One of the most common myths in sports fundraising is that two nearby organizations doing the same fundraiser at the same time—or nearly the same time—will significantly hurt at least one of the organization’s sales.  However, the perception is more apparent than it is real.  That is, it certainly seems reasonable to conclude that if one sports organization in a community is conducting, say, a cookie dough fundraiser at the same time another organization is selling cookie dough, then they must be taking sales away from each other.  In reality, there will be very little redundancy in the attempts of each organization to sell to the same prospective buyers, and what redundancy there may be will have very little impact on the outcome of either of the two sports fundraising campaigns. 

The only problem with trying to dispel the perception of interference is that if one or both of the organizations had a disappointing fundraiser then the perceived conflict will be singled out as the cause.  What can make matters worse is that the accusation will be something that is just as impossible to disprove as the existence of leprechauns.  (Do you have proof that leprechauns don't exist?)  Happily, a moment of reflection, reasonableness and logic can bring one around.

The question is "Should a youth organization entertain sports fundraising ideas that other area school or youth organizations are already conducting?"  To answer this, let’s consider a hypothetical situation in which a youth soccer club would like to sell fundraising discount cards, but their community’s high school baseball team has been conducting a discount card fundraiser for several years. 

First, from a statistical standpoint, even the most successful fundraiser conducted by one of the largest youth organizations in the school district will rarely exceed more than 5% market penetration within that geographic area.  That is, it is likely that a single large and successful fundraiser will not reach 95% of the households in the geographic area into which the cards are sold.  Therefore, from a purely mathematical perspective, it stands to reason that two large youth organizations conducting a successful fundraiser at the same time will share the same customers no more than ¼ of 1% (.05 x .05 = .0025) of the time.  That translates to less than three out of every 1,000 households.  Although the perception of a conflict may be very strong, the amount of actual “overlap”, where a seller from each organization is competing for the same sale with the same customer, is obviously exceedingly small.

Second, in case one has difficulty wrapping his mind around the idea that the probability of selling redundancy could be so remote, let’s push the probability beyond any doubt of validity.  Let’s increase that number by more than a factor of 10 and say that in 3 out of every 100 households (i.e., 3% of households instead of ¼% of households) a prospective customer would have to decide whether to purchase a fundraising product from one youth organization having already purchased a similar product from another organization.  That would mean that, on average (and by means of this exaggerated criterion), each sports organization would be potentially giving up 1½% of its sales to the other sports organization.  

But wait!  Would that really happen?  If the fundraising product was a discount card, what would you do if you purchased a card from one organization and were later approached to buy another card from a second organization's player?  Well, the answer in this case might depend upon whether the second discount card was the same (i.e., whether it offered the same discounts) as the one you purchased last night.  Of course, if it offered the same discounts then the second card would probably have little or no appeal to you.  On the other hand, if the second discount card offered a substantially different set of discounts, and it had unique merchant discount listings that were of particular interest to you, then that might hold much appeal and make the second purchase more likely.  The reality of the matter is that many people do purchase a second discount card when asked to do so.  Of course, they’re not really buying a discount card per se; they’re really buying the merchant offers and, if the two cards carry different offers, why wouldn’t they purchase a second discount card?   

Let’s change the product and say the product in question is pizza and last night you purchased a pizza from a player on the middle school’s girls' basketball team.  If a youth from the high school marching band came to your door tonight and asked for you to support their trip to a college bowl parade by purchasing a pizza, what would you do?  After all, you might feel inclined to support both organizations, and it is not as though your family can eat only one pizza in the next several months! 

If you are one of the many people who would purchase a second fundraising discount card or another pizza, then you probably helped to make that inflated number of 1½% go down to less than 1%.  That is, from a purely statistical and mathematical standpoint, the outcome of either fundraiser will not be affected in any significant way. 

What many people fail to take into consideration, then, is how enormous the potential market (i.e., pool of potential buyers) is for any single youth sports fundraising campaign, how few are the occurrences of approaching the same potential purchasers, and how frequently potential purchasers buy a fundraising item from both organizations.

Third, sports fundraising outcomes are often incentive-driven.  That is, sellers typically know how many fundraising items they need to sell to earn an offered incentive.  So it seems logical to assume that if a seller is motivated to sell by the offered incentive and happens to encounter that rare person who didn’t purchase from him because this person had just purchased a similar item from another organization, then the seller could easily find another customer in his very large and heretofore untapped potential customer universe.  That universe is represented not only by the 5% of households that may have already purchased a similar fundraising item, but also by the 95% of other households that have not yet been approached.

Getting back to our hypothetical situation of the youth soccer club and the high school baseball team selling a similar product, a fourth consideration is that here we are talking about organizations representing two distinctly different age groups.  Because both players and their parents are likely to sell somewhat disproportionately to age-peers, this suggests that there is likely to be even less of an overlap of potential customers between the two campaigns.

A fifth consideration is that the extended geography into which an organization's fundraising product penetrates is very much larger than most people imagine.  Consider that much—if not most—of what is sold in any youth sports fundraising campaign is sold by the players' parents in the workplace or to relatives or family friends.  Many of these parents may have to travel 5, 10 or even 20 miles to get to their place of employment where they will sell the fundraiser's products to their co-workers, many of whom will have traveled similar distances from the opposite or an oblique direction.  A player's grandparents or friends of the family may even live one or two counties away.  Obviously, the chance that another player from the same organization will approach a co-worker or relative so removed by distance is indeed remote.

There are shortcuts to appreciating the issue.  Just ask yourself whether you think a group of, say, 400 youth organization members is likely to have a fundraising sale that is very close to twice as large as two 200-member youth organizations are likely to have.  It is easy to conceive that they would.  From a slightly different angle, you can consider whether a 400 member soccer club that split and became two organizations—perhaps one a recreational organization and the other a travel club—would experience a difference in their average items sold per player.  Here, it is easy to conceive that they wouldn't. 

The problem with the perception of conflict is not just that it is so flagrantly wrong, it is also that the perception is also so widely held and so deeply ingrained that it is often as difficult to overcome as it was in ancient times for anyone to believe that the world is anything other than flat.  Indeed, if a youth sports organization wanted to conduct a particular type of fundraiser for their next sports season but later learned that one of the high school sports teams did a similar fundraiser, they would probably dismiss the consideration of their idea out of hand for fear of damaging another organization’s fundraiser.

That fear may be very real to the one who is concerned, and the disposition to jettison something that is perceived as harmful to another is honorable; however, before you send any of your potentially successful sports fundraising ideas over the edge of the earth, consider asking the other organization whether they would mind very much if your organization used a similar product in your sports fundraising campaign.  Since the perception (or misperception) of a potential conflict can be so strong, it really is a good idea to ask.  Asking is just the courteous and respectful thing to do (and there is no reason why you can't give the other organization a link to this article if you are worried that your request may foster concern).  You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised with the result of having asked.  More often than not, the other organization will be both impressed with and grateful for your consideration—and it won’t have any objections at all. 

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