Creative or highly effective funding mechanisms

[Stu]

6 hours ago, BRASSO said:

  I could spend paragraphs discussing why not only is your assessment is wrong but that DCI itself, by vote of the majority of its Corps itself, does NOT share your assessment of this.... at all.

I, on the other hand, do not need multi-paragraphs to support my contentions.  All I need is a copy of the G7 Report combined with the fact that the rest of the Corps Directors with voting privileges quickly met in an emergency meeting and ousted the Directors of The Seven off the DCI Board until they agreed to eliminate their draconian proposals.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Stu

[Stu]

2 hours ago, garfield said:

If it is true that, the larger a corps becomes, the less they draw on their local geography, it seems also true then that creative fundraisers that require significant volunteers would be difficult to attempt during the off-season (and, of course, during the season, MM's and volunteers are busy training).

If those two premises are true, then, it would appear that smaller, more geographically local orgs would do better at fundraisers that require man/woman power.

Car washes, bake sales, and other community fundraisers are all tougher if most of your members come from out of town, right?

 

Local mom-pop corps struggle with car washes, bake sales, and volunteers who may, but do not normally have, any real Development (fund raising) experience. That is neither creative nor highly effective.  On the other end of the spectrum, while the multi-million dollar per year corps do have volunteers, they can also financially afford to experiment in creative ways to raise capital and can monetarily compensate professional business and development experts who will garner the corps huge amounts in revenue per year.  Again, Creative and Highly Effective procurement of Capital takes an initial Sugar Daddy investor like Bill Cook who can then get creative with funding from things like aircraft fuel, or it takes a corps which has been in existence for many, many years with a high rate of competitive success that can be a visible outlet for the Philanthropic Rich or people who are secured as Professional Development/Business experts.

[ouooga]

Q: Does anyone have any cool ideas to help fund drum corps?

A: That thing a few corps did 7 years ago really ###### me off.

 

Good talk team.

[Stu]

38 minutes ago, ouooga said:

Q: Does anyone have any cool ideas to help fund drum corps?

A: That thing a few corps did 7 years ago really ###### me off.

 

Good talk team.

I guess that you missed these postings that I made so here is a review:

> As we study the past creative funding ideas within DCI that produced great results, and see what they all have in common, it is likely a predictor of what it will take to foster the next great creative funding idea. From Star and their creative funding with an aircraft fueling depot to BD and their creative funding with BD Entertainment/System Blue, they all had up-front investment capital; and lots of it.  Sure, a small corps in XYZ Whatever State can implement some creativity when seeking funds, but without a Sugar Daddy investing a few million, or without years of competitive success behind them, even creativity will not produce Highly Effective Funding Mechanisms (which is the second part of this thread's title). Again there is no magic bullet aside from that investment capital.  So what we minions, and most of the rest of the successful top 12 WC corps, are left with apart from some rich person investing in creativity is smart hard work, seeking patrons, slugging it out for grants, and doing what is legal on small business ventures.

> Local mom-pop corps struggle with car washes, bake sales, and volunteers who may, but do not normally have, any real Development (fund raising) experience. That is neither creative nor highly effective.  On the other end of the spectrum, while the multi-million dollar per year corps do have volunteers, they can also financially afford to experiment in creative ways to raise capital and can monetarily compensate professional business and development experts who will garner the corps huge amounts in revenue per year.  Again, Creative and Highly Effective procurement of Capital takes an initial Sugar Daddy investor like Bill Cook who can then get creative with funding from things like aircraft fuel, or it takes a corps which has been in existence for many, many years with a high rate of competitive success that can be a visible outlet for the Philanthropic Rich or people who are secured as Professional Development/Business experts.

> There are three main ways to maximize funding within a non-profit setting; you need to engage in all three; they are all difficult as well as complicated... so much so that the information is way too lengthy to provide in a forum such as this. They are Patrons, Grants, and Business Ventures.

> ....  there is no magic easy creative mechanism to generate the revenue.  Only hard, long, smart, complicated work, blood, sweat, etc... can garner that much capital.

> It was/is still a difficult process for any small corps to raise funds. Funding at any level is complicated and anyone who has dealt with the legalities, rules, regulations, of non-profit funding will attest that the paperwork is convoluted; especially the more revenue/expenditures a corps has to deal with.

 

 

Edited March 20, 2017 by Stu

[garfield]

1 hour ago, ouooga said:

Q: Does anyone have any cool ideas to help fund drum corps?

A: That thing a few corps did 7 years ago really ###### me off.

 

Good talk team.

It appears to me that our relatively off-topic banter is useful in two ways:  First, it discusses financial funding that is directly affected by DCI (the Corps) decisions, and, second, it's been mostly the only thing that's kept this thread alive.

Maybe it should die a civil death.  But, if it does, it will by the mere act demonstrate the importance that it stay alive.

Raising money to pay for summer band dreams is hard.  Talking about it is somewhat easier, I suppose.

 

Edited March 20, 2017 by garfield
why am I using so many commas?

[ouooga]

25 minutes ago, Stu said:

> There are three main ways to maximize funding within a non-profit setting; you need to engage in all three; they are all difficult as well as complicated... so much so that the information is way too lengthy to provide in a forum such as this. They are Patrons, Grants, and Business Ventures.

This is the part I have issue with. I agree, this is how it's traditionally been done, which completely ignores innovation for tried and true. I can't ever imagine a time in any business venture where "we've tried every idea, there's no more effective ideas left" is an acceptable answer.

 

The one of those that has the most legs today is Business Ventures, and I feel this is the most untapped source of funds by all corps and nonprofits in general. Yes, starting a bus rental company or an airline fuel depot costs way more to start than a corps has on its own. But for a new corps to start a small business while simultaneously starting a Sound Sport corps, and growing both of those over time is incredibly feasible.

[garfield]

51 minutes ago, Stu said:

Local mom-pop corps struggle with car washes, bake sales, and volunteers who may, but do not normally have, any real Development (fund raising) experience. That is neither creative nor highly effective.  On the other end of the spectrum, while the multi-million dollar per year corps do have volunteers, they can also financially afford to experiment in creative ways to raise capital and can monetarily compensate professional business and development experts who will garner the corps huge amounts in revenue per year.  Again, Creative and Highly Effective procurement of Capital takes an initial Sugar Daddy investor like Bill Cook who can then get creative with funding from things like aircraft fuel, or it takes a corps which has been in existence for many, many years with a high rate of competitive success that can be a visible outlet for the Philanthropic Rich or people who are secured as Professional Development/Business experts.

I started to argue that there are some "younger" corps that have bucked that trend (Crown) but "many, many years" is a bit undefined here.  No, I guess you're right.  Wait.  No, that's not true.  Oregon Crusaders are a young corps that has jumped onto the scene and has neither age nor a "Sugar Daddy" to account for their success.  I would count the Cascades, as well.  Academy?  Yes, they'd qualify, too.  But I think you're mostly right.

[ouooga]

19 minutes ago, garfield said:

I started to argue that there are some "younger" corps that have bucked that trend (Crown) but "many, many years" is a bit undefined here.  No, I guess you're right.  Wait.  No, that's not true.  Oregon Crusaders are a young corps that has jumped onto the scene and has neither age nor a "Sugar Daddy" to account for their success.  I would count the Cascades, as well.  Academy?  Yes, they'd qualify, too.  But I think you're mostly right.

I mean, we're officially talking businesses mostly run by music teachers. Counting the number of businesses that succeed in a given industry, any given industry, is already going to be a low percentage. I'd only expect that success proportion to decrease with the aformentioned constraints.

 

My point being, of course there's going to be more normals than anomalies. I'd think the goal would be to find some of the ingredients among the few groups that are doing it right that can be replicated in other organizations, to hopefully increase that proportion. It's not going to be 1:1 for each corps, and you'll still see more struggles than triumphs, but every little bit helps I'd think, no?

[SuperSaderFan]

I can tie the G7 and this topic together:

When a group of elite members basically tell the rest of the activity that they are irrelevant, it is a wake up call. It was a new twist on survival. Rather than a risk averse attitude with a focus on staying afloat, it turned into a new focus on building a champion organization. With the threat of being eliminated from competition and performance fees, it became a quest for diversified revenues. It took a group of business professionals to approach a non profit like we approached our businesses. I offer these thoughts:

Grow the size of the Board - it can't come down to the same group of 6-8 people. Remind everyone of the 2 purposes of the Board - governance and most important fund raising. Create a give/get level so that you are guaranteed some capital. 

Find areas to invest in that can return dividends to the non profit. Find groups to partner with that extend the impact of the non profit. Solicit Companies to help increase capital and grow programs. This also helps focus on the satisfaction of helping kids and the community, not just the competitive aspect of the activity.

Share what you do with the rest of the activity, for the good of the activity via a Board Consortium.

So thank you G7 for the wake up call and inspiration. 

 

 

 

[garfield]

12 minutes ago, SuperSaderFan said:

I can tie the G7 and this topic together:

When a group of elite members basically tell the rest of the activity that they are irrelevant, it is a wake up call. It was a new twist on survival. Rather than a risk averse attitude with a focus on staying afloat, it turned into a new focus on building a champion organization. With the threat of being eliminated from competition and performance fees, it became a quest for diversified revenues. It took a group of business professionals to approach a non profit like we approached our businesses. I offer these thoughts:

Grow the size of the Board - it can't come down to the same group of 6-8 people. Remind everyone of the 2 purposes of the Board - governance and most important fund raising. Create a give/get level so that you are guaranteed some capital. 

Find areas to invest in that can return dividends to the non profit. Find groups to partner with that extend the impact of the non profit. Solicit Companies to help increase capital and grow programs. This also helps focus on the satisfaction of helping kids and the community, not just the competitive aspect of the activity.

Share what you do with the rest of the activity, for the good of the activity via a Board Consortium.

So thank you G7 for the wake up call and inspiration. 

 

 

 

Excellent.  All good suggestions, and thanks for the description of the kick that got things going.  My question is, what WAS the tenor of the organization prior to the wake up call?  Can you describe why it took a venerable corps like BAC so long to get the message that the Seven were trying to send?  Were they not listening or were efforts misdirected?

Per the highlights above, can you provide some expansion on the notion of "investing" to "return dividends"?  If a nascent organization is struggling for capital to fund the next overnight trip, where does "investing" fit in?

I smile confidently when I read your comments about the board size.  Curious: how used to sit on the board and how many do now?  How has the character and culture of the BoD changed?

I appreciate your insight; BAC is an old "Phoenix" who faced the same problems as a new organization, but had some roots already planted deep.  It's an apt example.

Yea, in the G7's view, it's "See, we were right, weren't we?"

Heh.  Funny how that works, isn't it?