Blind Sailing Team fundraising

[DollFin]

Hi sailing friends!

I hope no one minds my posting this here. Our team is gearing up to defend our Blind Sailing Nationals title this September in Newport, as well as competing in the Blind Sailing Worlds in Japan. We have had a lot of support from the sailing community, for which we are very grateful; Jack Luker has provided us with a J24 for local practice and competing over the next year and Seabrook Marina has generously donated a slip for the next year. Farley Fontenot at Quantum Sails is also helping us with a set of sails as well as offering us some great coaching advice. We sincerely appreciate these people for their assistance and support!

We are looking for advice as far as fundraising ideas to help cover the additional travel and training expenses. Most of our competitors have the benefit of local sailing programs for the blind who can coach and raise funds for them under 501(c)3 status. We would love to see a program like that one day here in the Houston area, and we hope that our team's success might help pave the way for one. For now though, we're on our own. I've been doing chair massage at local events and putting that money towards the things we've already paid for (sails, boat insurance, airline tickets etc), and I started a fundraising page at http://www.indiegogo.com/Texas-Blind-Sailing-National-Team, but if anyone out there has any fundraising ideas that don't require non-profit status, please share them! Thanks!

[edthemainsailguy]

This was a reply to a town committee that wanted to fund-raise before their non-profit status had been reached....seems there are workarounds...you might also seek another bit of media coverage and let it be known that you are seeking an "angel" to cover what isn't already covered...



A Dog Park, how exciting.... you can pretty much bet that your status will not be in time for the event,  but what I did was, I told everyone that the status is pending (you should have or will be getting a letter of confirmation of that.  The IRS used to date your status based on the application date.  There should be no problems with that.

When you sell items like shirts and what not you must have a sellers permit and pay the sales tax on those items.  Unless you have a Dog Walk-a-thon and the shirt is a gift for the walkers.... as well you can give items away as a thank you for their donation depending on the level of donation they give.