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Page 8 of 13
Picking Pockets
Earlier in this guide skatepark advocates gained valuable experience building support for the skatepark as a concept. Now the advocate will leverage that support into financial contributions.
GRANTS PRIMER
Grants are an essential but sometimes complicated source of funds.
The act of fundraising can take one of many forms. Encouraging people to drop some spare change into a jar at a street fair relies on one kind of appeal, while meeting with a large
corporation’s public-relations department has a very different tone. Becoming comfortable with both extremes will help any advocate faced with raising money reach his or her financial goal.
Grassroots Fundraising
The number-one reason why people don’t contribute to a cause is because they aren’t asked. A grassroots fundraising effort is characterized almost exclusively by a relationship between individuals. In other words, person A, the advocate, is asking person B for a donation or to participate in a fundraising program. Person B may respond by immediately dropping a $5 bill into a jar, ignoring the advocate, asking a few questions, or wanting to know where they might verify the organization’s credentials or seek more information.
This approach to fundraising is great in that it raises awareness, puts a human face to the project, and establishes a personalized relationship with the potential donor. The downside, of course, is that it’s time-intensive and requires a lot of energy per dollar raised. If each person the advocate speaks with for five minutes gives five dollars, the entire $500,000 skatepark would be paid for in a “mere” 8,333 hours, or about four years of steady 9 to 5 contact. Even at $60 an hour it’s easy to see that grassroots fundraising is more about raising awareness than actually paying for the park.
Deep-Pocket Fundraising
The polar opposite of soliciting donations from friends and neighbors is seeking smaller numbers of donors that operate with millions of dollars annually. A donation of $10,000 from a local bank or supermarket chain equates
to about four weeks of nonstop door knocking (presuming that door knocking nets about $60 an hour). While it may take well over a month to negotiate a donation from a big sponsor, ambitious advocates may have lots of solicitations out at the same time.
Asking For Cash
Consider how many skateboarders there are in your community. Now consider that for every skater there probably is a mom, a dad, a grandpa, and a grandma. That means that the community could easily have quadrupled the number of skatepark supporters by including friends and families of skaters. For every 1,000 skateboarders there are possibly 4,000 immediate family members within easy reach of the skatepark message. Let’s presume there are 5,000 skateboarders in a typical mid-sized community. This would produce about 25,000 people directly related to a skateboarder.
Many people start their day with a $3 latte. Assuming they did this every weekday, they are spending almost $750 a year on coffee. If only half of these friends and families of skateboarders, 12,500 individuals, are interested in donating towards skateparks what they spend per annum in coffee there would be $9,375,000 in the skatepark account within the year. The good news is that the money is out there. The bad news is that it’s being spent
on coffee.
With few exceptions, everybody with money has had to work for it. At the end of a hard-earned pay period they cash their check and pay bills. Money is sent for utilities, various payments for home and auto, and the city, state, and federal governments skim some for taxes. Whatever is left pays for food, clothes, and so on. For most Americans it isn’t easy making ends meet.
Those regular coffee drinkers pay $3 and immediately receive a reward for their payment. Though the act of donating $3 a day toward a skatepark costs the same as buying coffee, the problem for advocates is that people don’t receive an immediate reward for their skatepark donation and are thus less motivated to contribute. With the coffee one can enjoy the rewards of the expense within a few minutes. This is one reason why it requires much more creativity to get a coffee drinker to forego their favorite drink and donate that $3 to your skatepark.
The most fundamental key to soliciting donations is producing rewards for those patrons. These incentives may be different for everyone. While one person may respond well to a carefully crafted appeal, another one may completely shut down. Soliciting donations is almost identical to soliciting general support for the skatepark; everyone has a good reason to donate funds, but it’s the advocate’s job to find it.
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