One of the biggest challenges faced by youth sports organizations and sports nonprofits is the ability to identify sustainable revenue streams. Without that funding, these organizations struggle to provide existing programming, much less provide new offerings and scale their organization to create greater community impact.
An often overlooked area of support comes from cities and counties. There are organizations in many communities that serve to strengthen the local economy and often provide subsidies or sponsorships for events. Each community runs their operations differently. Some are housed within the CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau) or Chamber of Commerce, while others have a dedicated sports commission that is focused on attracting and servicing youth sports tournaments.
We have seen the prolific growth of travel sports tournaments over the last 20 years, and these events attract hundreds of teams, meaning that it is common to bring several thousand attendees to the area for hotel stays, meals and other incidental spending. The “Heads in Beds” mantra runs deep in these organizations and provide great ways to bolster funding.
But the funding opportunities run deeper than simply attracting visitors. Many of the organizations are committed to providing nonprofits in their communities with resources to expand their activities and create greater local impact. Though the direct impact may often be hard to measure, these CVBs and Sports Commissions can frequently provide support that goes beyond simple dollars. Their relationship capital, media access and extensive experience can provide small organizations with benefits that they cannot obtain on their own.
During this panel, we heard from:
- Katherine Quinn, Fairfax County Athletic Council
- Tom Cove, CEO, SFIA
- Jon Stehle
- Linda Flanagan, Project Play Summit
Katherine Quinn led off the conversation on and focused on the structure of the Fairfax County Athletic Council. It was established to have one voice with an Advisory Council comprised of 23 people with 9 reps from districts, 8 from major sports and a Member at large. Anyone in Fairfax County is involved in sports has someone representing them on the council. Each council member serves two year terms because the Council believes that longevity and institutional knowledge are important. Her experience has also shown that people who have the most access tend to be the people who are best at advocating for themselves. They are effective at getting attention. The recommendations that they make are taken seriously and recommendations are almost never rejected.
Katherine has found that most communities have similar pain points and that when you align people on what that pain point consists of, then you get a motivated group that collaborates with a shared voice.
Tom Cove focused his presentation on trends and future of youth sports in America. He used Montgomery County as an example. With an organization that is only one year old, Cove discussed how the structure was modeled after Fairfax County. Though it was still young in years, and still in the midst of growing pains, Montgomery County has 17 citizens who are designated by county. The county is diverse geographically with over 1 million people and a budget of $7 million. The problem is that everyone thinks that they deserve everything (a common problem we hear from organizations around the country).
The goals are to: Makes sports better; Deliver higher quality; Serve underserved; Analyze the historical use of fields; Articulate the needs; Communicate the needs to the policy makers to get things done.
According to Cove, it is important to create dialogue and keep the requests specific. Ask for funding, pursue legislation and find a champion of your cause. Cove believes that it is important to establish a formal commission that has power beyond the community.
Cove finds that frequently, half of the people in the group are mad at the group providing service and that it really takes hard work to accomplish policy changes. People come with an emotional attachment and emotional view and we need to get them to rally around a shared vision.
One of the difficulties in this environment, is that few of these discussions focus on growing sports participation.
Jon Stehle focused on how we can perceive the actual value of the bureaucracy. Though it may take longer to implement at the outset, the bureaucracy actually helps do it over and over and creates a positive path to keep continuity. One of the struggles in that environment is that it is hard to accomplish with terms that create turnover every two years.
Consistency is important for grant funding and they typically provide $300k for grants, mostly in amounts of $10k or less. This is still a relatively small amount of their $171 million budget.
Among the important initiatives and accoplishments are:
- Adopting Kids Bill of Rights
- Adopting a Playbook
- Garnering political support
- Creating a pathway for league play since Fairfax is not big enough to have its own leagues.
- Building Continuity
- Acknowledging the power of play
- Finding a political champion
Each of these have their own challenges even though the median income is $101k. There are still have Title I schools which means that there is a great need to put in a plan to get food to kids who often only get regular meals at school.
As we have seen, these organizations have a significant power to help and it is incumbent on both youth sports organizations and nonprofits to take the time and make the effort to build the relationships that can bolster their success.
One of the biggest challenges faced by youth sports organizations and sports nonprofits is the ability to identify sustainable revenue streams. Without that funding, these organizations struggle to provide existing programming, much less provide new offerings and scale their organization to create greater community impact.
An often overlooked area of support comes from cities and counties. There are organizations in many communities that serve to strengthen the local economy and often provide subsidies or sponsorships for events. Each community runs their operations differently. Some are housed within the CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau) or Chamber of Commerce, while others have a dedicated sports commission that is focused on attracting and servicing youth sports tournaments.
We have seen the prolific growth of travel sports tournaments over the last 20 years, and these events attract hundreds of teams, meaning that it is common to bring several thousand attendees to the area for hotel stays, meals and other incidental spending. The “Heads in Beds” mantra runs deep in these organizations and provide great ways to bolster funding.
But the funding opportunities run deeper than simply attracting visitors. Many of the organizations are committed to providing nonprofits in their communities with resources to expand their activities and create greater local impact. Though the direct impact may often be hard to measure, these CVBs and Sports Commissions can frequently provide support that goes beyond simple dollars. Their relationship capital, media access and extensive experience can provide small organizations with benefits that they cannot obtain on their own.
