How Nonprofits Can Activate Third Parties to Hold Golf Events on Their Behalf
Golf tournaments are an especially great option for third parties looking to raise money for an organization or cause they care about. The sport has seen its popularity grow over the past years and its capacity as a fundraising tool is unmatched. What’s more, people tend to be passionate about golf, and when given the opportunity to marry two of their passions—golf and a good cause—they tend to jump at the chance.
Perhaps more than any other fundraising events, golf tournaments have unique advantages for the benefiting nonprofit as well as for the organizer. Nonprofits gain a passive income stream that doesn’t require a dedicated staff member or line item in the budget, while also increasing visibility for the organization, mission, and programs. Event organizers, particularly corporate entities, get a strong brand lift from being associated with a good cause and broad exposure to an affluent demographic.
Nonprofits of all types and sizes can activate passionate supporters, corporate partners, volunteers, and others to hold a golf fundraiser that benefits them. Here’s how:
1. Reach Out To Your Networks
Your best bet is to start with the lowest-hanging fruit—your organization’s past supporters and partners. If your organization has run golf tournaments before, consider creating a campaign to target folks who have played in and sponsored those events, whether it’s by email, a survey, a direct mail appeal, individual phone calls, or a combination of these (which will depend on your organization’s staff capacity). Social media is another great option to engage people simply by asking if they like to golf or like organizing events. You may want to include information in your annual giving appeals or even create a dedicated page on your organization’s website that outlines the process of holding a golf tournament on your behalf.
Do some pre-planning before you reach out so you have some pieces and resources already in place to provide to people who are interested. Beyond just making the process easy (see #2 below) you want to set these golf tournaments up for success, so make sure you’re prepared to be a partner in the process.
Pro Tip:
GolfStatus’s online resource library is packed with guides, templates, checklists, and other free downloadables with information on how to plan a charity golf tournament. Share these with current and potential event organizers to help set them up for success.
2. Make It Easy
Even when someone is dedicated to your organization or cause, putting on a golf tournament is no small task. Having tools in place to streamline and simplify the process for organizers means they’re more likely to move forward and keep these events running—and raising money for your cause—year after year.
Golf tournament software can automate time-consuming administrative tasks so organizers can focus on the fun parts of the golf tournament, with built-in fundraising features to help them raise more money for your cause. You might also consider putting together a media kit with logos, messaging, and brand standards to provide to tournament organizers to help your brand stay consistent. When it’s easy, it’s more fun, more rewarding, and more likely that they’ll keep the effort going.
PRO
TIP:
Pro Tip: Say thank you, whenever and wherever you can, to these third party organizers. Public shoutouts are great—on social media, in newsletters or blogs, on your organization’s website, etc.—but a personal touch will go a long way in expressing your gratitude. Send a handwritten note and follow it up with a phone call.
3. Use a Common Technology Platform
There are a ton of options out there to manage fundraising events, but these don’t help organizers manage the unique components of a golf tournament. Employing technology that’s specifically built for golf tournament fundraisers is a huge part of #2 above. Any golf tournament software platform should offer an attractive event website with built-in online registration (which saves a ton of time and duplicative labor), plus easy access for multiple members of your team to work together and keep all your event information organized and accessible in one place. A dedicated landing page listing all events that benefit your organizations is a great way to easily promote events to your networks. A platform designed just for golf means you can quickly make hole assignments and pairings and auto generate scorecards, cart signs, and alpha lists—all without having to work across multiple spreadsheets or tools.
PRO
TIP:
Pro Tip: Standardizing the tech across all your third party events means your donor data will be uniformly collected (see #4 below) and reported. This data should be added to your CRM for additional donor stewardship, using source codes, tags or other batch notations to track who participated in these golf events and how.
With GolfStatus’s golf event management and fundraising platform, every golf event benefiting your organization is listed on a dedicated landing page.
4. Capture & Manage Data
Donor data is invaluable, particularly when it comes to golf events planned by someone outside your organization. You can’t use the information you don’t have! Seamlessly collecting and managing this information is crucial to understanding who is supporting your organization through golf—planning, playing in, donating to, and sponsoring these tournaments. Having this information in aggregate lets you see the entire picture, across each and every event held to benefit your organization, and make data-driven fundraising decisions. Golf event management technology makes this process super simple and efficient.
PRO
TIP:
Pro Tip: Your event management platform should be intuitive enough to collect this vital information without frustrating or overwhelming registrants (which may make them abandon their cart instead of completing their registration) and include robust reporting capabilities to get the data you need.
No Cost Technology Built Just for Golf
GolfStatus is the industry leader in technology for golf fundraisers and charity golf tournaments. The user-friendly software makes it easy to onboard third party events, manage donor data, and provide resources to event organizers. Plus, through the Golf for Good program, 501(c) organizations and those holding events that benefit them are eligible for no-cost access to the platform. Ready to get started? Click the button below or email [email protected].