How to organise your Rowing Club fundraising in 2015
Failing to plan means planning to fail, and rowing clubs are no exception. Need to raise funds to achieve your goals as a club? Well let\’s get to it!
At the end of this we\’ll give you two downloadable documents to help you plan your year. But first, some research…
1. Know when you\’re busy and when you\’re quiet.
Look at all the regattas you\’re going to compete in, the weeks where your training is most intense, and even when the biggest holidays are in your local area throughout the year. List those dates and keep updating them as the year goes on.
This will help you see where you\’ll have time to spend on fundraising, because when these things come up the whole club should be as involved as possible. It\’s also helpful to know when you\’ll be most active and might need some cash in the bank for extra gear or flights.
2. Know when you\’ll need to spend money.
Look at those key dates you just wrote down. Now look at the gear in your shed and the current status of your rowing club. After checking those out you should have a rough idea of what you need to buy throughout the year.
Put a small list of purchase point dates down. Those will be your fundraising target deadlines!
3. Split up your fundraising into targets. (small, medium & large > for kids, adults or masters).
Look at those deadlines you need to make and think of how much you plan to spend at each milestone, and on what. Split the funding up into small, medium and large amounts and then organize them into fundraising for kids/juniors/ novices, adults and masters.
Now you can look at say, deadline #6 and see that you need to get your masters joined together to raise funds for their trip to say, Head of the Charles. Schedule a fundraising activity from our earlier blog posts that fits a group of masters rowers for a month before that deadline and you\’re golden! That\’ll give you extra time to raise the cash and make sure you get a good deal of training in before your races.
4. Think about the sponsors you\’d like.
Make a list of local businesses who\’d benefit from supporting you and vice versa. These could be your target sponsors for the year. Center the values of your rowing club around their products and services to get their attention and think of a few joint fundraising projects you could do alongside them as a partner.
Now you\’re ready to take a look at your planning sheets!
Stick to your scheduled set of activities and plan each one so targets are met or event exceeded! THIS is our formula to get your rowing club on track and staying there.
Struggling with fundraising ideas? We do a fundraising activity blog post every quarter and you can find all our past ideas here.
