On Friday, July 12, Western Kentucky University (WKU) Campus Recreation & Wellness (CRW) held its 66th annual golf tournament to raise money for professional development opportunities for student employees.
The event was held locally at Crosswinds Golf Course in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with participants consisting of faculty/staff and their immediate family members, sponsors of the tournament, and alumni.
“This year was amazing,” said Justin Cato, the director of WKU CRW. “This is my third year being the tournament director, and we’ve grown each year. The max number of teams we can take for the tournament is 36 and we were one off from reaching that. We found out this year’s tournament was the largest ever in its 66-year history.”
Fundraiser Focus and Features
Sponsorship money from the tournament goes toward the department’s student employees in the form of professional development opportunities like conferences, workshops, symposium registration, travel, certifications and scholarships.
The event uses a golf scramble format, with foursomes making up the teams. The tournament features four hole-in-one contests along with competitions of longest drive, closest to the pin and putting.
Sponsorship levels are split into different tiers and monetary value:
- Title sponsorship at $2,500.
- Contest sponsorship at $1,000.
- Hole-in-one sponsorship at $750.
- Hole sponsorship at $350.
- Tournament sponsorship at $175.
Each has a different level of exposure during the tournament and carries a specific number of golfer entries. WKU CRW also receives gifts-in-kind sponsors for breakfast, lunch, tournament shirts and additional raffle prizes.
“Since this is our main fundraiser during the year to help with funding for our students’ development, we work hard at building and maintaining a good relationship with our sponsors,” said Cato. “We have a wide range of sponsors from local companies here in Bowling Green to large companies that work with the university and campus recreation.”
As an additional fundraiser, golfers also stopped by the practice putting green, and for $10 a ball they could compete in the putt-off, with the winner getting the chance at the $2,500 putt.
“We ended up raising enough money to cover the cost of the insurance for all our contests,” said Cato. “We are very thankful for the partnerships we’ve created, and the sponsors and golfers look forward to the tournament each year. This year, we raised over $8,000 in sponsorship money. In my time as tournament director, it’s the most we’ve raised for our students at this event.”
Creating a Successful Fundraiser
Cato said participants had a great time and his staff enjoyed interacting with them throughout the day. The putting contest specifically was a big hit and everyone who participated in it enjoyed the extra competition.
“I’m always trying to look at ways to enhance the experience of the golfers in the tournament, so I’m taking the feedback I received from them this year to see how we can make it better,” said Cato. “I felt we did a great job this year at improving the golfer experience and sponsor exposure to golfers, so we’ll see what’s next.”
To create your own beneficial fundraiser, Cato advised to first start working early and have a plan in place. “If you’re doing something for the first time, remember to take good notes on what worked and what didn’t,” he said. “It’s so easy to complete a fundraiser and forget about it until next year, so if you can take a few days afterward to make notes it will help you remember where you need to adjust.”
Cato also said it’s important to reach out to other schools if they’re doing a similar fundraiser. For example, WKU CRW reached out to Keith Wenrich, the director of Recreational Sports at the University of Georgia. He talked Cato through how his department runs their own golf tournament.
“I also got some great ideas from Greg Corack, the senior director of Campus Recreation and Wellness at East Carolina University,” said Cato. “While not everything they did was something we could do here at WKU, I was able to take those ideas to morph into what would work here, and I think it really helped this year.”
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