Many often question the value of collecting online registrations and payments on their club website when trying to fundraise. We are all chained to the mentality that a face to face transaction has more meaning. That, or you are worried about the hit to your bottom line. After all, credit card processing fees are 3%. It can take clubs a lot of man hours to raise money, so you may feel like you’re giving it away.

You couldn’t be more wrong!

While I am no fan of merchant processing fees, which pay for things like the Visa half time shows on Sunday and asinine advertisements everywhere, the costs of paying those fees are always drastically outshone by the gain of increased overall revenue (and more importantly, net income).

Many fundraising programs slip into that realm of minimal gain, lots of time spent, and small return. I have heard of clubs spending hundreds of dollars on banners to create events to recruit new members.

Let’s do some math though folks.

• $200 for banners and signs
• $160 in labor (min wage rates )
• $150 in pamphlets and flyers

$410 hypothetically spent.
..for 10 new memberships. Maybe adding $250 – less state association fees.

And since you are not setup on autopay, you will have some fall off on renewals.

It’s a negative gain!

So is online advertising for events the only way to go? Well it depends entirely on your club. Your snowmobile club, like most others, has a mixture of retirees that are active collectively the core of all the operations and landowner issues, you then have busy middle aged family types that keep things going smooth and help provide the back breaking labor, and a few younger people. Then of course the ‘snow birds’ or whatever you like to call them. The out of towners that decided to join while at a club house, but may not renew and probably wont add anything other than a very appreciated payment.

So no, online only will alienate your audience. However, offering both options will add immense benefits to your club’s fundraising efforts!

For example, recently a club ran an event selling tickets for a dinner. They were used to people purchasing at the door, last minute, and this club always appeared to be gambling on weather or not they would even have enough pre-orders that would cover the deposit to secure the event location . Luckily , they did an online order form for tickets, and sold more than enough to lock it in. They sold out the event in under 2 weeks.

Their success was simple:

• Online Event on their club website
• Paypal Ticket purchase on website (with quanity)
• Email Alert to Memberbase regarding upcoming event, with links to the Event on Site
• Sharing the Event on Website through their Facebook Fan pagee

The real success in that story though lies in not just the convenience of immediate, online payments, but the guaranteed revenue for your snowmobile club. Let’s face it. It is easy to convince people to go to a fundraising event, and easy to get them to commit via form or Pre-Purchase. It is much harder though to count on them to show. People’s plans change, and if you sell 100 tickets, 15 people may not show. However, they know its for fundraising and will hardly be asking for a refund, and your club gains the benefit of added revenue.

I would gladly take the $21, or so of PayPal fees for the extra. $105 of Online Ticket Sale Revenue!

Increasing Revenue, without Increasing Membership!

By adding the ability to sell things online, as well as offer automatic renewals of memberships, adds to your bottom line. Remember, while your snowmobile club may see thousands of riders on its trails, none of those would ever consider joining your club. They may have a membership elsewhere, but most likely, they feel entitled to it from paying state registration or trail sticker fees.

In reality, the pool of people that will join your snowmobile club is a very small one. Think kiddie pool sizes.

That is why it is important to increase fundraising revenue without adding memberships. You can only ask for so much out of that pool. By using the above scenario, you could avoid having to recruit 3 new members. Increase revenue like that 4-5 times a year, and you have One extra grooming run. Or even a ClubHosting.org Extras! membership.

Do that a few times a year and you’re building up a pretty impressive growth to your clubs treasury!

 

But Let’s Not Forget Simple Begging

If you have a website, and you should (even if its a free one), you have visitors coming there to check trail conditions, snow reports. If you don’t have them coming, then you are mission out on $1000

How does a well put together trail condition report mean $1,000? Well, if you are using the right solution with fully integrated and optimized search engine scripts and placements, you will be getting your riders to come on to your site to check trail conditions, if you’re keeping them current.

remember – a great looking site that isn’t frequently updated is a waste of space

So if you simply ask each visitor to give $1.25, you will be surprised how much money you raise. Many people on the internet do this, they call it “Buy me a coffee,” or something equally witty. You can try more, like a “Buy Our Groomer a Gallon of Gas” link that charges them $3.50; or be funny and try for a lower donation price. For example, try a: “Buy Our Groomer a 1985 Priced Gallon of Gas for $1.50” .. you get the point.

Simple low cost begging, while providing them with useful trail updates will add to your bottom line. However, if you are posting trail updates and the conditions are poor because of a specific need. Such as “The bridge needs repair, please help us raise money by donating $1 or any amount,” you would be surprised over how much you raise.

Just do it conversationally, and thank me later. I won’t ask you to buy me a coffee, ask you are now in on my secret. So maybe I will just ask for you to share this article with a friend instead!

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What about security? Is it secure?

Yes, of course. It’s eBay folks. Yeah, these guys. Payments are made through PayPal, not your website. So never worry about transaction security!