Fundraising
Fundraising
WAC is 97% funded by dues. That is unusual, and it is fragile: every cost increase lands on families, and a bad registration year becomes a crisis rather than a dip.
Fundraising is how we change that. It pays for training equipment, subsidizes meet entry costs, and builds the reserve that lets the club plan more than one season ahead. Two things are asked of every family, and one of them is optional.
The fall raffle
The club's only mandatory fundraiser. Once a year, in the fall.
- $150 per swimmer in tickets.
- $300 family maximum, no matter how many swimmers.
- Tickets arrive in your family's ribbon folder. Full details come at First Splash and the parent meeting.
- Return the stubs and the money by the posted deadline.
If you don't sell them all. Unsold tickets are billed to your family the month after the raffle closes. Plenty of families simply buy their own tickets and are done with it. That is a completely normal way to handle this, and you are still in the drawing.
If you join mid-year. Families who register after the raffle closes are billed the same $150 per swimmer, $300 per family. The obligation does not depend on when you arrived.
How to skip it entirely. Bring the club $500 in corporate sponsorship and your family is exempt from the raffle.
Corporate sponsors
Sponsors get their logo on the team shirt that every WAC swimmer wears all season, and on our social channels.
This is the highest-leverage thing a parent can do for this club's finances. A raffle ticket book moves $150. One sponsor conversation moves $500 or more, is repeatable next year, and costs the sponsor a marketing line item rather than a favor.
Who to ask: your own employer's community-giving or marketing budget, the small businesses your family already uses, or anyone who sells to families with kids in Williamsburg.
What we give you: a one-page sponsor sheet, a sample email, and the club's 501(c)(3) letter so a sponsor can treat it as a charitable deduction. Ask the Fundraising lead and it will be in your inbox the same day.
And it counts twice. $500 raised exempts your family from the raffle, so the ask you make on the club's behalf is also the fastest way out of selling ticket books.
Where the money goes
WAC is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Every dollar raised stays in the club, and the board publishes financials to the membership. Priorities for raised funds, in order:
- Meet cost subsidy — keeping entry fees and travel from being the reason a swimmer stops racing.
- Training equipment — the unglamorous replacement cycle: fins, snorkels, blocks, timing gear.
- Financial aid — no family should leave this club over money.
- Reserve — the difference between a club that plans and a club that reacts.
Questions
Is the raffle really mandatory? Yes. It is the only fundraiser that is. Everything else on this page is voluntary.
Can I just write a check instead of selling tickets? Effectively, yes. Buy your own tickets, or let the unsold ones be billed.
Does a sponsor have to be a big company? No. A $500 sponsor is usually a dentist, a landscaper, a restaurant, or a parent's own employer matching a community-giving request.
Who do I talk to? The Fundraising lead, appointed by the President. Contact details will be posted here once the appointment is made.
