Where do the pre-printed Patriots t-shirts go?

Immediately after the New York Giants won the Super Bowl last night, the players were given Championship t-shirts and hats.

I couldn't help think about all those people who assumed the New England Patriots were going to win and probably printed all the shirts and hats over the past couple weeks. Did you ever wonder where the unused (and incorrectly printed) t-shirts go?

Well, it turns out that a smart nonprofit already thought of an idea for that:

International Christian agency World Vision and the National Football League are continuing their long partnership to provide pre-prepared memorabilia designed to congratulate the losing team on their win to needy families around the world. This year, children in Nicaragua, Romania, and several other countries will be the recipients of the donation.

I guess that means that in developing countries around the world, a couple weeks from now there are kids walking around who are wearing what Tom Brady thought he would be wearing late last night.

High school 50/50 raffle faces scrutiny

The Lafayette School Corporation has suspended its 50/50 fundraising raffles after a parent of a Jefferson High School basketball player reported the raffles to the Lafayette (Ind.) Police Department.

The school district since has ceased all raffles at athletic events until a permit is given from the Indiana Gaming Commission. Other area schools The Star Press that they face similar pressure.

"I stay as far away from that Gaming Commission as I can because they're not real flexible people," [New Castle Chrysler High School Principal Bruce] Gaylor said. "Most of the people that win the 50/50 go ahead and give it back to the school as a donation. For crying out loud, schools are just hustling to find dollars now, and they keep trying to take 'em away from us. Every time we find a way to make a buck, they try to take 'em away from us, it seems like."

For crying out loud indeed. While it may be hard to believe that a parent actually ratted them out to the police... the truth of the matter is, many donors are outraged when they hear that a nonprofit's fundraising program keeps only 50 cents of every dollar raised... why should a raffle be judged any differently?

In fact, a friend of mine in California emailed me to say the California Penal Code (Section 320.5), bans such raffles "because less than 90% of the overall earnings are offered to the high school or charitable cause."

The big business of college football

Yesterday, I found myself watching some boring college football Bowl games... so I tried to pass the time by arguing with friends about the largess of NCAA coaches. If you want to impress your friends with some facts and figures, here is some quick research I pulled together from other sources.

The USA Today reported last month that "the number of million-dollar coaches has soared from five in 1999 to 50 today."

The truth is that the games on New Years Day are only part of college football's larger $400 million bowl industry. Fox Business reports that each of the BCS bowl games pays out $17 million to the conferences represented. The conferences, based on their own rules, divide the payout among all of the teams in the conference. If an additional team from a conference is lucky enough to make a BCS bowl, the conference receives an extra $4.5 million.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a great article last week outlining the huge bonuses given to coaches for winning their bowl game. The biggest bonus seems to await Les Miles if LSU can win next week's National Championship game. Others earn the right to renegotiate contracts if their team hits overall goals.

Alumni boosters at Hawaii ran a campaign to raise $114,000 for the team’s head coach, June S. Jones III when they grew worried he might leave the university when his contract expires in six months.

According to Forbes magazine, Ohio State has the biggest athletic department budget in the U.S. at a whopping $104.7 million for the year ending June 30, 2006. Texas was second at $97.8 million.

Then again, we are living in the age where 31 universities are seeking to raise at least a billion dollars.

In December, Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee tapped Peter Weiler to head up all of OSU’s fund-raising efforts, including a possible $2.5 billion capital campaign. Weiler will begin his new job in early 2008 as senior vice president for university development and president of the Ohio State University Foundation.

Just hours after OSU's announcement, the University of Georgia named longtime administrator Tom Landrum the permanent senior vice president for external affairs, the administrator in charge of fundraising, public affairs and alumni relations.

With Landrum in the vice president's office this year, fundraisers shot past their five-year fundraising goal to collect $500 million for the Archways to Excellence campaign. The campaign is set to conclude June 30, but already has collected $580 million, according to Landrum.

As vice president, Landrum will make $252,000 a year, the 13th highest salary among UGA administrators and faculty, according to university spokesman Tom Jackson.

Former Bears coach Mike Ditka faces fundraising questions

Last week, the USA TODAY reported on the financial questions surrounding Mike Ditka's charity fundraising.

Twice this year, pro football legend Mike Ditka has blasted the National Football League and its players union, telling Congress that both groups are "delaying or denying" requests by needy retired players for help.

Ditka formed a charity in 2004 to aid those players. The Mike Ditka Hall of Fame Assistance Trust Fund has collected $1.3 million and netted about $315,000 after expenses. But it has given only $57,000 to former players in need, according to federal and Illinois tax records.

The trust paid more in fees to induce former stars to appear at a 2005 fundraiser than it gave needy ex-players in its first 3 years.

The net looks low because the charity spent $715,000, the bulk of the money it raised, to put on three annual golf tournaments. That figure includes payments of about $280,000 to a Chicago firm that organized the tournaments and at least $65,000 in honoraria to ex-stars.

Ditka is the outspoken former Hall of Fame player and coach for the Chicago Bears. In June, he told a House panel that injured and needy ex-players are "treated like dogs" while the union "does nothing material to help these guys." His charity, he said then, was created to redress "this grave injustice."

The charity, recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization, gave nothing to players during its first two years. It aided 10 ex-players in 2006.

Carl Francis, a spokesman for the players union, that Ditka frequently targeted, used the story to point out the potential hypocrisy in Ditka's criticisms.

"At some point it's got to be about more than holding yet another press conference and blasting people," Francis said. "You ought to be announcing 'We just gave away a half a million.' Unless, of course, you didn't."

Now, the former NFL legend is paying more attention.

Ditka said he had paid little attention to his charity's numbers until this year. He has begun cutting fundraising costs and will insist that half of the annual tournament's proceeds be paid out, he said, adding that the trustees have been told to pay needy players first before requiring them to fill out forms.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog, said the Ditka trust may have underestimated the charity's workload by naming only two volunteer trustees — three fewer than the minimum the institute recommends.

The group, he said, appears to have underestimated the cost of putting on golf tournaments, which are typically among the most expensive types of fundraiser.

This isn't the first time celebrities seemed surprised to hear that lending their name to charity fund can go badly unless you pay attention to the important things - like money.

Now the Chicago Sun Times and others are starting to ask hard questions.

Dodd offers refunds after fundraising gimmick goes awry

It appears one of the most creative presidential fundraising ideas of the campaign has taken a terrible (not to mention embarrassing) turn for the worse.

Earlier this week Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced he was going to randomly select a donor to join him at an upcoming Boston Red Sox playoff game.

Unfortunately, it appears no one on the campaign's fundraising team checked with Major League Baseball to see if this gimmick was even legal. Just minutes ago, donors received this email:

We have some bad news.Major League Baseball has asked the campaign to end our contest you entered to get a chance to go to a Red Sox game with Chris Dodd.Apparently, Post-Season tickets are different than regular season tickets -- they are owned by the League and the MLB has their rules. If you made a contribution hoping to win the tickets, we want to provide you the opportunity to get a refund for your entry.If you wish to be refunded, reply to this email asking for a return of your donation and we'll make it happen. If you choose to not to have your contribution refunded, please know that your support will go towards our media and ground campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire, while fighting to restore the Constitution and end the war in Iraq. Once again, we apologize for our error.Sincerely,The team at Chris Dodd for President

Talk about embarrassing... this email is the definition of the kind of thing fundraisers don't want to have to tell their donors.

UPDATE: Ben Smith at the Politico has more:

Major League Baseball scuttled the plan, Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan confirms. They'll be offering refunds to contributors who were in it for the baseball, rather than for the face time with Dodd.

"This isn't quite Bucky Dent or Aaron Boone, but we are disappointed nonetheless. Senator Dodd was looking forward to spending a night watching the Red Sox take on the Indians at Fenway Park, but unfortunately Major League Baseball's rules are such that the contest cannot continue. We will still be cheering on the Red Sox every step of the way to the World Series, and look forward to inviting someone to spend a day on the trail with Chris Dodd," Sevugan said in an email.

Isn't quite Bucky Dent? They are right about that... it's more like those Nigerian scammers who tried to swindle me into buying a fake computer on eBay.

How much do you think Peyton Manning's name is worth?

Rookie fundraisers make the mistake of thinking it is vanity that motivates hospitals to name a building after a major donor.

The truth is that when a living donor allows a hospital to name a building after them, it could be viewed as part of the donation and not just a reward for the ego.

For example, when St. Vincent Health in Indianapolis recently renamed its pediatric facility after Peyton Manning, it did so because of the money the football star's name would attract.

"By Peyton lending his name to our organization, he'll take a much more active role to help us raise additional funds," said St. Vincent Health Chief Executive Vince Caponi shortly before the name change. "As you can imagine, Peyton knows a lot of people I don't know."

Daniel Lee reported today at the Indianapolis Star that St. Vincent has said only that Manning and his wife, Ashley, made an unspecified donation, but the couple requested that the nature of the gift remain private.

St. Vincent seems to be wasting little time preparing to reach all of those people.

Since the Sept. 5 unveiling of the new name, St. Vincent has appointed a director of development, Michele Rodger Spencer, for the children's hospital. It is the first time St. Vincent will have a fundraising chief dedicated to its children's facility.

St. Vincent will set specific fundraising goals in the next month or two, said Kevin Speer, chief strategy officer. He added, "Putting Peyton's name on the building, it thrust us into a national spotlight overnight."

Kim Gattle, director of development and communications for the Center on Philanthropy at IU, called it "a gift of his social capital." So how much do I think Peyton's name is worth?

...oh wait! Before you answer, maybe it would be helpful to remember some other recent use of social capital on January 1, 2007. Britney Spears was paid $240,000 for her now-classic fainting performance at PURE on New Year's Eve. To count down from 10 to one and wish the crowd a Happy New Year, she was paid $16,000 a syllable.

Red Sox whiners for charity

Yankee fans have accused the Red Sox players and fans of being whiners for a long time.

Players Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield proved it recently by teaming up with a pair of Massachusetts wine importers to produce three Red Sox-themed wines, which are being sold throughout New England with the profits going to charity.

ABC News reports:

Alex Graff and John Corcoran began Charity Wines in collaboration with the baseball fundraising group Charity Hop and Major League Baseball to create Longball Vineyards, a venture combining their passions for wine, baseball and philanthropy.

"We had done a lot of charity wine tastings but [were] looking to do something a bit bigger," Graff told ABC News Now.

Each player picked a different charity, Wakefield's "CaberKnuckle" is supporting the New England charity Pitching In for Kids; Ramirez's "Manny Being Merlot" and will benefit Charlee Homes for Children, and Schilling Schardonnay will support Curt's Pitch for ALS.

Bears shut down fundraisers

This past week the Chicago Bears sent cease-and-desist letters to the organizer of as many as 16 spring fundraisers for Chicago-area schools.

The fundraising events were to involve Chicago Bears football players in charity basketball games playing against local school teachers and faculty.

The football team told the company that arranged the games--Bears on Court, owned by Tony Gagliardo--that it was using the team's name without permission and using players in violation of their contracts.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Gagliardo said, "I've been doing this for 30 years, and everybody loved us, what we did for the community. They own the team, and I understand where they don't want the players injured."

Jacobs High School in Algonquin hoped to use money from a game next week to buy books for a new media center and library. Tickets totaling $5,000 had been sold.

...as if their loss in the Super Bowl wasn't painful enough for the city... now they go and cut off these fundraisers for the schools?