[Organizers] Ideas for revenue BEYOND the door entry price (Winston, Alan P.)

Tue Dec 4 13:45:51 PST 2018

This is in response to Emily's question,

We are fledging contra dance group in Tri-Cites, WA.  This was our first
year bringing contra back after a 5 year hiatus for lack of volunteers.  We
are a fairly inexperienced group and coordinating the dances, but we're
committed!

We do one contra dance a month, and have a raffle with items we've had
donated by local businesses It does not bring in much revenue, but we only
average about 24-28 in attendance.  Depending on the item, we make between
$20-40.   We do have to have a license with our State's gambling commission
which has its own cost and labor involved.  We will decide mid-year when
our license has to be renewed if its worth the effort and expense.

Thanks,
Terri

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 1:24 PM Claire Takemori via Organizers <
organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Alan,
> Actually Amweek last year applied for a CDSS grant to help us cover
> scholarships and the change in registration pricing for last year.
> We went from $700/person to a sliding scale and we were not sure that we
> would get enough full & over-paying folks to cover the lower-income folks
> and scholarships.
> We were able to use the funds to bring in a new to the scene band that has
> grown in leaps and bounds over the past year & half and will be the band
> for our NY Eve dance this year.
>
> Claire Takemori (also BACDS dancer, caller, organizer, cat herder)
>
> On Dec 4, 2018, at 1:11 PM, organizers-request at lists.sharedweight.net
> wrote:
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>   1. Re: Ideas for revenue BEYOND the door entry price
>      (Winston, Alan P.)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2018 20:17:53 +0000
> From: "Winston, Alan P." <winston at slac.stanford.edu>
> To: "organizers at lists.sharedweight.net"
>         <organizers at lists.sharedweight.net>
> Subject: Re: [Organizers] Ideas for revenue BEYOND the door entry
>         price
> Message-ID: <1fe10a73-16b7-4643-f29a-068300982101 at slac.stanford.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bay Area Country Dance Society:
>
> - Offers various levels of membership with no additional perks beyond the
> entry-level (and that perk is a $2 discount on admission to regular dances,
> but given that we also have a "pay what you can" option at those dances you
> don't really save any money on buying a membership).
>
> - On the membership form there's also an opportunity to donate for
> targeted funds, eg youth scholarships, need-based scholarships.  (Youth
> scholarship money then goes to get under-30 people to our camps and
> weekends, in hopes of encouraging a new generation of contra and English
> dancers.)
>
> - As a 501c3 gifts are tax-deductible, and we've occasionally been given
> something and had an employer match it.  We don't have a development
> division and we don't solicit donations or being named in wills, but
> sometimes people give us money anyway.
>
> - We're working on  implementation, but people have tried to give us money
> through Amazon Smile (where a percentage of your purchases goes to your
> designated nonprofit recipient if they provide Amazon with routing numbers,
> etc) and we think we're going to do that.  (I personally feel awkward
> soliciting people to give our dance organization money through a specific
> mechanism that could be benefiting organizations that save lives.)
>
> - We hold three dance weeks (American Week, English Week / Hey Days,
> Family Week), one contra weekend (Balance the Bay), one English Weekend
> (Fall Frolick).  The camps and the English Weekend all have auctions which
> often include items like dance/tune compositions, services (accordion
> serenade), crafts, and camper-made jams, etc.  The camps don't always make
> money but the auctions make it likelier that they will, and when they do
> make money it's usually enough to offset losses in other areas of the
> organization.  (When a week-long residential camp tanks badly, it loses a
> lot of money.  A non-residential weekend where food isn't provided has
> fixed costs (staff, sound, staff travel, rent) which put a cap on how much
> you can lose and have potentially large upside once the fixed costs are
> covered.)
>
> - We sponsor a number of performance teams.  Many cover their expenses via
> member dues and busking.  Mayfield Morris, when it was active, collected no
> dues but spent a lot of energy on various fundraisers which enabled even
> less-flush team members to participate in team trips to distant morris
> ales, England, etc.  The team ran an annual garage sale and a series of
> afternoon teas with entertainment.
>
> We've never applied for a grant as far as I know.
>
> Queer Contra would count the door money before the end of the evening and
> if they weren't making rent or couldn't pay the band well enough they'd
> have an announcement about the shortfall and pass the hat for more
> contributions, which worked out satisfactorily as far as I know.
>
> -- Alan
>
>
>
>
> On 12/4/18 8:25 AM, Emily Addison via Organizers wrote:
> Hi fellow shared weight organizers :)
>
> Wearing my CDSS hat, I'm wondering ----> Does your dance have sources of
> revenue BEYOND the door entry price???
>
> A few great ideas were shared at the October CDSS Executive community
> meeting in Toronto and we're looking for more! Do you have successful
> experience with:
>
>  *   sponsorships (individual/company/other)
>  *   grants
>  *   donations (collected at the dance OR one-off/ongoing donor programs)
>  *   other fundraising (e.g., pie/cake sales anyone?)
>  *   membership
>  *   merch ? that make money?
>  *   special events ? that make money?
>  *   other?
>
> I'm pulling together a curated collection of success stories on this
> subject for CDSS that will then be shared back out early in the new year. I
> would love to hear your ideas and if you know of someone I should talk to
> about this, please let me know.
>
> Thanks!
> Emily
> PS -  I asked shared weight about posters/flyers last month and so wanted
> to update you that that collection will be available in January.  I'm just
> waiting on a few more contributions.
>
>
>
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