It's the one task athletic directors think about every day, all year round. And no matter how much of it you do this year, there will be more to do next year. Fundraising--it's an area where new ideas are the key to survival.

For this article, we've collected success stories from six school districts around the country. From large-scale strategies like naming rights and corporate sponsorships to smaller concepts like tailgating parties and facilities rentals, all the approaches have two things in common: The athletic directors spearheading them aren't afraid to try something innovative, and whether they're working with corporations or parents, they focus on building relationships as the basis for their success.

A Sidewalk to Success
By David Paling

This past year, the Middleboro High School Athletic Department undertook its most successful fundraiser ever. We created an engraved brick sidewalk that generated a $7,000 profit within only a few months and will continue to bring in revenue for a long time to come.

The basic idea for this fundraiser is to sell engraved bricks to athletes, alumni, businesses, organizations, and community members. When the Middleboro School Committee initially heard my proposal to create the sidewalk, they supported the concept but needed more specifics. Where would the sidewalk go? How much would bricks cost and who would buy them? Was start-up money needed? What would the walkway look like? What sales strategies would we use?

The first step was figuring out the best place to build the walkway. The site we selected would need to be both visible and large enough to accommodate many years of brick sales. We found an area behind the school that has access to several fields, with plenty of room for expansion and clear visibility from many directions.

Next, I talked with a stone engraver. I discovered that four-by-eight-inch gray granite bricks were attractive and durable, and would cost $25 a piece including three 18-character lines of engraving. Larger eight-by-sixteen-inch bricks would cost $100, accommodate four lines of engraving, and offer the option of adding logos. Appearing before the school committee, I proposed selling these two brick sizes, the smaller ones for $75 and the larger ones for $200. I also suggested that blank red bricks costing 65 cents each be placed randomly in the walkway to add a bit of color.

To avoid start-up costs, I recommended that bricks be sold via order forms and that sections be installed once or twice each year using the total number of bricks sold to that point. This way, the fundraiser would always operate at a profit. The school committee gave its approval and sales began in earnest.

Coaches were asked to solicit purchases from players and their parents. Announcements were made at home games and flyers were placed around the school. The local newspaper did a series of stories on the walkway, the school put an order form on its Web site, and we set up a sales booth at home football games. We also sent mailings to alumni, former captains, local businesses, and past class officers. A display easel was placed in the school's main foyer area.

The best sales tactic of all, however, turned out to be phase one of the construction project. Our initial sales efforts translated into 26 feet of sidewalk, and when we began putting the bricks into place, many more people started asking how they could get involved, so we added a sign at the entrance to the walkway that explained how to purchase bricks.

Our efforts yielded more than $12,000 in sales the first year. The profit was approximately $7,000, thanks in part to a parent who offered his brick laying services at no charge.

Purchasers were free to personalize the engravings on their bricks. Names of individual athletes with their sport and year appear on some, and family names with years of graduation appear on others. Many businesses took advantage of the engraved logo option. Some buyers used the bricks to memorialize deceased athletes and coaches. A few of our teams purchased bricks with each member donating a small amount to the purchase. A couple of bricks went out for free to long-time coaches who had recently retired.

The strength of this project is the flexibility it offers. For example, a local businessman asked if a $1,000 donation could buy an even larger brick, and we quickly figured out that special orders could be accommodated. We've found we can make the walkway fundraiser work no matter how many bricks we sell, or what size they are. As we proceed, the walkway can grow wider or longer, and take any shape that makes sense to us.

The best part of the project is its ongoing nature. We don't have to continually come up with new or unique ways to fundraise anymore. It's an idea that has the potential to feed itself, and I suspect more and more athletes will buy bricks to leave their names behind when they graduate.

David Paling is the Director of Athletics, Health, and Physical Education for the Middleboro (Mass.) Public Schools.

TACKLING TAILGATING
By Robert Carpenter

A lot of schools hold tailgate parties before their Friday night football games--that's certainly not a new idea. But how about a tailgate party that generates a profit of $18,000 in one night with virtually no cost to the school? That's how much our event at Forestview High School raised this year.

We held our first tailgate party in 1999, when our school was just a year old. The PTA was looking for a way to give our school its own identity and sense of community, and suggested organizing a big tailgate party with food, games, and activities. I was on board with the idea, and also realized it had great fundraising potential--which has certainly turned out to be the case.

We hold one large-scale tailgate party each year, before a game in late September. We make money by selling two products: T-shirts and food. We invite a local restaurant to donate time and materials to prepare the food we sell at the event. In exchange, they receive free advertising and promotion on the local television news station, which does live check-ins all day. In about three hours, we sell 2,500 to 3,000 plates of food for $7 each.

We create a special "tailgate T-shirt" each year for the event. Local businesses buy ad space on the back of the student-designed T-shirts. The advertising completely pays for the shirts so every sale we make is pure profit. Each year more and more businesses want to buy space for their logos because the T-shirts are seen around town long after the tailgate party is over.

T-shirts and food raise the money, but the atmosphere is what draws the crowd. In the three hours before the game starts, there is so much activity that some have compared it to a county fair. Our school clubs set up booths and organize games, which gives them a chance to make some money and gets non-athletes involved with the event. We've had putt-putt contests, basketball shoots, DJs, bands, antique cars, and even a climbing wall.

The keys to pulling off a tailgate party of this magnitude are organization and delegation. The Forestview PTA is a large, well-run group that handles nearly every planning detail. Their first step each fall is to recruit as many parent volunteers as possible. They have everything down to a science--each year, they pass around a notebook that lists each task along with the number of people needed. Volunteers fill in the blank spaces until every job is covered. The tailgate party wouldn't be the success it is without this level of organization.

Our annual tailgate has become a must-attend event for our community, with new vendors and businesses involved each year. The party is never the same--but that's part of the fun.

Robert Carpenter is the Principal at Forestview High School in Gastonia, N.C. He can be reached at: rcarpenter@gaston.k12.nc.us.

COURTING CORPORATE SPONSORS
By Grant Nesbit

At Lawrence North High School, we've had a great deal of fundraising success by forging corporate sponsorships--or as we prefer to call them, community partnerships. Our agreement with Reebok is the biggest and most obvious example, as each year Reebok gives us over $10,000 in donations and goods in-kind. In exchange, they receive a tremendous amount of positive exposure and visibility, with a full-page ad on the back page of our media guide and their logo placed on our media backdrop.

We are no less proud, however, of the smaller relationships we've built. For example, each year Qdoba Mexican Grill, a local restaurant franchise, sponsors our Qdoba Classic, a four-game, single-day girls' basketball tournament. Qdoba provides financial support for the tournament, food for the hospitality room, and commemorative water bottles for players--a $2,000 value. In exchange, they receive naming rights and recognition whenever the tourney is listed on schedules and in newspaper coverage. Their banner is placed in the gym and their name is on the cover of the game-day program.

Our school's athletic success has helped us form these relationships, but the truth is, you don't need a nationally known basketball program to find corporate sponsors. Every school has this opportunity and all it takes is a little initiative and effort. Most of the companies in any community--big and small--have advertising dollars to spend throughout the year. In fact, most major national companies not only have advertising dollars, they also have money they are required to donate within their community. Often, obtaining some of this money for your school simply requires building a relationship and telling them what you need.

Before you schedule a meeting with a potential sponsor, have a sales pitch set to go. Be prepared to talk about the positive things you are doing for kids, and always have numbers to back your argument--for example: "Here at Lawrence North we have over 700 student-athletes participating in athletics. With approximately 30 percent of our school's population on government-subsidized meals, we need to assist kids and their families in their desire to participate. That's where your company could really make a difference."

At each corporation there is typically one individual who directs advertising monies, and your next step is to set up a meeting with that person. At the meeting, spend some time creating a rapport before explaining exactly what your school needs. You'll be surprised by the positive responses you'll receive.

Once you've established a relationship, it is absolutely critical to take the right approach in dealings with your sponsor. Don't simply ask yourself, "What can we get out of this company?" Instead, ask how you can best help each other.

Also keep in mind that you're developing a partnership that needs to be cultivated and maintained. You should be proud of your relationship and try to promote the company as much as possible.

I see selling corporate sponsorship as a matter of moving along with the times. But not everyone agrees. There are individuals who immediately bristle at the idea of having businesses or corporations advertise in high schools, so if you are initiating corporate sponsorship in your school for the first time, be prepared to field some questions.

When I encounter critics of corporate sponsorship, my response is that we are helping our program and our kids--and that without community support, what we are doing wouldn't be possible. When I respond with a success story about a particular student or team, it shifts the focus to the positives of partnering within the community.

Grant Nesbit is the Director of Athletics at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis, Ind. He can be reached at: grantnesbit@msdlt.k12.in.us.

MUSICAL MONEY
By Scott Garvis

Wouldn't it be nice to sit back and watch your fundraising take care of itself? By capitalizing on the billion dollar music download business, that's what we're doing at Burnsville High School. We've created a Web site where people can purchase their favorite tunes, and each time they do, we get 20 percent of the download fee.

Digital music sales in the U.S. nearly tripled between 2004 and 2005. At the 2005 National Convention of High School Athletic Directors in Orlando, Fla., I learned that there was an easy way for our school to get a piece of this very large pie. Working with a Web business called PassAlong, we have been able to set up our own digital music store by choosing songs from their comprehensive catalog of licensed music, which includes over two million selections from R&B to rock, folk, and jazz.

Users simply go to our site (http://blazemusic.passalong.com) and set up a user account by specifying a user ID, password, e-mail address, and mailing address. Registered users can buy music, enjoying all of the conveniences of the most popular music download sites. For example, our site offers an e-mail notification system that allows users to share music with friends and family all over the world.

Users have three payment options when downloading music from our site. They can use a PayPal account, a credit card, or a gift card. We sell the gift cards in the athletic department office, so students can download music without using a parent's credit card.

Each time a song is downloaded from our site, 20 percent of the fee is credited to our PayPal account. We began earning money as soon as our Web site went online, and PassAlong deposits our share of the proceeds in our PayPal account quarterly.

A key step in our success has been marketing our Web site. We use advertisements in the school newspaper, athlete and parent handouts, radio and television spots during sporting events, school announcements, PA game announcements, banners in our stadium and gymnasium, posters, ads on our school sign, press releases, and links on our school Web site. We have also had the local television station and newspaper report on our fundraising efforts. By using these simple tools, we have been able to create an awareness of our site and increase traffic.

These days, high school athletics is powered by fundraising. This Web site has proven to be the solution we needed, and with very little further effort from us, we expect the profits to continue to grow.

Scott Garvis is the Athletic Director at Burnsville (Minn.) High School. He can be reached at: sgarvis@burnsville.k12.mn.us.

YOUR NAME HERE
By Fred Azrak

Four years ago, Everglades High School didn't have a stadium. Today, we have a state-of-the-art facility with seating for 3,750. One factor made it possible to build this great facility: For $500,000, just over half of the total cost, we sold the stadium's naming rights to Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union.

For us, selling the naming rights was a natural outgrowth of developing relationships with businesses in our area and being good partners with them in smaller ventures. I first met the management team at Eastern Financial in 2003, when I was visiting local companies to sell advertising on a rotating scorer's table we use at our basketball games. I gave my pitch to the bank's director of marketing and vice president, who agreed to place an ad.

Six months after that meeting, I organized a breakfast to introduce faculty members from Everglades to all of our business partners. As everyone was introduced, the Vice President of Eastern Financial stood up and said that if there was anything else we needed, we should let him know.

So I told him we needed a stadium. He didn't even blink, but simply asked me some questions and told me I'd know in two weeks whether the credit union would put up the funding.

My next step was to communicate with our school board about the plan. Then our board representative and I met with the mayor of Miramar and Eastern Financial's vice president, who made the formal offer of $500,000 in exchange for 30 years of naming rights. The school board and the City of Miramar approved the deal and agreed to finance the additional $450,000 needed to complete the project.

During the process of selling naming rights to our stadium, and also during the construction phase, one of my biggest jobs was facilitating communication. The school board, the city, and Eastern Financial all had to be happy working together. It was a crash course in politics, making sure nobody's toes were being stepped on.

Not everyone in the community immediately agreed with our decision to sell naming rights, but the success of our stadium has helped silence those critics. During the past two years, we've been able to rent the facility out for substantial sums, including to the NFL for rehearsals of this year's Super Bowl half-time show. Local businesses loved the fact that there were 900 to 1,500 people in the stadium the week before the Super Bowl, and the community is now 100 percent behind us.

Since news stories about our stadium hit the press, I have received calls from other athletic directors who want to know how to sell naming rights to their facilities. The answer is simple: Go out and ask.

Fred Azrak is the Athletic Director at Everglades High School in Miramar, Fla. He can be reached at: fred.azrak@browardschools.com.

NO MORE FEES
By Chris Feris

This year at Plano Independent School District, we had one big goal: ending our pay-to-play fee. Our varsity high school athletes were paying $100 a piece, and we felt strongly that no one should have to pay to participate in high school sports. Through a combination of strategies, we increased our fundraising by about $300,000 per year and ended the fee.

In Texas, where huge attendance is virtually guaranteed at football games, one of our most successful fundraisers has been the "Game Day Sponsor" program. For each Friday night home game, we solicit a local business to be the official sponsor. Sponsorship benefits include PA announcements, game promotion opportunities (drawings, coupons, and giveaways), hospitality room access, and tickets.

We charge anywhere from $500 to $1,500 for each game's sponsorship. A rivalry that generates more interest yields a higher fee for the sponsorship, and a game that traditionally doesn't bring in as many fans is priced at the low end. This program generates roughly $15,000 per year.

We also began generating money by offering a six-week summer conditioning program at each high school in our district during the summer, coordinated and directed by our senior high coaching staffs. The camp costs $195 per athlete, and exceptions are made for individuals who have financial hardship. Our coaches make approximately $20 per hour for their work with the program, and we were able to generate about $132,000 from this program this last year.

We've also focused on finding more opportunities to rent out our facilities.We rent to youth football, soccer, and lacrosse programs, as well as to area private schools. Over the last year we raised over $50,000 in rental revenue.

Other successful fundraising efforts have come from advertisements placed around our stadiums. Scoreboards, walls, entrances, and parking lot light poles are just a few of the areas we have utilized with great success. The backs of game tickets have also turned out to be an excellent space for advertising.

When setting a price for advertising, we work with our sponsors to gauge what they are able to pay. Involving sponsors in the process has helped us cultivate a relationship that we believe will encourage their continued participation and ensure success in future projects. 

Chris Feris is Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing and Special Events at Plano Independent School District in Plano, Texas. He can be reached at:
Chris.Feris@pisd.edu.