Jackrabbit/ACE Club

[Rabbitlivinginverm]

How many of you Jackrabbit/ACE Club members donate on-line rather than sending a check through the mail? I created an on-line account last night for the first time. On-line gives you the option of specifying where your money goes. If you donate on-line, which sports do you give money to? 50% of my donation went to football, 25% to WBB and 25% to MBB.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

How many of you Jackrabbit/ACE Club members donate on-line rather than sending a check through the mail? I created an on-line account last night for the first time. On-line gives you the option of specifying where your money goes. If you donate on-line, which sports do you give money to? 50% of my donation went to football, 25% to WBB and 25% to MBB.

Don't want to rain on your parade...but posters need to understand that you can do this, but it doesn't impact the amount of money a sport gets. The budgets are calculated by the athletic administration, just like budgets of almost any enterprise. The amount budgeted is the amount provided, regardless of the source, i.e., donations, gate amounts, etc. Is the department being truthful about using your money for those sports...sure because it is the first funds provided that sport.

The trouble would come, with that seemingly fair standard, is that if donations were a large enough percentage of a designated sports' budget (i.e., if every donor indicated they wanted their donation to go to women's golf) it obviously would not work...just as obviously that wouldn't happen. On the flip side, the budgeting process protects the "minor" sports that might not get designated donations.

The best way to make sure that your dollars go exactly where you want them is in the endowed scholarships (made much easier now with the Acorn Endowments...where you can start with fewer dollars and build it up over the years to the point it finally reaches a level that will put it into a funding source for the particular sport)...and in making a donation to a specific capital project for that sport, i.e. a new track, the equestrian center, etc.

And finally, as with most donor-supported efforts, the designation of "use it where it is most needed" is the most sought after one for the institution.

P.S. You can make the same designations in mailed in contributions or phoned in contributions to the Foundation, as you can online.

[Nidaros]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

Don't want to rain on your parade...but posters need to understand that you can do this, but it doesn't impact the amount of money a sport gets. The budgets are calculated by the athletic administration, just like budgets of almost any enterprise. The amount budgeted is the amount provided, regardless of the source, i.e., donations, gate amounts, etc. Is the department being truthful about using your money for those sports...sure because it is the first funds provided that sport.

The trouble would come, with that seemingly fair standard, is that if donations were a large enough percentage of a designated sports' budget (i.e., if every donor indicated they wanted their donation to go to women's golf) it obviously would not work...just as obviously that wouldn't happen. On the flip side, the budgeting process protects the "minor" sports that might not get designated donations.

The best way to make sure that your dollars go exactly where you want them is in the endowed scholarships (made much easier now with the Acorn Endowments...where you can start with fewer dollars and build it up over the years to the point it finally reaches a level that will put it into a funding source for the particular sport)...and in making a donation to a specific capital project for that sport, i.e. a new track, the equestrian center, etc.

And finally, as with most donor-supported efforts, the designation of "use it where it is most needed" is the most sought after one for the institution.

P.S. You can make the same designations in mailed in contributions or phoned in contributions to the Foundation, as you can online.

I can vouche that what Jack#1fan has offered in the above post is 100 per cent accurate.
I set up an endowment nearly 20 years ago. I did not have a specific sport in mind so left that part as needed. Ever since my endowment was at the level to garner scholarship awards, all of the awards have gone to the football program. Unfortuately I have not kept a list of the recipients, but the names are impressive. I feel good about it, and being a kind of a number crunching bean counter who does taxes, its worked for me.

I dont think anyone can buy influence in how the SDSU Athletic Dept is run, even if you gave 20 times the amount given by Mildred White. The budgeting process and scholarship award committees act as checks and balance on anyone who might have the resources and the desire to run the department. Now if a Ralph Englestad came along, I am not sure what would happen, but there might be people at UND who might wish that he had never offered his generosity given the fact that his estate owns the ice arena and his estate runs the building and collects all the dollars.

[jackmd]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

I'm going to make another plea for everyone to give what they can to the Jackrabbit Club. Right now there are roughly 800 members with a total of about $240,000 in donations per year. UNI and NDSU have similar clubs and their memberships exceed 2,000 with roughly $2,000,000 in donations. I think I'm pretty close on those numbers.

I met with the Jackrabbit Club director tonight and he gave me some good insight. As a suggestion and only a suggestion, consider contacting the SDSU Foundation/Jackrabbit Club and set up an electronic funds transfer to support SDSU athletics. You only need to give $50/year to be a member and receive some of the perks. For that $50 you get several things including a membership card that gives you 15% off at the bookstore, you can make back you $50 pretty easily.

So, consider giving what you can each month right out of your account. You won't forget to write a check or make a call. I'm not expecting people to redo their budget to include SDSU athletics. I'm just posting the info for those like me who hadn't thought about the EFT option. The more you give the greater the perks, some of them published in the Jackrabbit Club brochure and on the website, some of the others.....well you just need to join and you will find out.

http://www.sdsufoundation.org/s/357/...id=1&pgid=1006

http://www.sdsufnd.org/JackrabbitBenefits.jpg

[Rabbit74]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

I'm going to make another plea for everyone to give what they can to the Jackrabbit Club. Right now there are roughly 800 members with a total of about $240,000 in donations per year.

http://www.sdsufoundation.org/s/357/...id=1&pgid=1006

http://www.sdsufnd.org/JackrabbitBenefits.jpg

JackMD, perhaps I don't understand some of the details, but when I add up the number of members listed in the "BUM" I bought at the game last night, the number of donors listed add up to over 1000. And if I multiply the number of members in each giving category by the lowest level for that category, I get approximately $750,000 annually. Since many people give more than the niminum for a category, I would think that a $1 million annual income would be conservative. I did not count the Perpetual Scholarships or AcornEndowment, as I think the contributions to these may be over more than one year. What am I overlooking? (I just happen to be looking at this last night and did some rough calculating in my head between games and got a higher level than your report so I checked the numbers more carefully.)

In any case we should be doing better than we are and there is a form on page 36 of the "BUM" that you can fill out to get the process of contributing started.

[CatchEmAll]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

Are there any fund drives anymore, or do they just expect people to know to donate? There used to be a good volunteer base that would assist with the "lower level" fund raising. Is that still in place? Maybe I'm in the minority, but the "asks" directed my way have been few and far between in the five years since I left the department. I know it's impossible to hit everyone, but I fall into one of those "special" groups - former athlete. I give what I can when I can (which isn't as often or as much as others), but sometimes I would expect to get hit up more than I do.

[jackmd]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

JackMD, perhaps I don't understand some of the details, but when I add up the number of members listed in the "BUM" I bought at the game last night, the number of donors listed add up to over 1000. And if I multiply the number of members in each giving category by the lowest level for that category, I get approximately $750,000 annually. Since many people give more than the niminum for a category, I would think that a $1 million annual income would be conservative. I did not count the Perpetual Scholarships or AcornEndowment, as I think the contributions to these may be over more than one year. What am I overlooking? (I just happen to be looking at this last night and did some rough calculating in my head between games and got a higher level than your report so I checked the numbers more carefully.)

In any case we should be doing better than we are and there is a form on page 36 of the "BUM" that you can fill out to get the process of contributing started.

Thanks for those numbers. I'm not sure they count those others as part of the "Jackrabbit Club". Perhaps I am wrong. From what I can understand the Team Makers and the similar organization at UNI raise considerably more than our comparable organization. Perhaps I was confused but the numbers I quoted were given to me by someone affiliated with the Jackrabbit Club. I will see if I can clarify.

[jackmd]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

JackMD, perhaps I don't understand some of the details, but when I add up the number of members listed in the "BUM" I bought at the game last night, the number of donors listed add up to over 1000. And if I multiply the number of members in each giving category by the lowest level for that category, I get approximately $750,000 annually. Since many people give more than the niminum for a category, I would think that a $1 million annual income would be conservative. I did not count the Perpetual Scholarships or AcornEndowment, as I think the contributions to these may be over more than one year. What am I overlooking? (I just happen to be looking at this last night and did some rough calculating in my head between games and got a higher level than your report so I checked the numbers more carefully.)

In any case we should be doing better than we are and there is a form on page 36 of the "BUM" that you can fill out to get the process of contributing started.

I've got some updated numbers. Of those listed in the program most are Jackrabbit club members but not all, just about 800. Donations total about 365K to the Jackrabbit club. The remaining donors, roughly 200 for a total of 1000, donate to athletics in other ways, not through the Jackrabbit club. I don't the amount of money donated by these others.

The point I really wanted to make was that we have about 800 members of the Jackrabbit club while NDSU and UNI have over 2,000 members within their comparable athletic fundraising clubs. We need to increase our numbers in a big way if we want to have every advantage when it comes to competing with these peer institutions.

I don't know if I've provided anything helpful or not. Bottom line, get you friends and family to sign up for the Jackrabbit club. $50/year minimum with no maximum! Consider the EFT route and you'll never forget to support the Jackrabbits.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

A point that may answer a couple of questions. My wife and I set up a scholarship for football players only. A teamate/good friend of mine set one up that is specifically for wide receivers. You set up the account with a beginning donation and add to it each year until it reaches a certain level for the university to start dipping into it for scholarship purposes. If you are really concerned about where your money goes when you give, you can set up something like that for any sport SDSU currently offers. You can call Mike Burgers at (605) 697-7475 and he'd be more than happy to discuss your options in that regard.

Also, although officially a member of the ACE club, I don't think my donations fall under the total for donations received by the Jackrabbit/ACE club which would explain the numbers jackmd was talking about.

[Nidaros]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

I think we are discussing the methodolgy of counting apples and oranges. I have a perpetual scholarship and now they are listing my name in two places in the program. Once under the endowments and again in the giving level that I give each year. Also that seems to support the info that JackMd received.

I think Jack4Life was probably correct in not including the endowments as you have no idea of what the balance is. Also the endowment represent gifts over several years in various amounts. What I recall off hand was that Sid Bostic and Keith Melhum, and now Mike Burgers were working to a goal of 20 million for endowments. I have not heard anything on this drive for a long time. I heard once that they had reached mid point but I doubt they would refuse anyone's efforts in adding a new endowment. So thats still an opportunity out there for some one who thinking along those lines.

I think MilwaukeeJackAlum is very correct in addressing concerns about gifts going for a specific purpose. This is the way to go, but if you are kind of generalist as far as giving and just want to take the advantage of seating and parking with a generous gift, then the Jackrabbit Club is the way to go. Both are good opportunities.

I know you could earn points toward bb seating by participating as a fundrasier that Catchem related to. I suspect that is still an opportunity as well.

Now finally comparisons with UNI and others seems a bit risky unless you know all their in and outs of fundraising, and the entire financial picture There could be differences in their methodolgy of counting.

I recall early in the D1 exploration a letter to the editor by an alum, who was two years ahead of me in Brookings High School and I thought he was a good guy and probably still is as I have not seen him in person for years. At any rate this individual had lived in the Cedar Falls area for years and kept his eye UNI. He thougt SDSU was making a big mistake going D1, and he quoted a great deal about the money problems at UNI. In all fairness, the situation at UNI might have changed much for the better. Also USD's Nielsen said in the Argus that UNI was their model in transition so who knows the what is going on at UNI at the present. I will say I do not.

I think no matter what the facts are, we could use UNI as a model for for adding members to the Jackrabbit Club. SDSU really blew with the Staduim for State drive that yielded us only enough funds to build one side permanent of CAS. One of the big problems I have been told was that they were looking for big gifts and multiyear pledging and that in the early 1960's turned a number of alums off. Most of our alums coming right out of school proably feel the same way today.

For that reason its important to encourge smaller gifts and not expect the farm each time we appoach each new donor.

I think it will be very interesting to see how the new AD approaches fundraising.

[Hammersmith]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

NDSU Team Makers 2008:
1,900+ members
$2.1 million in cash donations
$400,000 in non-cash donations
Mid-term goal: $3.0-3.5 million

The bulk of money comes from priority seating for football. Those 1,900 members account for almost all of the 8,000+ season tickets sold last year. Current donation levels include: $75(594 seats), $100(1404), $200(414), $250(324), $300(612), $400(738), and $500(216). All those donations are per seat. There are also 1/2, 3/4 & full scholarship donation levels($5,500/$8250/$11,000) that include four seats for the cost of the donation(270, 360 & 180 donations - not seats - per level, respectively). Last year, we sold out all the first set of donation levels, and some of the second.

We're probably close to maxing out what Team Makers will be able to pull in; the donation levels have been rising sharply ever since the DI move and the grumblings have been getting louder. Ticket holders that were grandfathered in have not had to pay the new full price, but even they have seen major price increases. The only way I can see another big push is to create a parallel structure for basketball. That won't happen until we get our new arena built, and that won't happen until the economy improves and we can get someone(s) to spring for $15 million in naming rights.

To get the Jackrabbit Club up into TM levels, you will need to make season tickets as desirable as the Bison have. A big chunk of that is success on the field(you're doing doing well in that regard, but you'll need some 9+ win seasons to get you over the hump), but another major factor is marketing. Even Sioux fans grudgingly praise NDSU for its marketing efforts over the past five years(and you know how much they hate to do that). You've got to hire a top-notch marketing firm and orchestrate a marketing and media blitz for all of eastern South Dakota(at least) and keep it up for several years. We've been lucky, we have a couple surprisingly good marketing firms in Fargo(did NDSU put its ads in the SD broadcast of the M&W BB games last month?). You've got to find similar firms and hammer Brookings and Sioux Falls with radio, tv, billboards, newspapers, posters, etc, etc, etc. You've also got to bring as much media in-house as you can and create a radio network that you control. As many games on TV as possible are also necessary. Hopefully your new AD will build on the best of Oien while bringing in new ideas related to media and fundraising.

[JimmyJack]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

Video with most of the coaches promoting the Jackrabbit Club coming soon. Maybe Friday if I can make some time to finish it.

[Cowbell]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

One huge unknown is going to have a dramatic effect on SDSU and every college and university in the country. That being the impact of what has happened on Wall Street the past five months.

Not long ago, SDSU reported a loss of more than 25% in its investment portfolio. That means that every established scholarship fund (noted by Nidaros and others) has lost 25% of its principal. In turn, there will be less interest (if any!) earned on those scholarship accounts. Thus, less money for scholarships across the board ... not just athletics.

No one at the university is talking about this. But, it must have some leaders pacing the floor at night.

Finally, and I'm not trying to be the doomsday guy here, but the Jackrabbit Guarantee has done more than ANYTHING to spur the enrollment increases the past six years. With more people going through tough times, and it's going to get tougher, it will be interesting to see how the Jackrabbit Guarantee program will fare in the days ahead. More and more people are having fewer discretionary dollars to a variety of charitable causes.

It isn't going to be pretty.

[Nidaros]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

Not long ago, SDSU reported a loss of more than 25% in its investment portfolio. That means that every established scholarship fund (noted by Nidaros and others) has lost 25% of its principal. In turn, there will be less interest (if any!) earned on those scholarship accounts. Thus, less money for scholarships across the board ... not just athletics.

No one at the university is talking about this. But, it must have some leaders pacing the floor at night.

I will quivel with your useage of the word "lost". Granted the foundation assets are for the most part invested in equities, bonds and interest bearing instruments. Neither bonds or secuities are at the market value they were one year ago. Another factor that affects this decline in value is the mark to market accounting concept that is considered generally accepted accounting principles which the foundation has to follow. These assets are priced daily based on the Wall street indices, Dow, SP etc. So its more of a paper loss, but not actual money loss. Its all about how and when the economy in general turns around. I doubt the foundation has went on a selling spree and has held the existing assets. It could turn round by fall or late 2009, and then some of the loss will be recaputured and assets will return to their former values.

Its going to make this year tough as there we agree. Earnings on savings and equities are going south for the winter and maybe longer. That will make it a problem for this year's scholarship winners.

I guess my point is that though the foundation assets are down in value but the decline is not a permanent loss.

[Cowbell]

Re: Jackrabbit/ACE Club

Perhaps loss was the wrong choice of words. That said, in the coming months there is going to be a lot of scrambling. And, I believe, a dominant conversation on this board will be the cutting of sports teams (yes, I said it) and significant enrollment declines - here and everywhere else.

Something wicked this way comes.