreach do you use to advertise the bowlathon to
potential participants, sponsors, donors and the community?

5) Do prizes create enough incentive to bring in numbers of
participants in surplus of expectations or to create an atmosphere of
competition for existing participants to put in the extra energy in
gaining donors in numbers to make the cost of the prizes worth
offering them?

6) Other than the cost of outreach, bowling alley charges and prizes
what are some of the other major costs that you incur when holding a
bowlathon?

7) Is there anything else that is of significance that you would like
to share with us but haven't asked?

8) May I pass a few ideas for unusual athons by you to hear your
feedback as to their potential?

Manish and I will greatly appreciate your input,

Nikki

[pike on a bike]

Just for the sake of putting it out there, I was thinking we could maybe do a field day as our "big unifying event." It's free, there's lots of different stuff people can do, it's fun, and it can be done in other places that want to raise money with us, too...
what do people think?

Pike

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[Nikki]

Pike, 

I think that our thinking is somewhat along the same lines except that what I'm thinking would not be cost free. I have been thinking that a great strategy and probably a lot of fun along with a lot of work would be to have what I would term a multi-eventathon with multiple athons or events going on at the same time, some in close proximity to one another and others at different localities. The advantage of an event like this is obvious which is that it would have a very large appeal over a wide spectrum of people, donors and participants as well as draw a lot of interest from the media due to its unusual nature in the world of athons and a lot of community participation since it is so broad. The downside is that it will probably have a big labor and financial cost to put on. But with some of the connections and ingenuity that members of SLM and their associates have, we might be able to cut down on the financial cost aspect. We might also winnow down on the number of event types to the least costly to put on. Are we more or less talking about the same basic concept but using different tittles for it? You brought a similar idea up several meetings ago and it was put on hold for another time due to concern about extensive labor and cost input and some members feeling that we should do an easy one first to get the hang of it. I lean toward a multi-eventathon or field day as you call it as it would be a real kick to put on, draw more people, probably be a blast to participate in if planned well and can be put on in conjunction with other places that want to raise money with us as you mentioned.  Why not go big for a unifying event? We can make it a tribute to Claes Oldenburg who's renowned for his monumental sculpture. This would be my choice as far as athons go. I believe that we are to some degree thinking along the same lines. Yes or no?

Nikki

[Manish Vaidya]

Thanks for writing up those questions, Nikki!
 
Is it ok for Nikki and me to talk to Aspen this Friday and report-back to the group? (Our group didn't decide who would talk to Aspen, so I just want to check and make sure it's ok.)



I think this is a great list of q's, and that won't be able to answer all of them, plus our follow-up q's, in 15 minutes.

So how bout we combine the q's into a few general categories and cut some of the ones that we can get answers to somewhere else?

In my head, it would look something like this:

1) What (if any) other a-thon's did you consider doing, and why did you ultimately decide to do a bowlathon?

2) Technical pieces: Walk us through the bowlathon: How much did it cost, and what were the biggest expenses? How much did you raise? From how many people? How many teams did you have? How many people per team? What was the fundraising goal per tema? What was the net income from the event, and from what sources?

3) What are the key lessons you learned from doing this? What worked? What felt hard? What would you change?


xo
manish

PS Pike- SONG (Southerners On New Ground) totally did a field day event (http://www.southernersonnewground.org/2008/06/206/) called Dick Dyke and Drag Derby...not as a fundraiser, but still. If you want to talk w/ them about how they organized it, lemme know and I'll connect you.

---

Date: Sun, 8 May 2011 21:20:19 -0700
Subject: Re: Questions for phone conversation with Aspen re: lessons learned from POWER's bowlathon.
From: vega...@gmail.com
To: save-lyon-martin-fund...@googlegroups.com
CC: socialju...@hotmail.com

[pike on a bike]

All sounds great to me. Thanks you two!

P.

[Nikki]

Thanks for breaking the questions down into bite size pieces, Manish

I can answer one part of one of the included questions. The goal per team was $750 and it was $150 per individual. Here's a link to Power's bowlathon registration forms, set-up and general working forms to give you a partial idea of how they organized the event.

www.peopleorganized.org/downloads/2010%20Bowlathon%20Materials.pdf

Nikki

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 11:01 PM, Manish Vaidya <socialju...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[chvaza]

Thanks Nikki, Pike and Manish for working on this.  I look forward to the results of the conversation. I checked out the link and read Nikki's questions - put I just want to be clear - PIKE - when you say Field Day do you mean an afternoon of multiple "track and field" events - like broad jumping, relay race, high jump etc.? c . --- On Sun, 5/8/11, pike on a bike <vega...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: pike on a bike <vega...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Questions for phone conversation with Aspen re: lessons learned from POWER's bowlathon.

To: save-lyon-martin-fund...@googlegroups.com Date: Sunday, May 8, 2011, 11:05 PM

All sounds great to me. Thanks you two! P.

[Pike On A Bike]

Hi! Yes, I'm thinking something akin to those field days of elementary school where there are lots of silly games and contests, only we could modify it to include as many different activities as we want. Maybe we could even invite "celebrity" hosts for various events...

Also, people can do stuff like yoga-thons, massage-offs, tai-chi throwdowns or whatever they wanted... we just need to get some fun, dynamic people to commit to bottom-lining an activity and the work does itself! Well, kind of ;)

What do folks think? Something like this could totally happen "informally" somewhere like portrero del sol or even golden gate park, so we may even be able to avoid permitting fees.

Anyway, we can discuss it tomorrow... just wanted to say its been bouncing around in my head.

Hugs,

Pike

chvaza <chv...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Elizabeth Sekera]

I really like this idea Pike!! I think it should have some sort of common
denominator so all people feel as though they are part of a larger effort
but this really opens up the possibilities. es

Elizabeth Sekera, RN
Clinic Director
Lyon-Martin Health Services
Ph: (415) 565-7667, ext. 320
Fax: (415) 252-7512