Episode 715 - Fundraising
In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy talk about Fundraising, types and formats of fundraising, and how it helps students.
Fundraising - Episode 715
Some of us might cringe at the idea of Fundraising especially if it’s being done by a school. However, fundraisers may benefit more people than you think. In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy talk about Fundraising, types and formats of fundraising, and how it helps students. Listen to learn more!
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey what's happening everybody, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio where we coordinate outfits and we don't even realize it, Episode something or other but today we're talking about fundraising. Now this doesn't necessarily apply only or not at all to nonprofit martial arts schools. We're gonna get all into this. So stick around, joined as often by my co-host, the illustrious, finally schorn, Andrew Adams. You're glowing.
Andrew Adams:
What can I say and I'm in a good mood.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. Is that it today? Haircut?
Andrew Adams:
No, no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. All right. There it is. I can see your finger.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, a little bit. So illustrious, as in? Someone who illustrates. I'm not much of an artist.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No.
Andrew Adams:
That might be artists like pen and paper.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Illustrative. Oh, okay. illustrious, bright, shiny.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, there we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Yeah, fair enough. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host for the show who takes frequent tangents. And what do we do on this show? Well, we talk about martial arts, we talk about things related to martial arts, we have a goal of connecting, educating and entertaining the traditional martial arts world. And if you want to see the things that we do, in addition to the show, you can go to whistlekick.com. One of the things you're going to find at whistlekick.com is our store. If you use the code at whistlekick.com PODCAST15, you can save 15% on anything, it was ok.com. Did I say it enough? Did you hear it? Do you know what the website is? It was at the bottom right here too. I bet Julius put a crawl. Nice. Once in a while I get somebody who, what’s whistlekick’s website again? I'm not doing my job. If you're asking that question. If you want to go deeper on the show, we get our own website for the show whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, two episodes each and every week, shiny, polished, these new episodes each and every week, all for the goal that I mentioned earlier.
And I hit it again, because it's really important for us to connect, educate and entertain. Now if the things that we're doing means something new if the show means something if our social media, if our books, if the general push that we're applying to the industry means something to you got a lot of ways you can help us out, you can make a purchase, you could maybe tell a friend about what we're doing, maybe share an episode, or consider joining our Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick, that's the place to go. You're going to get access to bonus content for as little as $2 a month, the more you're willing to part with, the more we're willing to give you it's value exchange. And we work hard to make sure that you get the better end of the deal. And if you want the full list of all the ways you can help us in our mission. Go to whistlekick.com/family. There's no link to that. There's no button if you're going to type it in. I updated again today. There are frequent updates there. Bonus exclusive. Lots of good stuff there. So, Andrew.
Andrew Adams:
Yes, fundraising.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, we're gonna make some people cringe.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. This topic episode was brought to us by a very good friend of the show, Stacy. I see. Thank you, Stacy. Yeah, thank you so much. It's great to get feedback from listeners on what they would like to hear about.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I think the challenge for people is that when we talk about fundraising, we're usually thinking about things from a nonprofit perspective. And most, not all, most martial arts schools are for profit businesses, they may not make much money. But I think for a lot of us, it's that there's almost a conflict there. And I've seen it myself with whistlekick, whistlekick is a for profit company that just doesn't make any money yet. So there are a number of people who help them see the value, they see the vision, and they're willing to contribute some of their time, they essentially volunteer, they volunteer for a for profit company.
And there are times I've mentioned that to people in conversation and they get visibly uncomfortable. So let's get that part of it out of the way first, and then we can talk about some of the specifics. Fundraising can be nonprofit, raising money can do a lot of different things. The conversation you and I are going to have today I expect is going to skew towards nonprofit charitable things of that nature. But the principles we're going to talk about apply to anything; the principles of sales and marketing are fairly universal.
And what we're going to talk about all of them, and not all of them will be equally applicable in all situations. I think there's a lot of value there. Regardless, you know, we're going to talk about things like kickoff bonds and break bonds and other other funds. That one might consider in the context of martial arts. But just because your school does not do those things doesn't mean you won't find some value, if you want to start with. But it also doesn't mean that those things have to be done solely for the benefit of a charity. There are a lot of different ways you can do these things. And we're not going to tell you how to implement this stuff.
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or I should say, where the money goes, We're not going to tell you that. We're going to give you our thoughts on this whole world, because it's something we've actually done very well discussing over the years.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I think we're going to be looking at it more in terms of things that we have seen, or experienced ourselves directly. And thoughts on how you might, you know, if you're interested in doing something like that just might give you some ideas. But I think you're correct. Most of the ones that I personally have been involved with have been, it wasn't so much fundraising money for the school itself. Although there's nothing wrong with that, it has been the school itself fundraising money for something else for, like you said, like a nonprofit, something of that nature. That's not to say you couldn't fundraise for your school, but it just isn't something that I personally have seen a whole lot of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But the place I see probably the biggest exception is I know, schools that operate an internal Scholarship Fund for students who cannot afford to pay. And instead of the school saying, you know, we're just going to not charge you which can get a little messy in the dynamics of the school, you know, they will offer scholarships, you know, partial full scholarships, and they create a fund, and they do some things throughout the year to put money into that fund.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, yep, exactly. You know, I was with an organization, not a martial arts organization, but they had what was called a sneaker fund. And it originally started to help buy kids, you know, youth who came from homes that couldn't afford to buy sneakers for sports. And the student who was done was given a free pair of sneakers from the court sneaker fund. And it was essentially exactly what you're talking about: a scholarship for kids who really couldn't afford it otherwise.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So when we talk about fundraising, we're usually talking about some kind of semi social event that involves activities that are not done frequently by that group. With an eye towards collecting money from inside and outside that community. Yeah. For the purposes of supporting some broadly supported, liked, group or organization or entity. Rolling up, we operated a kickathon at the karate school I attended. Yeah, how many kicks could you do? I think it was two minutes. And you could switch feet. And I don't quite remember the recipient, I think one year was to your Children's Miracle Network. That might have been the charity that we were collecting for. And we would go out with pledge sheets.
And we would get, you know, friends and neighbors. Most of you were kids. Most of you were kids at some point. And you did something where you had to get pledges from friends and neighbors. You know what those sheets look like? Well, how many kicks do you think you're going to do? I don't know. Last year, I did this many times. Okay, I'll sponsor you at a penny a kick and a dime a kick. Very, very deep pocketed individuals sponsored at a quarter. Okay. The first year we had someone who did not know what was going on and sponsored at $1. Okay. That was a big bill. It was like $200 for that person.
Andrew Adams:
So, when I was a kid, our school also took part in a kickathon, but it was run a little bit differently. On the day of, and we knew this ahead of time, on the day of we as a group, we're going to be doing each individually 1000 kicks, a lot of kicks, it's a lot of kicks, and it took place over the course of like, I don't remember exactly a time but it was like, you know, two or three hours, you know, there were like there were some breaks and stuff in there. And so, you went around asking for pledges at a penny a kick. If you did all 10,000, If you did all 1000 kicks, it was only 10 bucks, right? Or, you know, maybe somebody would be, you know, two cents of kick, 20 bucks. And that was really good. But it also, you know, if you didn't complete your 1000 kicks, because you would go around afterwards, which was maybe not the smartest way to do it because it was difficult to get money afterwards. But the thought was, if I only did 800 kicks, and you sponsored me for a penny, then you will now only pay $8. Right. And so it really forced me to want to do all 1000 kits to collect as much money. The downside of doing it that way was after the fact I had, you know, I did do all 1000 kicks, but if I hadn't, I would have had to go around and figure out who owed me how much per kick and it was a little more difficult. You know, paying upfront is definitely a little bit easier. But it gave a little bit of, for lack of a better expression, a little bit more skin in the game that day, I have to make sure that I got all 1000 kicks.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So we're kickathon different formats. That friend of the show, Kelly just did a break up on it at her school. You know, there are a lot of funds. Yeah, right. But those aren't the only ways that people can offer charitable things. Right? We tend to get into these mindsets where charity has to be something like this, but I know a school where they have partnerships with Parent Teacher organizations, where they donate their first month tuition and student uniform to the PTA, the PTA sells that in their community. So it works out really well. You know, the school? Yeah, the school takes a hit. But now the PTA is deriving financial benefit by sending them students. Everybody wins.
Yeah. Right. That's charitable. Is that fundraising? Depends on your definition of fundraising. Yeah, it could be, it might not be. What I think I use that as an example for is to encourage people to think outside the box. If you're doing the same sort of charitable fundraising year after year after year, those same people are going to contribute the same amount of money. And as fun as it is. Doing the same old thing does get boring.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I agree. But you did mention a word that I think is very important when you're doing anything like this. And I think you should make an effort to make it more fun than a fund. Hmm. And I actually know some stations that call it a fundraiser. You know, money is involved, they are raising funds, but it has to be enjoyable, because that's what gets people enthusiastic, enthused about doing it and being a part of it. It's true, you know, for sure. And it doesn't have to be a thought, you know, my last school, did a kicks for cancer event every year. And they just got as many people as they could to just come and do as many kicks as they could, in the hour and a half long, you know, the classes normally an hour and a half.
And so the instructor has a list of kicks they're going to do and they just see how many they can get through. And, and you know, they just ask people to donate what they can and you know, it doesn't have to be per kick. And, you know, the school usually sponsors, you know, in backup. That was me backing up. There are also more people that are there, if there's 10 people and they'll do 100 kicks, that's more kicks than only having five people there. And so they count the total number of kicks that were kicked throughout the hour and a half. And then they determined it that way and added up the total that we do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So most of the things that we've talked about thus far have been pledged based, you know, based on a certain amount of activity. There's a certain amount of financial contribution from people towards whatever the charity is, whatever the destination is, but it doesn't have to be that way. What if it was a special edition of the school t-shirt? Normally, you charge $20, but you do a special design, and now you charge $30 And it's in a different color. And it's only available for this period of time. And, you know, the extra money, you know that extra $10 goes to this group. Or what if it's, you know, for the month of May, June, whatever for the summer, any private lessons scheduled, we'll give half of the money to this group over here. Yeah. Now there's an important aspect when we start talking about things like that. And here's this has kind of fallen off. But you probably remember a few years ago, nearly any large organization had a red version of their products.
Andrew Adams:
I do remember. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Remember that Apple did it. A lot of companies did it. Apples, the one that's that's front of my mind for me. And quite often those versions of the product cost a little bit more. They were very clear, you know, we're going to donate this money to this organization, I believe it was. African, may not have been related to HIV, but it was destined for Africa. And so not only did you get the product you wanted, but you got a special edition of the product. And it allows you to create an emotional attachment to it. And the way that, you know what, yeah, I spent money on this. Yes, I bought something for myself. But I did a little bit of good in the process. Because let's face it, any of us at any time, could go down to donate $1. I would venture that just about everybody watching or listening to this could donate $1 a day to some organization. Yeah. How many of us do that?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's just one more thing. And most of us are busy. And we don't think about it that way. And if we think about $30 a month, we're like, I don't know if I want to do that. So it's if you as an organization, as a martial art school, create opportunities, where people can spend a little bit more than they're already spending on something. And you could donate that, that can work really well. Here's a completely off the cuff idea I've never thought of before. What if you had an option on your tuition for people to round up five bucks? Or it could be, you know, certain times a year or whatever, on your monthly tuition?
Yeah, and you donate that money. If you make it easy for people, this is the thing? Why do most fundraising events involve a kid calling to a person's house saying please, sir, can I have the pennies for my kicks? And then going back later, please, sir, I kicked 1000 times. Can I have a $9 processing fee? And then they take that $9 And that $9 And that $11, and they send it over to, you know, children without I'm trying to come up with something funny and sarcastic, but it's gonna fall I can tell. So we'll just leave it to the children without something up. It's okay. That's something. Yeah, I get that. It's gotta be easy.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, you know, other ideas that you can do is partner with another larger organization. I'm thinking of a youth organization that I'm involved with that partners with a local barbecue place. And they have a certain update, pick it one day a year. And for like, six hours, you know, the money that comes in, during those six hours, a portion of it is given to the youth organization. And so the kids in the organization like to tell all their friends, they tell all their parents would ever go to the restaurant. And you know, during these times, because it will help us out. There's no reason you couldn't do something like that as well. Especially if you have a large organization that is very community oriented in your town that can be huge.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a wonderful opportunity. If I'm a firm believer in stalking, the benefits of these things, just because something is done as a fundraiser doesn't mean it can't benefit you or your school or other organizations. Just because it's a fundraiser doesn't mean it can't also put money in your pocket. It all depends on the specifics and how you see things. Promotion, press, advertising, whatever you want to call it. It's a wonderful opportunity to get to know your school. And if you have just started a school, this is something that you can do to get some really effective publicity. By connecting with a larger organization, you now get to leverage their network potentially exactly. I've done some of this in the past. I had nothing to do with martial arts, but I lived on a roof for four days and did it in an app to raise money for a children's based organization here in Vermont. We raised you know, a bunch of 1000s of dollars. And it was fun. Fun fact, it was like we cobbled together live streaming, it wasn't really a thing, but I live streamed the entire time I was on the roof. And we got wonderful press. I mean, we had inquiries nationally because of what I was doing. Right? So if you do it right, everybody wins. And I think those are the best efforts where everybody wins.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah, I would agree making it so that all parties involved get something out of it. You can't lose.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's talk about the participants. Those are the ones that we really haven't talked about. We've talked about the beneficiary. We've talked about the school. What about the people participating, you know, whether we're talking about a font or something else? What is important is to make sure they talk about calling it fundraising, making sure they have a good time. What's important there? Yeah. It's got to be something in my opinion, it has to be something that they are used to doing, but they're not used to doing example, a kickathon as an example, we're gonna do 1000 kicks, I would say, the vast majority of people listening who do kicks in their school, what, regardless of what that kick is, but how many of them do 1000 kicks in one night?
Andrew Adams:
So, it's something that they're used to doing, but it's something they're not used to doing. I think that aspect in some way is really important. Same thing. With a kickathon there. If your school is holding one I'm suspecting you are breaking already. But you probably don't break in the numbers that you're going to do during a “thon”. That's what makes it spectacular in quotes, right? It's above and beyond, it's abnormal to do this sort of thing, which makes it intriguing and fun for those people that are doing it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. I like that. I like that distinction, that it's something that people have experience with. But the implementation is novel. Because if you just said, let's take the counter example. We're going to have class, we're going to work on all of our basic kicks. And you don't even have to count them. We have somebody on the side who's going to count because I'm going to count to 10. Yeah, and you're going to do 10 front kicks, and then we're going to turn around or you're going to do 10 front kicks back. And then you're going to do 10 sidekicks, and they're going to round you, 10 sidekicks back and now we've done 40 kicks, and everybody's like, this is the worst fundraiser ever. I'm so bored. How much do I have to pay to not do this? Yeah, right. That's a class that's not a fundraiser. That's not something that gets people to show up. If there's a reporter on the side taking pictures, they're gonna think this is boring. Why did I show up for this, I could have gone and taken a picture of the beat and supper at the church. It's an opportunity for showmanship, it's an opportunity for pushing people a little bit, including the students. Most of us if we've spent any time teaching, we know that challenging our students and if you're a student, you know being challenged is important. It's an opportunity for being challenged. That doesn't exist. Otherwise. I don't know if too many instructors are gonna say, All right, today for the next three hours, we're gonna get up to 1000 kicks. It doesn't fit the tone of a typical class. Yeah, exactly. And so you pull people in on a weekend, maybe a Friday night, some people weekend, and you do something different? And it's okay to have fun with it.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. Yeah, the one that I took part in, you know, they had figured out ahead of time, like the combinations of kicks in, it started out very simple and basic, just kind of like you said, you know, alright, we're going to do 10 franking, for the right leg, and then 10 front kicks with the left, and then, you know, and it built up, and it built up into combinations, which made it that's what made it fun. You know, we often in class will maybe do two, maybe three combinations that are out maybe like front kick, and then roundhouse kick, and then maybe some sort of spinning kick. But then when we start getting into like, 3,4,5 kicks in a row, all moving down the floor. And when we did that, we were in this huge, huge gymnasium, like massive. It was like two, it was in a rec center.
So there were two full size basketball courts next to each other that normally had a divider between them. And they took it, they took the divider out. So it was like two full size gyms, you know, basketball gyms. And we were all lining the outside. So we're all moving towards the center as we're doing all these kicks. And that made it different and fun and enjoyable. And we invited every school in the area. So it wasn't just our school students doing it. There were students that we had never met. There's another aspect of something that's new for the people involved, because I was standing next to somebody that I didn't know. But I knew him by the end because we spent three hours together kicking.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So as we as we start to wind down here, couple things to think about, think of all the things as Andrew said, that people do routinely that could be done in a slightly different way, in a maybe a measured way, or in a presentation way, [00:25:26-00:25:28]. And I know that's a Japanese term. And I generally stay style agnostic. But the other terms don't work as well in that font. And I'm trying to come up with a synonym for fun, you know, like [00:25:38-00:25:40]. And I'm not coming up with anything, and it's driving me nuts. They really want to go right now, but I'm resistant because it comes from Marathon.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, I think that's why, like you're doing a marathon you're in, which is a long distance thing. So a [00:25:51-00:25:53] is like, you know, you watch TV, but it's a whole bunch of it's a whole bunch more so it's a whole lot of them together. So it's a marathon, whatever it is, so it's a [00:26:00-00:26:01]. I think that's why that's where it comes from.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, that makes way more sense. Now, I feel better. But it could be that you're doing forms for 24 hours. You know, you get somebody to sponsor you. You know, there could be grappling roles, there's so many things. What would 12 hours of roles be? And you know, there, if you puke, you're out.
Andrew Adams:
Maybe we should do a podcast-athon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I did. So I implemented it back when I was in college, and I ran the TV station, a 24 hour show. In response to the 24 hour magazine issue. I was part of the magazine, we didn't issue in 24 hours, content layout, edit the whole thing, then sent a depress, so 24 hours, but we did a 24 hour show where I just pulled everybody in. And it was just content after content after content. We do like 30 to 60 minute blocks and swap people out. And I'll tell you to fill in that 3, 4 or 5am space. That was rough. Yeah, I remember, actually, the episode that aired last. That aired today. With me being sick. And just like it was very much.
Andrew Adams:
So two weeks ago, two weeks ago. All right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, yeah, I couldn't come up today, on the day that this episode comes out that was referenced to you. As we're recording this, it came out today. So be creative. And have fun. And I would love for the listeners to let us know what kind of fundraising events they've been part of. Yeah. Did they work? Did they not work? You know, let's get a list going. Because I'm hoping that what we've done here today sparks some ideas for people. But I know if we bring in more ideas, it'll spark even more ideas. And I think there's a lot of value in that for people.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely, absolutely. Let's all learn from each other. You know, if you had a fundraiser that worked great, how did it work? Right? Like why did it work? Right? What did you do that made it work great? So that others can do the same thing? And on the opposite end? If you did something that didn't work? Well, let's make sure people don't repeat your mistakes. Yep, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anything else?
Andrew Adams:
No, I think we're good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. So if you like what we talked about, and you want to add to the conversation, two places you can do it one, you can go to the Facebook group whistlekick Martial Arts Radio behind the scenes, and find the post to which Andrew made for this whatever episode number this will be, and comment. You can also go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com and comment under the post that is this episode, you're also gonna find videos and links and social media and all kinds of cool stuff for the episodes that we do over there. And if you want to support us in the work that we do, you have two options, you may consider buying one of our books on Amazon, maybe telling others about the show or supporting us with our Patreon we have to tell them, you have to tell them that you didn't notice on that episode. So, two episodes two weeks ago, when I was half dead of illness. And I said Andrew, I need you to carry the episode I need you to do as much as possible. And he starts talking and I send him a copy of this sheet that I use for the intro and outro stuff. And I knew I was like oh the Patreon so I found a post and I just scribbled like patreon.com/whistlekick. So he's talking about, we're just like, or he didn't even notice. He messaged me today that in the moment he had those. It was only after reviewing the episode that he saw.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I laughed out loud because I had I was so you really have mirrorless Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say nervous is the right word. But I mean, I guess I was a little bit nervous. I don't usually do the intro, the outro it's something outside of my comfort zone, which is a good thing to step outside of. But I was so focused on you know, following the program, I didn't want to miss anything. And, you know, so when patreon.com/whistlekick came up, you brought up this little post and it was very, very funny.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you find this kind of humor enjoyable? Would you like to combine it with martial arts training? Bring me in for a seminar. You'll have fun, you'll learn stuff. If you want, you can have the full experience we can bring Andrew into. And we'll probably get less work done but have more fun. Just message us and we'll figure it out. Don't forget the code PODCAST15, gets you 15% off anything like training programs or a shirt or a hat? Or I don't have anything else handy. Other things like that at whistlekick.com. And if you have guest suggestions, topics suggested want to hear them. Let us know email me, Jeremylesniak@whistlekick.com, Andrew was Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com or social media is @whistlekick everywhere you could think of. That's it for now. So until next time, train hard, smile. Have a great day.