Where does your college club get funding?

[TrojanMD]

Tournaments we host are basically considered fundraisers.

Keep in mind, it often takes a couple of years for a Collegiate "Fundraising" tournament to actually *MAKE* money. The one my old uni hosts has really only done better than breaking even the last 5 years. (and it's been around over a decade)

Now the problem is convincing them to give up some of the profit to make the necessary adjustments for running a successful event...

[Beowulfman6]

Keep in mind, it often takes a couple of years for a Collegiate "Fundraising" tournament to actually *MAKE* money. The one my old uni hosts has really only done better than breaking even the last 5 years. (and it's been around over a decade)

Now the problem is convincing them to give up some of the profit to make the necessary adjustments for running a successful event...

Yeah, this is basicly where we are at, in our second year of being a USFA club we don't make a huge profit from tournamnts. All we need though is one big one and then maybee it will take off!

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Does the AD at Smith care about the fencing club's results, like win/loss records, individual & team performance, etc.?

W

No. Not in the slightest.

Thanks for all of the input. I am actualy surprised at how much some clubs charge in dues. We have alwayse believed that fencing was expensive neough without charging our members dues, although we have discussed it from time to time. Based on what I am seeing I'm starting to think that we rely too heavily on SGA money. If we charged club dues of $40 we would probably lose half of our fencers, and our fundraisers have not proven as sucessfull as we would have liked.

UMass asks for $200. Smith asks for $100. When one of my friends from a public university asked me how we fund things, and I gave him a figure for dues, he said there was no way he could ask for money given where he goes to school, my first response was the bit about UMass.

Secondarily, when we tell everyone what dues are, we also tell people that if they have problems paying, to come talk to us. If they're not getting checks in until a week after dues are due, if they will be paying in installments, if they're paying for all of college themself and are a bit strapped for cash......... Depending on individual circumstances, we will have different expectations for dues.

That's what makes it actually work.

[Go? Fencing?]

We get money from student government... now. For a few years before I came we apparantly weren't getting funding cause we failed two audits, but now with new club officers we're funding. We also might be doing some fundraisers, and we don't charge dues.

[umbrella]

Do they get Title IX or is it X money? If they can prove equality or something under federal laws, they may get money from Title nine, which endows scholar-athletes. After that you may have to tap into your alumni association create a fund-raising event of all former fencers from the last 10 years and throw a bash, ask for a contribution/donation of $50 - $100 to go into the new fencing club. Have your fencers present at the event to meet your alumni. Highlight their achievements thusfar in a presentation during dinner speaches and tally-ho you're on your way. Repeat the event every year and target it for about 7 months before nationals so you can bring along extra fencers [your second stringers], or extra equipment.

[Linkthealmighty]

I'm from the same club as Beowulf and I thought I'd throw in just for reference that our club is relatively small and not the most dedicated of people in some cases. Not sure if that factors in at all but I thought I'd bring it up. Thanks again for all the suggestions, I think dues might be coming along for our club too. Also, Go? Fencing?, how big is your school/club? From the sound of what you posted our schools might have similar systems, I'd love to compare notes sometime about how things are run.

[Dragon]

funds are always a problem. at hookedon fencing we are in the middle of a great raffle.

visit www.hookedonfencing.org to see how you can buy raffle tickets for a trip to ARUBA!!!!!!!

[sertafu]

I'm from the same club as Beowulf and I thought I'd throw in just for reference that our club is relatively small and not the most dedicated of people in some cases. Not sure if that factors in at all but I thought I'd bring it up. Thanks again for all the suggestions, I think dues might be coming along for our club too. Also, Go? Fencing?, how big is your school/club? From the sound of what you posted our schools might have similar systems, I'd love to compare notes sometime about how things are run.

Sounds like you guys have similar problems to our club. Regardless of how you are getting funds, you really need to have a dedicated president and treasurer to make sure funds are actually acquired. If you charge dues, someone usually needs to hound the people that haven't paid. We usually get a huge influx of freshmen at the beginning of the year, with maybe 5 of them actually sticking around regularly after a few months, so we try to collect dues by their second week. Given the steep dropoff, this can mean a difference of a few hundred dollars.

Going through the student gov't/other college funding bodies route often requires following your money requests through many different people and lots of paperwork. We have started pulling all our funds out of university accounts and into a private club account as soon as they are allocated because it was taking several weeks to process the paperwork every time we wanted to make an equipment order.

[Jay Kominek]

University of Colorado gets money from the Club Sports program (all the students on campus vote to charge themselves a few hundred dollars each semester, which gets divvied up amongst the club sports), $35/semester membership fees, about $200/semester for teaching a beginning fencing class (not worth it for the money, but it is our primary recruiting mechanism), and the money we take in from hosting division tournaments, or running our own.

I'm not in charge of money, so I don't know what the percentage break down is. I'm under the impression that the club sports money pays for maintaining the equipment status quo; all the rest is the only place we make a profit of any sort.

[Go? Fencing?]

Also, Go? Fencing?, how big is your school/club? From the sound of what you posted our schools might have similar systems, I'd love to compare notes sometime about how things are run.

My school is about 1500, the club has about 6 people who come almost every time, and about half a dozen more who come occaisionally.

[Beowulfman6]

My school is about 1500, the club has about 6 people who come almost every time, and about half a dozen more who come occaisionally.

Well we have about half the total number of students, but our fencing clubs are the same size.