Getting a boost: athletic booster clubs are instrumental to fund-raising and fund-raising companies.

When Roger Lambert arrived 17 years ago at Prattville (AL) High School, there was one fund-raising arm for the entire athletic program. As the new baseball coach, it didn't help matters that the lone group was called the Quarterback Club and obviously supported the school's football program.

"The school tried to help all of the sports, but just by the nature of the name, Quarterback Club, you know what their first priority was," says Lambert. "During my fourth year, I approached the new athletic director and told him, 'We can stand on our own if you let us.' They finally turned everyone loose and said, 'If you can make it, you can have your own club.'"

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Thus was born the Prattville Diamond Club, a tax-exempt entity that supports the freshman, JV, and varsity baseball teams. The Board is comprised of Lambert, a president, two vice presidents, a treasurer, and a secretary.

Athletic booster clubs are generally volunteer groups of parents and community members organized to support extracurricular activities. The fund-raising role of booster clubs is particularly crucial in today's economic climate. Some, like the Prattville Diamond Club, are small in numbers, and oversee just one sport. Others, like the Carrollton (GA) Athletic Booster Club, have upwards of 350 members and are responsible for the entire athletic program. According to information gleaned from the Carrollton High Web site, the Booster Club budget is over $100,000.

Says Lambert: "Our program stands on its own. We can only do what our funds allow."

To offset the exorbitant costs of such things as a new press box, Lambert and the Prattville Diamond Club have come up with an array of moneymaking ideas to boost much-needed revenue. While such ventures as a pancake breakfast and year-end dinner have filled the coffers with about $2,500 a piece, it's the Diamond Club's twice-yearly Boston Butt Barbecue sale that has reaped the most reward. According to Lambert, Boston Butt is the pork loin that is used to make pulled pork sandwiches, a staple in the south. The Diamond Club sells a pre-cooked, 9-pound Boston Butt for $25. Lambert purchases the meat at a local grocery store, giving the grocer six-weeks notice. He also asks to be locked in at the best price, since the price of pork fluctuates.

He solicited some local barbecue establishments, but soon discovered it would eat into the profit margin. So Prattville took the fund-raiser in-house, purchasing 10 grills that cook simultaneously. Anything to limit expenditures.

During the fall and spring cook-outs from this past school year, the seventh such event, the Diamond Club sold more than 500 pieces of meat and made a $15,000 profit. The booster club has never made less than $12,000.

"We've tried a few things, but what happens is that so much of the money you raise ends up leaving your community," Lambert says. "When we first started out, we sold Christmas wrapping paper, Krispy Kreme Donuts ... you name it. We try to look at projects that are going to give us a good return, because the one thing we try to stay away from is going to the people once a month. We don't want to do that. Once you get something going and it's successful--we may gamble sometime--you stay with what works. [The Boston Butt sale] is a huge moneymaker for us. And it takes a lot of work with a lot of folks devoting a lot of time. We already know that when they're cooked, they're sold. The repeat business is fantastic."

BOOSTER SHOTS 

Prattville is one of the many booster club fund-raising success stories as well as one of many that are in dire need of financial assistance to maintain its athletic programs.

Not every school has the where-withal, time, or manpower to take on such a task. A vast majority has to be pointed in the right direction--led by the hand if you will--and provided with a proven method of making money.

That's where the assistance of a corporate fund-raising company can be influential and profitable.

"I think a booster club is a terrific revenue stream," says Pete Bryden, associate director for ESPN The Magazine Coaches Fundraising Program. "It's an outreach of the school programs. A lot of the schools have gone the route of allowing the fund-raising part to go to a booster club vs the sports team, the athletic director, or the individual coach. The booster club has become the fund-raising arm at the school now. It might be for the sports programs or it might be for the whole school. It just depends on how it is coordinated within the school."

Therein lies the problem. Virtually every fund-raising company has a similar dilemma: How can they contact the booster clubs and how can they procure the most current, up-to-date information about them? In many instances booster club members are not members of the school board. They're not teachers. And they're not located at the school.

"Booster clubs have always been a very good group to work with," says Dick Raddatz, president of FundRaising.com.

"The difficulty is finding them. Because there is no such thing as a true mailing list, due to the amount of turnover of parents coming and going."

"It may be a school mom or a booster president that may or may not be elected," adds Bryden. "There's definitely a little bit different strategy that is needed because the information is not as readily available to you. You can get the school address and phone number without a problem. But it comes down to the relationships you have to build with the athletic director or the individual sports coaches, because you sort of have weigh on them to find out who the booster person is from year to year and how to contact them."

Raddatz noted that this problem isn't limited to booster clubs. School PTA's are also hard to track down. He suggests that for a lot of these groups, if they are smart, they will promote from within and have their officers grow up through the organization. That would simplify the need in identifying the point person. Conversely, it also helps that the company maintains a stellar performance record with a particular school, i.e., don't mess up on a delivery and never be short on product. That can only enhance a solid rapport in the future.

Dutch Mills Bulbs (www.dutchmillbulbs.com), which specializes in flower bulbs, is new to the market of utilizing booster clubs. Company president Jeff Ellenberger says his company joined the National Booster Club Association (NBCA), mainly to obtain the elusive names of booster club presidents and chairpersons to add to its house mailing list, in support of its fall selling season.

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"We obviously deal with a lot of schools, and the only way many of them can support certain sports is by booster club activity," Ellenberger says. "So even though we were soliciting schools, we were getting responses from, say, the soccer booster club chairperson. That led us to look at this a little more closely and see what's out there specifically to support these guys. That was the first step. Including them in our marketing plan is obviously the second step and we will see how it all works out."

While Ellenberger's company is targeting booster clubs, it hasn't implemented any new programs designed for that particular audience. "Our fund-raising program is status quo whether it's a Boy Scout group, church group, or a booster club," says Ellenberger, whose company is introducing two new items for the fall season: a purple tulip called Purple Passion and another rock garden variety tulip, Holland Charms. "We stick by what we do best; providing a lower priced product that's guaranteed. It's not going to break the bank to buy one packet of bulbs. We haven't changed anything with our program. We're just trying to get our name in that sector and have them be familiar with Dutch Mills Bulbs."

One of the keys in fund-raising is to think outside the box: a new and interesting concept that is easy to operate and is financially rewarding. That said, the Funding Factory (www.fundingfactory.com) offers booster clubs a fund-raising recycling program for educational and non-profit organizations that focuses on empty printer cartridges--for both laser and ink jets--and cell phones.

The fund-raisers collect the items from their schools, teams, and communities. The company then collects the empties and used items from the schools. It provides all the boxes, shipping materials, and promotional materials and pays for the shipping. Once the Funding Factory receives the recyclable items, the school is paid accordingly. All of the money earned stays in a personal online account until a check is requested.

The Funding Factory has an exclusive contract with Epson, which pays 20 cents per cartridge. However, some cartridges are worth $25 and some cell phones can be worth almost $200. So pricing really depends on the particular items returned. The items are then sent to the refurbishers where the cartridges are refilled and the phones recharged.

"To the consumer, the empty cartridge has no real value," says Valerie Hammond, marketing coordinator for the Funding Factory. "But it can be refurbished and remanufactured, so the end value is high. The schools can easily get these items from parents and local businesses. This program really works for the booster clubs because it runs year-round. If you have a team that is signed up, every parent of a child on the team might work at a different office. Every office and facility can sign up to support that team. They get their own account and boxes, but everything that they send to Funding Factory automatically goes toward that team's account. It's a very flexible program."

Flexibility is exactly what both athleticboosters.com and Fine & Faux offer booster clubs in regards to products and programs.

Originally a manufacturer of fitness equipment, athleticboosters.com is focused on providing a Web site that not only sells top-shelf supplement products, but also offers nutritional information to young athletes. The company has streamlined its product line to include such proprietary formulas as its flagship X-Cell-R8 Energy/Endurance Booster, a chewable children's vitamin, and a whey protein powder.

According to Bill O'Brien, director of athleticboosters.com, the product line is designed as an alternative to selling magazines or cookie dough. The company has structured its program so that an individual school will have its own Web site in which to place orders. The return is 20% profit with a maximum of $9,600 per year if a student-athlete spent $60 a month (the equivalent of a $2 nutritional pack per day). There's no inventory, no selling other than directing someone to the Web site, and no money exchanged.

"Not only do we want to be the vendor of these products for today's kids and help them raise money for their causes, we want to tell them how to do it," says Brian Lewallen, athleticboosters.com president. "That's the problem out there today. These kids are feeling around in the dark hoping they'll find something that works. They don't have a clue. And the coaches certainly don't have a clue."

Fine & Faux (www.fineandfaux.com) is a combination catalog and online company that specializes in accessories for women, including tote bags, jewelry, team spirit items, rolling duffels, etc. Co-owner Regina Bonacci's resume contains a vast background in corporate marketing and sales that has enabled her to do a lot of primary and secondary research that validates women making most of the buying decisions. It also helps that she is a mother who has a wealth of experience helping her children fund raise.

For her company, booster clubs are a viable revenue stream.

"We did research for so many groups, especially schools, that were looking for different ways to supplement their programs that were in danger of being cut by school budgets," says Bonacci. "That's how booster clubs, in many cases, are created, because they are going to supplement what used to be provided within their school taxes. It was that kind of information that led us to believe that booster clubs would be one of the bigger groups looking for different fund-raising opportunities."

The idea is booster clubs will have a catalog sale, and then, perpetuate that sale by having their friends, families, and volunteers, continue to purchase online by using their school or group code. This way, schools will be able to earn money for a whole year. Fine & Faux offers profit margins of 50% through its 16-page catalog and up to 40% online.

"[Fund-raising groups] are looking for a quality item that is reasonably priced and has a reasonably high perceived value," Bonacci says. "So they don't feel like they're buying something they could have purchased in the dollar store. As far as relationships, they are looking for real ease of operations. They know they have to go out and do the selling, but they don't want to have to do a lot of work on the back end. That is a real important factor for any group."

Still, a sizeable segment of the booster club population remains skeptical about going the corporate route when it comes to fund-raising. Prattville High's Robert Lambert is still solicited by corporate companies, but he refuses to relent.

"I have a little problem with some of the fund-raisers," he says. "I think they're good, don't get me wrong. If it fits your situation. As a coach, we try to keep as much money at home. Even with a 50-50 split you have to do such a volume to make anything that I don't know if it's worth it."

Even a brand name like ESPN, and its magazine fund-raising program, which at 60%, offers the largest profit margin in the industry, continues to fight an uphill battle.

"There is a stigma with fund-raising in general because everybody is looking for a safe and secure solution that provides the most bang for the buck," says Pete Bryden. "For us personally, we are fairly new to the market. With ESPN, our brand stands for itself. There are definitely segments of the country that are cautious. Unfortunately, the need for fund-raising is not going away. It's even increased in certain states due to the geographic region or budget cuts. I've seen in several states that programs are being cut from the budget in all areas. They need to really step-up their fund-raising efforts to keep those extra sports. In some states, they help pay to play."