• Executive Directors Column
• Coordinator Expansion Underway
• Dear Booster
• Vendor of the Month - The One Minute Shopper
• Seeking Nationwide Support
• Do-It Yourself Fundraiser
• Spotlight of the Month - Charity Mania
• Fast Facts

BUILDING SUCCESSFUL BOOSTER CLUBS
This month my article continues with the third of four topics related to addressing the four greatest areas that challenge booster clubs. The remaining topic will continue in December.

Booster Club Challenge #4: (Fundraising part III)

Preparation
When holding a fundraiser you can never be too prepared. In preparing for your upcoming fundraiser remember to include the following steps:

Prior proper planning: All successful fundraiser's require prior planning. Make sure that your group allows sufficient time to properly conduct all of the necessary tasks prior to your fundraising event. On average, starting the initial pre-event planning process a minimum of 2 to 4 months prior to the actual fundraising event is vital.

Be sure that your pre-event planning should includes:
Reaching a realistic fundraising goal. A few elements to keep in mind when developing your fundraising goal:

1. The type of product to be sold.
2. The number of people who will be involved in the actual fundraiser, and
3. The length of time to raise the funds. Example: Your group has 10 people who decide on a fundraising goal of $7,500 over a 2 week period. These three factors will help you to best determine what kind of fundraiser will fit and what won’t.

I wish each of you the best of success.
Happy Boostering!

Steve M. Beden
President

Enroll Your Club

Dear Booster........

The NABCA is now recruiting Area Coordinators nationwide.
- Unlimited opportunity
- No competition
- Part-time or Full-time
- Help make a difference in your community!

To find out more email us your contact information and one of our qualified staff members will personally contact you or click here to learn more: Coordinator Opportunity

Dear Booster,
Over the past few months I have continued to read articles in our local newspaper that our school district is considering possible cutbacks, which may include some of the sports and music programs at the high school level. Is there anything that the parents can do to circumvent this challenge?
Tara J.
Apache Junction, AZ

Dear Tara,
The challenge your community is facing is one that others around the country also face in growing numbers. From coast to coast school districts are facing ever tightening budgets. Just consider the fact of the rising gas prices. Most school districts establish budgets in excess of a year in advance. If you give thoughts to the price of gas 2 years ago and then think what it is now you will realize that schools are possibly paying 50% or more than what they had budgeted.

As parents and especially boosters we can play a very important role in helping school districts to lessen the challenge. Start today by letting your school administrators and especially the school board members know that your booster group is ready, if needed to help in anyway possible. Contact leaders from other boosters and ask them to do the same. Don’t wait until the school district announces that cutbacks have been made. You must play a pro-active role, before the decisions are made.

It’s important to remember that until they see an alternative to cutbacks you face a daunting challenge. It’s also important that you realize most school board members and even administrators really don’t understand the value and the benefit a booster club can provide.

Let me point to a real-world example. Last fall the school district announced that the school bond had failed and so they were going to cut back on sports and music programs. By the time the announcement had hit the paper the cuts had been made. What happened after is something that we see repeated in communities from coast to coast.

The parents became so enraged they demanded to be heard. The school district called a meeting and after 3 hours of heated tempers, finger pointing and a great deal of heated exchanges the school board agreed that it would re-assess the situation and call a follow up meeting to discuss possible alternative plans. A few weeks later the school board announced that if the community wanted to continue the sports and music programs it would have to raise a sizable amount of money, by a certain deadline date.

The end of this story is that the parents and boosters rallied together and raised the necessary funds to keep their kids in the sports and music programs. The sad thing is that this story is not an isolated situation and it is one that can be circumvented if you take the initial steps to help bring awareness and support.

Send us your Dear Booster.... article and we will select one each month to share with the readers of Booster Trends. To submit your email send to: dearbooster@boostercentral.org.

T.O.M.S. - The One Minute Shopper
The North American Booster Club Association has partnered with the best and most convenient home food delivery service in America, The One Minute Shopper (T.O.M.S.), a division of American Frozen Foods, Inc. It’s an exciting, simple, year round fundraiser offering premium quality beef, pork, fish and poultry products affordably delivered to your home or office.

T.O.M.S. products are portioned at 3 – 5oz. as recommended by the USDA for healthy consumption. They are trimmed to eliminate waste, vacuum packed and flash frozen to preserve freshness, and are simply the finest products available. The products are packaged in containers of dry ice and delivered via Federal Express or UPS to your choice of destination. With T.O.M.S. you can save on shopping trips, gas, impulse purchases and most of all your valuable time.

Once the families of students experience the quality, convenience and affordability of these products, we believe that they will continue to reorder. As a result, T.O.M.S. brings you a fundraiser that is truly ongoing. Your Boosters Club will receive continuous funds on each order week after week, month after month, even year after year. The T.O.M.S. program merely replaces products that families are already purchasing, so why not invest those dollars where they can help your child’s school fundraiser program .

There are ten delicious programs at the delivered price of $99.00, of which $10.00 goes to your school Booster Club. Go on line at www.tomsnbca.com and check out the delicious variety of programs.

NABCA Advocate - This is an ideal opportunity for anyone with contacts to local booster clubs, teams and businesses. The NABCA Advocate position does not require you to make any commitment other than your interest to periodically refer the NABCA to local booster clubs, teams and businesses. NABCA Advocates receive a commission or override for simply referring the association’s services to booster clubs, teams and businesses. This is an outstanding opportunity for any person who understands the role that extracurricular activities play in shaping our society. If you would like to register and become an NABCA Advocate, please email your contact information or visit BoosterWorld and register today.

Area Coordinators - The NABCA is now seeking individuals who would like to assist local clubs, teams and businesses. This is an ideal opportunity for anyone looking for an opportunity to work part-time, or looking to help make a difference in your community. Coordinators will receive high commissions for introducing the association’s services to businesses, schools and parent organizations. This is an outstanding opportunity for any person who understands the role that extracurricular activities play in shaping our society. If you would like to register and become an NABCA Advocate, please email your contact information or visit BoosterWorld and register today.

Club Coordinators - The NABCA is seeking individuals who are currently working with or involved with a booster club or extracurricular program. This is an ideal opportunity for anyone currently involved with a club, team or extracurricular program and who would like to turn the time you are spending into an opportunity to receive prizes, awards, recognition and compensation. Club Coordinators simply do what they are currently doing, nothing more. If you would like to register for the position of Club Coordinator, please email your name, club affiliation, city and state. Email us today at marketing@boostercentral.org

Horse Show-Barrel Racing
A team that I was on to raise money for the Relay For Life cancer fund, had tremendous success with a unique fundraiser that we did a couple of weeks ago. We had a horse show/barrel racing event. Each participant was charged an entry fee for practicing, as well as participating in the horse show itself. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were given cash prizes in "x" amount for each place. We not only charged a small amount at the door to attend the show, but we also sold concessions (hotdogs, candy, chips) and also sold chances on donated door prizes. All in all, by the end of the night, our team had raised just short of $2,000. So I highly recommend this for a fundraising event, if you, or anyone you know deals with rodeos or anything like that.

This months article comes from the Fundraising Ideas and Products Center.

Charity Mania

CharityMania’s mission is to help non-profit organizations raise money and build community involvement. We do this by providing inexpensive, easy-to-manage fundraisers that are fun to play.

How CharityMania began
In 1994, we created FootballMania for our parish in Southern California to help raise money for our youth activity programs. It was a lot of fun and a huge success. Two years later, after numerous requests from other interested non-profit organizations, we decided to offer FootballMania nationally and make it available over the web. The response we received was overwhelming. Non-profit organizations from all over the country, such as schools, parishes, youth sports teams, police unions, firefighter unions, and fraternal organizations began using FootballMania to raise money for their good causes. It was really exciting and gratifying to see how much we helped these organizations.

At this time we decided to form CharityMania LLC and devote our time to helping non-profit organizations raise money and build community involvement. One of the first things CharityMania did was expanded the types of fundraisers we offered so that a broader group of organizations could participate. HoopsMania and BaseballMania were born and quickly rivaled FootballMania in popularity. Over the last few years we introduced a number of new games, such as RacingMania and HockeyMania, to appeal to all types of organizations and geographic regions in the United States.

Success Stories
CharityMania fundraisers have been a huge success for a wide variety of non-profit organizations. Many of our larger organizations that participate, such as police unions, parishes, and larger schools, have used CharityMania fundraisers to raise $45,000 to $75,000 each year. Some of our smaller organizations, like youth sports teams and smaller schools, have used CharityMania to raise $2,000 to $15,000 each year. Regardless of the participating organization’s size, most have told us that CharityMania fundraisers have been very profitable, easy to manage, and most importantly, a lot of fun for the people who buy the raffle tickets. Want more information? Learn more about our fundraisers.

Call us: 858-792-5078
E-mail: inquiry@charitymania.com
Visit: www.charitymania.com