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Road Well-Traveled
The realization that skaters will have to raise money sometimes discourages skatepark advocates who may already feel a little frazzled from managing negative public perceptions surrounding their cause. Building support, as mentioned earlier, requires that the advocate’s message expresses inevitability and is delivered with tenacity. This commitment to the skatepark project is an aspect of mature, responsible advocacy.
However, presenting the project as “responsible” indicates that we’re all in this together and that the skatepark is a truly collaborative effort. Funding the skatepark is usually the most difficult and challenging stage in getting it built. Anybody can ask for a gift, but the responsible approach is to accept that all members of the community will need to come together and contribute to this project. Naturally, this includes skateboarders.
Every man-made element of a city’s landscape was paid for in one way or another. Sometimes the structure owes its existence to a single donor and, as is more often the case, the project was built with the support of an elaborate and broad partnership between many entities. From the City or Park Department’s standpoint, a skatepark is no different from any other public recreational facility.
How Much?
Skateparks aren’t free. Every service, study, planning meeting, and report costs money to create. The actual design and construction of the facility are only part of the overall expense, and maintenance can easily surpass the cost of creating the park if it is built with substandard materials or designed for fewer users than it ultimately attracts. The Parks Department—if it currently does not manage a skatepark—is aware of all of these considerations, and will naturally seek to offset as many of these costs as possible.
$40 A SQUARE FOOT!?
While inexpensive compared to many other public athletic facilities, many people still balk at the per-foot cost of quality skatepark creation.
Unfortunately for the skatepark advocacy group, the Parks Department may perceive the group as enthusiastic volunteers willing to do anything to see the skatepark vision become reality. As a result, many groups are tasked with raising an enormous amount of money for the new skatepark. On the other hand, non-profits everywhere are able to raise millions of dollars for their causes, so why should a skatepark project be any different? The difference is, of course, that most skatepark groups have very little experience in big-money fundraising.
Setting aside for the moment those philosophical arguments about the equity of requiring skateboarders to pay for a skatepark, presume that the group will be asked to pay for half of the new facility. The first step is to estimate how much the skatepark will cost.
Concrete skateparks cost about $40 per square foot in 2007 to design and build. If the site has a skatepark footprint of 20,000 square feet, it’s fairly safe to presume the skatepark will cost about $800,000 to design and build. This does not include any landscaping, site analysis, or bureaucratic overhead. This is an estimate simply for the concrete park itself. Prices rarely go down, and in certain areas the price may be significantly higher due to local geography or other unique conditions. If the total price seems low, it probably is. Advocates should research similar skateparks in their region to achieve the most realistic estimate possible.
If the skatepark group were required to raise half of the money, they would be looking at a $400,000 goal. If fundraising T-shirts net $10 profit per sale, one would only need to produce and sell 40,000 of them. If two people sell two shirts each per hour, they would need to work 8 hours a day for nearly five years to reach the $400,000 goal. Of course, selling even a fraction of these will help, but a goal like that will require a more aggressive and diversified fundraising effort. No amount of money is impossible, and other groups do it all the time; it’s just a matter of setting attainable goals, then preparing and executing each project to maximize profits. While it’s not necessarily good news, it’s at least comforting to know that nearly every skatepark was built with assistance by a skatepark advocacy group’s fundraising contribution.
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