Fun Money

By Adam Grant

Creative fund-raising puts families first

Dance puts smiles on faces, jubilation in the jazz shoes, and inspiration in the souls of those who dedicate themselves to it. However, dance is also a business, and parents’ efforts to help their children realize a dream—in the form of costumes, competition entry fees, dancewear and shoes, and classes—can hit the pocketbook hard. As a result, some studios are launching new and innovative fund-raising activities to help cut their students’ costs.

Dance Dynamics Studio in Thunder Bay, ON, Canada, has come up with numerous fund-raising campaigns. In the 2005–06 school year owner Wendy Holmquist, assisted by the school’s Parents Association, has spearheaded about 10 events, including a four-hour babysitting night held at the studio during the holiday season. Another fundraiser is a sale of prepackaged foods from a wholesaler called Mom’s Pantry. The students collect food orders for a month, requesting that the checks be made payable to Dance Dynamics. Once the orders are delivered, the studio pays Mom’s Pantry for the food and retains 40 percent of the money made from certain menu items.

“The studio fund-raisers are managed by me, with 25 percent [of the proceeds] going to each child who fundraises directly, and the rest used at my discretion for the entire studio, whether the family has contributed or not, for special events, grants to achieving children, etc.,” explains Holmquist. “The Parents Association fund-raiser is managed by the parents themselves,” she adds. “All the funds are distributed evenly amongst the families [of] students [in] the competitive program who have contributed, not necessarily equally, throughout the year.”

The school has such a focused fund-raising effort because of extra costs that it doesn’t want its students to incur. Since it is in Canada, purchasing such items as costumes from the United States is costly because of dollar conversion rates as well as shipping and handling. So although the students pay for the bulk of their costume needs, the studio relieves some of the burden when it can. “I have a hard time justifying charging a child in the preschool [classes] more than $60 [for a costume],” says Holmquist. “The studio will pick up the difference or at least a good portion if we choose a costume that costs more. This same philosophy applies to my older students, but I start discounting [when costumes cost] $90 to $100.”

Cameron School of Dance, in Greenfield Park, QC, Canada, has found that the best way to get big bucks for its students is through people’s stomachs. Each year the school runs a spaghetti dinner at a local restaurant; tickets are $10, with $1 per ticket going to the wait staff and the rest going to the participating students. About 165 people attended the most recent event, which included a raffle for hockey tickets, yielding about $2000 to the studio in three hours.

Stephanie Steinmeyer of Hawthorn Dance and Gymnastics in Versailles, MO, prefers to avoid food-related fund-raisers. “Our parents don’t like [their children] going door-to-door or selling candies,” she says. “Also, since we are in the business of fitness, I feel that selling candy, pizza, and doughnuts is hypocritical.” Instead, Steinmeyer produces original calendars that feature her students in a variety of dance poses. They put the photos on a CD and take it to a local copy shop to have the calendars produced. It costs the studio $350 for 100 calendars, so Steinmeyer sets the purchase price at $8 each. She says that not every parent buys a calendar, but others might pick up 10 at a time.

Another studio, Spotlight Dance Studio in Taunton, MA, makes money with events like “Dress-Down Week,” in which students are allowed to break the rules of strict dress code for $2 a day. Half the proceeds go to the studio and half is donated to a community food bank.

Effective fund-raising today requires originality and creativity. If you give people new and exciting ways to spend their hard-earned money for a great cause, chances are they’ll jump right in. Just think outside of the box, and the results will wind up speaking for themselves.