4 keys to set your sporting club up for success

If you can’t get Sam Whitelock or Katrina Grant to run around for your sporting club, you can at least follow these four quick strategies to make sure you’re set up for success.

There’s no secret that New Zealanders love running around on the weekend or socially during the week, with a quarter of a million Kiwis participating in sport in some form in 2014.

But passion alone isn’t enough to make sure your club a success – and the following four off-court strategies can help set up your club well into the future.

1. Club structure

While there are different structures available, often you’ll want to be set up as an incorporated society.

Under New Zealand’s Incorporated Societies Act of 1908, an incorporated society is authorised to run its affairs as if it was a single person.

By becoming an incorporated society, you can:

• Own, lease, buy, rent and sell property in the club’s name
• Sign contracts in the club’s name
• Release members, managers, officers or players from legal and financial troubles such as debts or contracts (although there are still come circumstances where individuals can be liable)
• Sue (or be sued) in the club’s name

To become an incorporated society, you need to apply through the Registrar of Incorporated Societies at the Ministry of Economic Development.

It’s important to note that you’ll need to complete an annual financial report with the ministry every year.

READ: Everything you need to know about setting up a sporting club in New Zealand

2. Marketing

Once you’ve got your structure taken care of, you’ll need some players, coaches, volunteers and officials.

The key to getting these is through canny marketing.

The smart thing to do first is to ask if anybody in your sporting club has any experience with PR or marketing – as they’ll have some specialist knowledge which can help.

From there, look to do some of the following:

• Build a website – so people can find out more about your club and hopefully join
• Build your social media – so people can get involved with the club and you can start to create a community. Try posting photos from games and club functions.
• Branding – having a great club logo and branding can help create a sense of identity around your club people want to be involved in.
• Create a newsletter – this is to keep current members up to date on goings on at the club, and you can even increase revenue by selling ad space to local businesses.
• PR and media engagement – if you’ve got a story worth telling, tell people about it! Put together a media release and connect with local journalists.

3. Raising funds

This is vital to club success, because let’s face it, running a sporting club can be expensive.

While local sponsorship can be key to this, crowdfunding platforms have made it easier to run a grassroots fundraising campaign.

Here are some dos and don’ts of fundraising:

Do this

• Have a plan
• Set up a fundraising page
• Promote via social media
• Give people a suggested donation amount
• Work your contacts
• Appoint a coordinator or committee to oversee fundraising

Don’t do this

• Be afraid to ask for help with the campaign
• Be afraid to follow up if you haven’t heard back from someone regarding a donation
• Leave it to the last minute
• Do exactly what you did last year
• Make it all about the money (some people may able to help in other ways, such as catering or DJing a club function)

4. Membership options

While raising money is great, it’s the membership dues where your bread and butter is going to be – but how do you figure out how much to charge?

Getting the price right

• Ask around to see what other similar clubs are charging
• Set a budget, so you’ll know exactly how much you’ll need for the season ahead after fundraising and sponsorships
• Put a value on member benefits such as member events or use of facilities
• If all else fails, try simply asking your members how much they’d be willing to pay

Should I increase membership prices?

Increasing the cost of memberships can be a great way of increasing ongoing revenue, can getting it wrong can be the death-knell of your club. Here’s how to figure out if you should, and then go about it the right way:

Fundraise or increase membership fees?

While fundraising can be time-consuming, it can give your club a bigger financial pot to play with in the short-term to pay for things like capital works, while an increase in fees provides underlying cash for day-to-day operations.

Increasing fees the right way

If you’ve made the call to increase fees, it’s vital to show members why you’re doing so rather than just saying that you’re doing so to improve the balance sheet. If you’re able to point out what the club can achieve with the increased fee, you’ll put fewer people offside.

If you want more information on successfully running a sporting club in New Zealand, you’re in luck! MYOB together with some of the top sporting organisations in the country has put together a one-stop shop for doing just that – taking your club from an idea and setting it up for success.