Organizing a charity golf tournament

by Tom King

Far too often, if we'll be honest, the motivation for organizing a special event, like golf, is to avoid having to do basic fund-raising. We hate making the calls. We hate asking for money.  So, to avoid having to do things we don't like, we have a golf tournament because we do like that!

There are lots of reasons for doing a golf tournament. Some poor ones include:

• An organizational budget crisis
• Because you have always done one
• Because a golf tournament will make your organization look classy
• Someone else will do all the work for you (they promise)
• The board wants to make money quickly
• Everybody likes golf
• You want to build you organization's reputation
• To avoid basic fund-raising

There is only one reason to organize a golf tournament-- TO MAKE MONEY!!

That's it.

Even though the only reason to do a golf tournament is to make money, the event should not be an outgrowth of pressure from within the organization to make money.

Special events are at the bottom of the pyramid of giving. They should be low effort, for by and large they will yield only a small part of your annual budget. Unless you are a very small organization with a very big golf tournament, it doesn't make sense to put most of your development staff time into an event that doesn't make much money.

If you have to raise $120,000 a year and you make only $10,000 on your golf tournament, then you should figure on putting about 1/12th of your time into it. In other words, don't spend more than a month total on the tournament.

Golf tournaments are fun and flashy, but don't fall into the trap of spending more time on them than they are worth.

The best way is to CREATE A UNIQUE EVENT. If you can come up with an event that is exciting and provides something other golf tournaments cannot or do not offer, you stand a better chance of drawing a crowd. If you can make your tournament attractive to players, you'll have a good turnout. If you're just another tournament, you are not likely to draw more than a handful of friends and supporters.

Excerpted from FundClass Topic #25, March 2001, A Pleasant Walk Spoiled... The Charity Golf Tournament: A Survivor's Notebook.

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