Soccer Registration –
Use This Opportunity to Keep Your Registration Fees Low
The issue of whether to raise soccer registration fees seems to be a perennial source of apprehension among the board members of many youth soccer clubs. In recent years, the increasing cost of running a sports program has far outpaced increases in families’ disposable income and, at the same time, many product fundraisers have become less productive with each passing year.
With the widening gap between the cost of providing a competitive soccer program and the amount of money families can make available for registration fees, board members are often faced with a dilemma. If they increase their soccer registration fees they fear they will financially place their program beyond the reach of some families in their community or risk losing players to competing youth organizations. If they elect to run another product fundraiser, they will place an additional burden on their members and contribute to the super-abundance of under-performing fundraisers that have already fatigued their members as well as the community at large.
If the directors of your youth soccer organization have made the collective decision that a fundraiser
can and
shouldplay an essential role in making their program affordable to the families in their community, then they should also make a determined commitment to its success so they won't have to ask their members to run another fundraiser in the same season. At the same time, directors should offer to its general membership a promise that if the goal of this single fundraiser can be met then the board will neither ask the members to participate in another fundraiser this year nor vote to increase registration fees next year—and that is indeed a very worthy objective.
The E-Z Discount Card Program for Soccer Registration
There is an often overlooked—but sweet—fundraising opportunity that is available to each youth soccer program each season. Regardless of whether your registration is conducted at a physical location or online, no other venue is likely to present you with the same level of ease in starting the fundriaser and in achieving closure for it—and with such satisfactory and predictable results.
Not many years ago candy bar fundraisers were ubiquitous at player registrations. These fundraisers were arguably the simplest and most efficient way to raise funds because it was just too easy to hand a case of candy bars to registrants while collecting the money for them at the same time. Candy bars have since become more closely associated with numerous health issues, and they've lost their social correctness—especially among youth sports organizations that have agendas for health and nutrition. In addition, the advent of online registrations has made it more problematic to distribute the product for sale.
Champion has developed the E-Z Discount Card Program to fill the void left by candy bar fundraisers—and this program has proven to be an excellent fit for player registrations.
In addition to avoiding the health issues associated with candy bars, E-Z Discount Cards offer a combination of advantages that remain unmatched by other fundraising products: (1) They are easy to store and carry, and there are no issues of spoilage or breakage; (2) they have a very high perceived value since purchasers can often recoup many times the price that was paid for them; (3) because of their high perceived value and low price point, they are easy to sell (and, indeed, many soccer club members will sell the cards they were given at registration within 72 hours); (4) a very high percentage of members will purchase one or two cards for use by their own family; (5) a discount card order-taker can be given to each player along with their starting allotment of cards so that they can continue to take orders for discount cards when they have sold the cards they were given; (6) the profit percentage is usually greater than that offered by candy vendors; (7) with Champion's limited return policy, unsold discount cards can be returned for a cash refund (See Champion's return policy.); (8) they benefit the mechants in a soccer club's community; (9) they are a great form of advertising for the soccer club; and (10) they are the least likely to interfere with other fundraisers in your community—and they can even be made non-competitive with other discount card fundaisers.
Instead of introducing a registration fee increase this year, consider introducing an E-Z Discount Card program at registration. As was the procedure with candy bar fundraisers, your player's parents can pay for the discount cards when registering their players, so there is virtually instant closure. Since the cards are easy to sell, parents get their money back almost immediately. In addition, discount cards, if set up correctly, can be calibrated to bring in more revenue than a registration fee increase and are thereby certain to help keep your soccer program financially accessible to the families in your community.
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Knowledgebase ● Champion makes available to email subscribers a knowledgebase of articles related to funding issues to help engender success in the funding of non-profit youth organizations. Links to the most recent of these articles are listed at the bottom of our website's home page. A link to the home page will be found in our email confirmation of your request for information and in the confirmation of your request for sample discount cards.