My golf team at California State University, Los Angeles recently held a fundraising golf tournament. There was quite a bit of work putting the tournament together, and I was happy with the end result.
But, the question is: were the tournament participants happy?
For those of you who have participated in fundraising tournaments before, you can probably appreciate this question. After all, you’ve paid quite a bit of money to play.
If you’re anything like me, it doesn’t take anything extraordinary to make the fundraising experience a good one. Give me a fun golf course with good food. That’s about all that it takes for me to enjoy playing in a fundraiser tournament.
I’ve been involved in the running of hundreds of golf tournaments during my professional career. Some have themes, while others like to keep it simple. I’m alright with keeping a tournament simple, as long as the quality of the event is not compromised.
While putting together our recent fundraiser tournament, we first began by choosing a golf course we knew players would enjoy playing. These tournaments should offer players an opportunity to play a golf course they would not otherwise have a chance to play.
This generally means a private club that non-members are not allowed to play.
Once we choose our venue, the next step was selecting the dinner menu.
After a fun day on the golf course, it’s important to follow that up with some delicious food. A successful fundraiser tournament depends on a successful banquet following the golf, so you need to make sure the food is “up to par.”
Playing on a good golf course and then following that up with good food can lead to a successful auction. Happy golfers with stomachs full of good food are more likely to spend money on whatever auction items are being offered at the post-tournament banquet.
Good auction items can include foursomes of golf at private country clubs, sports tickets, vacation getaways and countless other types of items. In order to get these types of items donated to your fundraising tournament, it’s important to put together a tournament committee as devoted to this event as you are.
I was fortunate to have a GREAT tournament committee working with me on our fundraiser.
The committee took on such responsibilities as handling the registration table, setting up the breakfast and setting up the auction items in the banquet room. For the tournament participants, this may not seem like much, but a good committee can make the entire day run smoothly.
I couldn’t be happier with how our fundraiser turned out.
Participants seemed to have a great time, and our team was able to raise a good amount of money for our program. As long as we keep choosing good golf courses and serving good food, I am certain that we will continue to have FUNdraisers that everybody will look forward to.
