Non-profit organizations assemble in the auditorium to learn about the 2011 Oakland Raiders Fundraising Program.
The Oakland Raiders held the first of four 2011 Fundraising Program Informational Nights at their facility in Alameda, Calif. Over 40 non-profit organizations from around the Bay Area attended the meeting to learn about raising money for their organizations. The Raiders fundraising program is a no-risk program that helps organizations raise money by selling Raiders tickets at a special fundraising price and receiving $20 per ticket sold.
At the event, Group Sales and Fundraising representative Monica Tucker explained the most important aspects of the program. "There's no money up front," said Tucker. "We make your order forms for you. The only thing that we have to have in order for you to participate is your 501(c)(3), (c)(4), or (c)(6). It's as easy as that."
Group Sales and Fundraising representative Dan Stein elaborated on the program's opportunities. "The way the program works is you guys are able to sell our seats at a special fundraising rate," said Stein. "So the people buying your tickets are not only giving back to your organizations by helping you raise [money] per ticket sold, but they're also saving money on tickets. They are getting the best price on an NFL ticket that you can get anywhere from the 32 teams that are in this league."
The non-profit organizations, in addition to raising funds for their programs, also have the opportunity to participate in game day events. Tucker told the story of a youth football team that was able to watch the Raiders break a tie and win on an incredible last second touchdown from the Black Hole end zone. "I've got nine and eight-year old little boys and the cheer girls jumping up and down and screaming 'Raiders.' Here they are, never been to a game in their life, and the first game they've been to, they're on the field, in the Black Hole end zone, watching our team play," Tucker told the attendees. "Our fans are just cheering and high-fiving the kids. I hope every single one of your non-profit organizations has an experience like that on game day – to not only raise funds but come out and do something not everybody can do."
A few of the most successful non-profits shared their stories at the fundraising meeting. "This summer we started our summer camp, Language of Leaders Institute, and we were looking for creative ways to fundraise," said Dwayne Aikens, CEO of We Lead Ours. "We e-mailed the Raiders and we got an email back within 30 minutes. What I really valued about it was the customer service. At first we were just thinking of raising $2,000 and Calvin [St. John, a Raiders Group Sales and Fundraising representative] said, 'No, think bigger than that.' We get into the program and people were calling us from San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, all over the place. It allowed us to not only become marketable here in the Bay Area and solicit our services for what we do for the youth, but it helped us get a whole other fan base in Southern California and the Tri-Valley. After the season was over, once we collected our check, we've been able to put on a free football skills camp, which is one of our business components that we want to do more physical fitness activities."
Last year's most successful fundraising organization was Fremont Jr. Huskies Youth Football and Cheer Program. "We basically told everybody to sell 10 tickets," said Jermaine White, vice-president of the Jr. Huskies. "We're a new organization and we obviously had equipment we had to pay for and we were able to take our whole organization to Las Vegas for free. All of our road games we were able to get buses. This year we're hoping we can have this fundraiser help us pay for our transportation to get to where we need to go. We have a goal of getting some property to get our own location as well. Without [the Raiders fundraising program], there are a lot of things we wouldn't have been able to do and it really helped our organization out."
Each of these organizations has a personal Raiders representative to help them every step of the way in order to maximize their success in the risk-free, no contract fundraising program. Non-profits will have the opportunity to learn more about this program at three more upcoming information sessions.
For more information, call 1-800-RAIDERS, press 2 for new tickets, and then press 2 again for groups and fundraising.
