Where does the fundraising money go?>>
Why is the fundraising mandatory this time?>>>
Who decides on what the fundraiser will be?>>
WHY DO WE DO FUNDRAISING?
Fundraising is one of the major benefits of Stafford County contracting with a private 501(c)3 non-profit organization like Stafford Baseball League to manage the youth baseball program for the County. This allows SBL to go above and beyond what is collected at registration or budgeted by Stafford County to provide baseball to its citizens.
Stafford County Parks and Recreation Department provides the county fields for the kids to baseball on. With their modest budget they are required to maintain those fields and keep them in good repair (in addition to soccer fields, football fields, and all other parks). They also require staff to administrate the scheduling of those fields for all of the organizations and private parties who wish to use them.
By contract with Stafford County, SBL is only allowed to spend the registration fees collected from the players on direct operating costs of the youth baseball program. The largest piece of which is insurance. The rest of the registration fees go to the obvious: baseballs, equipment, uniforms, umpires (for older leagues), field paint/lime, field rakes, field drags, pitching machines (for Rookie League), field improvements (to augment the County budget) etc. In addition, we budget into the registration fees the administrative costs of running the baseball league: Telephone, office supplies, advertising, online fees, postage, background checks for coaches, etc.
WHERE DOES THE FUNDRAISING MONEY GO?
The easy answer is, “Everywhere else.” For starters, each year SBL awards a total of $3500 in college scholarship money to graduating seniors from each of the five Stafford County High Schools. Last year, approximately $3000 was spent registering less fortunate children for baseball. Without your donations and fundraising efforts those children would not have been able to play baseball at all. SBL built batting cages at all of the major parks in Stafford for use of all baseball players (not just our own). Last year SBL put $13,000 into Smith Lake Park improvements (covered dugouts, paved walk-ways, windscreens, etc.). This past winter SBL rented the Fredericksburg Field House every Saturday from the end of fall season to the beginning of spring season for baseball clinics, and hired professional baseball instructors to run them. These clinics were open to any SBL players free of charge. We hope to expand on this for next winter these clinics filled up almost immediately.
Our major fundraising goals that you will see in the immediate future include 1) Covered dugouts at the remainder of park fields used by SBL players, 2) Batting cages at Brooks Park, 3) Maintenance of all of the other batting cages that are now in disrepair, 4) Professionally run coaching clinic for volunteer coaches, 5) Attempted expansion of our off-season clinics, and our largest endeavor – a place to call home. We hope to one day have a building of our own to store our equipment, hold our meetings, have indoor clinics and other events, etc.
This year’s fundraiser is selling the coupon book. If every player this spring sells one book we expect to collect anywhere from $13,000 to $14,000 depending on registration numbers. To give you an idea, the frame work alone for the covered dugouts will cost the league $14,000 (this does not include the actual covers).
WHY IS THE FUNDRAISING MANDATORY THIS TIME?
SBL is an all volunteer league from the president down to the assistant coach. We are all moms and dads with regular day jobs volunteering our time to put on a top-notch baseball program for the youth of Stafford County. In fundraisers past, the burden of distributing fundraising merchandise and collecting money has rested solely on the volunteer coach. In addition, the burden was on the volunteer commissioners and directors to make sure that money got collected and back to the league somehow. This was an inefficient process that leads to problems with accountability. Not mention the inequitable participation among our membership (not everyone doing their fair share). By conducting the fundraising in this manner (collecting the money up front and requiring a minimum of one book being sold by everyone), this has lifted burden of our already inundated volunteers from having to be accountants and collectors.
An added benefit is that there is some character building involved when your young player goes out to sell their book. He or she will learn to take on some of their own financial responsibility for their recreational activities. If they cannot sell their book on the first few tries, they will also learn that earning money is not always easy. It is takes work and perseverance. In the end, its only one book and we are confident that they will be able to sell it.
All that being said, some people do not want to be bothered with fundraising (and that’s okay too). Hence the opt-out fee, this of course, is an out-of-pocket expense to you, but that is a personal choice.
WHO DECIDES ON WHAT THE FUNDRAISER WILL BE?
You do. As members of SBL you all have a say on how the league is run, to include what we will do each season for a fundraising event. We have monthly general membership meetings that are advertised on the front page of our website. The level of your involvement in this decision making is your own personal choice.