Fundraising?

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Harpie's Feather Duster
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Fundraising?

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

Recently I've found out that our school is cutting all of our Quizbowl funding, save for our conference meets and IHSA State Series. Ergo, we need to do quite a bit of fundraising to make sure we even get to experience a lot of good quizbowl next year. Currently we run a "Community Quiz Bowl" night twice a year where people come and pay 10 bucks each to play on some questions. We also have worked with our local Culver's in the past for a little bit of spare money, most of which is going to this year's trip to HSNCT. Our coach has also talked about, in the future, holding a trash only tourney to raise funds. So, does anybody else have any suggestions for fundraising?
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

You should emphatically NOT hold a trash tournament for high school.

As for things that work, running regular academic tournaments always works, since lots of teams are out there willing to fork over cash for tournaments. No reason you can't hold 2 or more per year. I also think more high schools should look into hosting college events, with some outside guidance from a local respected college figure, since those require much less staff, and you can charge more on the entry fees, although I absolutely would not recommend it unless you are willing to commit to doing all the things the college circuit does (i.e. nothing but pooled playoffs, ACF/NAQT format without rebounds, lots of rounds). Other things that I have heard work - bake sales (especially at tournaments you run), and community fundraisers (last year a local Missouri team from a small town held a breakfast that they advertised and got a lot of people to come to, which they then used the proceeds from to pay for their trip to NAQT Nationals).
Last edited by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) on Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Whiter Hydra »

Try to see if you can host a regular academic tournament. Depending on how many teams show up and how much booking the school costs, you should be able to make up to a few thousand dollars. There should be several vendor or house-written sets you can mirror, and the Fall Novice Tournament will be available for mirroring for free.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Sniper, No Sniping! »

Hosting academic tournaments (and probably not planning to use a house team might be ideal for the sake of gaining more $$$) from what I've seen are good ways to get money if there is no funding at all. Whatever money you get from the school is great, considering many schools don't get money at all from their school.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Matthew D »

We don't get any money from the school and I host at least 2 tournaments a year. We have to pay for bus, driver, and fees for tournaments out of that. Now at Nationals my players usually have to catch some of the cost for the rooms.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by David Riley »

At Loyola, clubs that fundraise hold bake sales. No matter how many clubs do this, they always seem to be successful (not that teenagers need an overdose of sugar. Ahem.). You might want to give it a try.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

Thanks for the responses. The planned trash tourney would be more for people from the community, not an event to take people away from playing actual academic tourneys. We hosted an actual tourney using NAQT IS this year (no clue how much that made us), but I'll definitely let our coach know about free mirrors. A bake sale could also work, but I don't know if we have to get that through our District or not. There's also been talks about starting a Booster's Club, which would help quite a bit. A Fall Novice mirror might no get much due to us being 2 hours or so away from the Northwestern mirror. We're a relatively young program, so I'm not sure if we're ready to host a College Event yet.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

King of Carrot Flowers wrote:Thanks for the responses. The planned trash tourney would be more for people from the community, not an event to take people away from playing actual academic tourneys. We hosted an actual tourney using NAQT IS this year (no clue how much that made us), but I'll definitely let our coach know about free mirrors. A bake sale could also work, but I don't know if we have to get that through our District or not. There's also been talks about starting a Booster's Club, which would help quite a bit. A Fall Novice mirror might no get much due to us being 2 hours or so away from the Northwestern mirror. We're a relatively young program, so I'm not sure if we're ready to host a College Event yet.
There are a ton of teams west of Rockford - none of them seem to start their seasons early enough to want to do Fall Novice (or even Kickoff), but there's always the optimism that heavy email advertising can get something going.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Beg PTSA, beg parents, beg boosters, beg administration. Lose all dignity and beg. Point to wins and successes and how you help the school as a whole.
Hosting tournaments works well, also.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by AKKOLADE »

Host local tournaments, obviously.

Get local businesses to sponsor you & print their logos on a t-shirt you'll wear.

Hold a community quiz bowl tournament for adult teams, get sponsors to donate prizes, charge an entry fee, use a set you feel is appropriate - something like the intramural set might work, though I know it allows for risque material so you could use a regular IS set/HSAPQ set/whatever.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Sniper, No Sniping! »

Fred wrote:
Get local businesses to sponsor you & print their logos on a t-shirt you'll wear.
This is an excellent idea. In a league we play in Suburban Columbus, there is a school of about 700 whose Academic team is sponsored (I think in full) by the Rotary Club and they have the insignias on the shirts and they have the people from the Rotary club do some reading. Really good community involvement.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

I'm almost certain the IHSA has a ban on advertising on official uniforms, though of course if you don't wear those shirts to the IHSA State Series that wouldn't matter.
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Re: Fundraising?

Post by jonah »

styxman wrote:I'm almost certain the IHSA has a ban on advertising on official uniforms, though of course if you don't wear those shirts to the IHSA State Series that wouldn't matter.
According to Terms & Conditions I.3, "A student or coach may wear apparel that bears the trademark or logo of a manufacturer or distributor during competition provided that the student or coach's apparel bears only a single manufacturer's or distributors [sic] normal label or trademark, not to exceed a one and one-half inch by one and one-half inch square." As Brad says, you can of course ignore that if you wear different shirts for the IHSA state series, or if you want to get the IHSA's goat, find an sponsoring organization that is neither a manufacturer nor a distributor and wear clothing with an extremely large reproduction of their logo on it.
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