Fund Raising at the Greensboro Coliseum
As someone involved with a non-profit where money is always an issue I keep my eyes open for opportunities at fund raising for my org. The other day I spoke to someone who had worked in a program out of the Greensboro Coliseum and I though I would share in the event that others are looking for ways to raise funds for their groups.
As you probably already know the Coliseum is like a boat that the city owns. It is a hole in the city into which they dump taxpayer's dollars. In a way to help the community and help stop the hemoraging of hard earned dollars they created a way for groups to volunteer at the concession stands during events. This means that there are fewer people on the payroll. In return for volunteer hours the groups get a percentage of the gross of their concessions. Pretty sweet deal when the beer is six dollars a cup!
In order to be included everyone who is in your group must take a class on how to sell beer, and pay about $318.00 to the coliseum for "insurance". Your group sells all it can and at the end of the night a staff member takes your cash drawer to the back room where they count it. You get a percentage of the gross of what you took in minus whatever the drawer is "short". The person I talked to said that the first night they were "short" slightly more than they were due to make so they got nothing. The second time they did it, the eight of them brought in for their organization $40.00 total.
They had a problem however completely unrelated to the cash flow. Apparently someone who was paid staff requested sex from one of the volunteers who said "no". The staffer reported to the person in charge of the volunteers that this particular volunteer was practiving a "devient lifestyle". Faster than you can say "sexual harassment", the volunteer was told they were no longer welcome. While this was going on one of the volunteers was told they looked "racist" by a regular paid staffer.
The lesson here, if you are trying to raise funds for your organization and someone asks you for sex you say "Yes daddy." I am sure there may be another lesson in here but I'll let you work that one out for yourself.
I gathered that the offending staffer got in big trouble with the higher ups and that's a good thing that reflects positively on the coliseum as a whole. But the person I talked to, was unsure if their group would return. They didn't want to put any of their volunteers in a position where they had to trade integritity for an opportunity to possibly make money for their group. So in a bid to make money for their org, if they don't continue, they will have lost a bunch of money instead.
Your milage may vary. Me, I'm going to pass on this opportunity. In my opinion if what I was told was even half true it is too high a risk for me.
Comments
Woody,
I was saddened to hear of the negative experience this one non-profit group had at the Coliseum but pleased to hear that the paid staffer's inappropriate behavior was properly dealt with. I would encourage the non-profit to give it another try.
Many non-profits have found working the Coliseum concessions to be a lucrative way to raise money for their organizations. Looking at the Coliseum's 2004-05 final financial report, I see that these groups earned a total of $79,413.59 that year with the top organization earning $19,900+ of that amount. Organizations that can supply workers during normal weekday working hours are in high demand during such times as the ACC tournaments, the circus, conventions such as Market America and religious organizations,etc. because many volunteers are available to work only after their own normal workdays.
Posted by: Sandy Carmany | November 21, 2006 2:26 PM