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
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:
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.
- 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?
Thanks!EmilyPS - 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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