OK, the folks at United for DC have approached me about what ideas they can use for raising money for United for DC. They are currently raising money in three main ways: - soliciting donations - jersey auctions - golf tournament What other ways would be good to raise money for the foundation? An idea was raised similar to Olie and Elliotts Great Saves program where you could pledge money per save from Nick or win from the team. Maybe a donation for every goal your favorite player scores? Any other ideas one events you would like to see that would go to raising money for United for DC? Any other auction ideas you would like to see? I have suggested "Become a DC player for a day". Any others? Come on folks - flex your creative minds!
Have a promotion at one of the games where the DC Stadium Authority donate a percentage of all beer sales to United for DC! Kill two birds with one stone! Help a charity, kill the weaker brain cells.
Try auctioning off more than just jerseys at a viewing party with players and coaches present. Find a nice big place to hold it and have a cover charge to get in.
Have "Fantasy Camp" like baseball and hockey do. In the offseason, spend a weekend training like a United player, maybe even with a couple of players, with the United technical staff.
Great Saves would be good. If you did it for the same charity and tried to get Elliott (and Olie) involved, you might be able to get Nick and Elliott's Great Saves. Player for a Day would be great! There is an old classic that is quite time-consuming (but often yields some small amounts of funds): Have each player choose a charity of their choice. Get jars/buckets whatever and have them at a table in the concourse somewhere. Fans can toss money into the bucket for each player's charity. At the end of the season (or whatever period this runs for...maybe a month with several home games), the funds are donated to the player's charity (in the name of the player, I guess). The player with the most money donated to his charity gets something or other as a reward. Another old classic: Sell beer. (This one pretty much works every time.) Throwing a party is usually pretty good too. The Christmas ornament idea you've posted elsewhere sounds like a good one. In general, selling exclusive merchandise in limited quantities might be their best bet to generate profit. If they can get car flags printed in small quantities (say 100 or so), then they will probably sell out. (MLS probably has a flag licensee who wouldn't like that though). If they could get ties printed in small quantities, the would probably sell out. It's these kind of otherwise unavailable things that might work really well for them.
Dinner, clubbing or movie dates with players for the ladies (Ladies in the Screaming Eagles won an evening with Ryan Nelsen awhile back). Players could also do an individual afternoon golf outing at a local public course for three or four people. There's probably a bunch of liability issues here but I thought I'd toss this out for the heck of it. Bill-DC
To raise you money you call people and ask for it. Events can raise some, but are very difficult to pull off (ask Catherine about the golf tournament) and can cost a lot. They also raise the visibility of the organization, generate a buzz, and have other benefits -- but if all you need is money, events aren't always the way to go. Direct mail is a money loser for about five years, until the list is fully developed. The trick is to find a hook around which to call (a dinner, something vaguely formal and relatively easy to pull off), and get a couple of people willing to call in favors by selling tables or seats for $100 - $25,000. Get Kevin, Stephen, etc. on the phone and call in favors. Checks won't get written for the cause (there's lots of good causes) or the event (there's lots of good events) but because a friend asked. Another tactic is grant writing -- get someone who knows how to ask rich foundations for money to do good stuff. This money tends to come in chunks, but can take a while (foundations have funding cycles, many are hurting because of the market, etc.) All that said, I always thought a pro-am foosball tournament would be fun. For $100 (or something) you buy a DC United player as a foosball partner, and have a tournament -- how cool would it be to have The Pope playing defense for you? I have a little experience in fundraising and events, and am happy to help. - Peter
"Rent a Player" for youth teams. They could "rent" a player to be on the sidelines with your particular youth team for one of your games.
One of my favorite fundraising events is the Philadelphia Flyers Wives Fight For Lives Carnival. Basically the wives (and girlfriends) of the players, coaches and ex-players get together and organize a carnival in the arena (donated by the team), and they have various carnival games and events run by the players and their wives. It gives fans the chance to meet, get autographs from the players, throw down money on games, buy stuff, bid on stuff, etc. Maybe DC United can run a scaled down version of this.
you could put Ray Hudson in the dunking booth. Or Octavio Zambrano in a dunking booth at Clint Mathis' house. P.S. My office recently raffled $5 tickets for a number of goofy prizes (your office voice mail greeting recorded by your boss, etc.) and they raised quite a bit of money.
Fantasy Camp 500 - 1000 bucks for a scaled down version of training camp complete with your own official DC kit, campers split into home and away teams (though given both kits) play at halftime of season opener. I am in for 1 spot.
have people volunteer to sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts along the way to the stadium..alot of groups sell Krispy kremes as fundraisers and i wouldn't mind chowing down on a box of doughnuts during a game although I'm sure there would have to be something worked out with the Stadium to allow this food in...so well knowing the stadium folks we can forget this idea
fund raising One of the many ideas I had before I left Crewville to move to DC was to try to see if the Crew players would be interested in posing for a calander to raise money for one of the AIDS Service organizations in Columbus. (there was one done using local models and was highly successful) A little beefcake can go along way to raise some funds.... Another one, and MUCH easier to organize is a celebrity bartender/waiter night at a local bar/restaurant. Fairly low overhead, and usually causes some buzz from the media... One thing the Crew organization did was to help non profits raise money was to have organizations do ticket sales and then the Crew would donate a percentage of the ticket cost to the charity selling the tickets. (we did this for our AIDSWalk as well as another individual AIDS Service organization.) It is a great way to market the team as well as raise some money.
Allow me to clarify, as I remember scoffing when I brought this up before. The participants would be coached by the DC Staff and have the opportunity to meet past and present members of the team. The participants would, for one week, "become" D.C. United. We would follow the same schedule, do out of shape adult versions of the daily activities, and have intrasquad scrimmages. This would follow in the ilk of the very successful fantasy camps run by other professional teams, mostly baseball, and would satisfy our desire to truly live the dream, at least for a week. Maybe 2 grand for all of this. Oh, and please god, don't let me get the Traskmaster as my coach.
To all: Thanks for your thoughts! We'll be reviewing this early this offseason as we make plans for 2003. If anyone wants to reach me directly to discuss anything, please feel free: 703-397-5443 or cmarquette@mlsnet.com. Thanks! Catherine Catherine S. Marquette Director of Community & Fan Relations, D.C. United Executive Director, United for D.C.