4 Green Golf

Tell us about your cause.

4 Green Golf provides management, consulting, and promotional products for the implementation of not only a highly organized tournament, but one that demonstrates ecological consciousness. With only six months since it's inception, 4 Green Golf pulled off their first initiative with a tournament sponsored by the Terra Initiative Foundation. The Foundation, also in it's beginning stage, has been established as a forward reaching city life concept. Their mission is to create a global awareness of renewable sustainable lifestyles and plan a comprehensive community that will reinvent the American city. Proceeds from the event went to support two green causes in Arizona: The Phoenix Green Chamber of Commerce and the ASU School of Sustainability.
What kind of special event fundraising do you do to support your mission?

We focus on golf tournaments; however, we are not limited in our vision. Many tournaments include things like a barbeque, evening gala, or silent auction which diversifies the planning process. We are specifically geared towards greening the golf tournament protocol through the purchase of carbon offsets and use of products like Dixon Earth Balls and bamboo tees. This consulting and certification process can easily be applied to other types of events. Tips on recycling, carbon offsets, and earth friendly products are a benefit to any event and the wave of the future in fundraising.
Walk us through the planning process.

In managing a golf tournament, a key element is finding a nice course. A private, or semi private course, is the best option. Players will be motivated to take advantage of the chance to play on a course that is usually restricted. Ideally, the planning should start 8-12 months before the tournament date; however, at least six months is the minimum timeframe. The next step is the formation of a committee. The committee is primarily effective due to their communication network. They usually have extensive contacts, so it's great for creating a significant database to do email marketing. We do not do any regular mailings, so the online database is a significant part of our process. Soliciting sponsors is the next step, which can be an arduous task. For the Terra Initiative event we ran a green expo before the tournament which helped attract sponsors. It served as a great networking opportunity in addition to the marketing visibility. We also acquired sponsors that offered a trade in services. For instance, a media company gave us radio ads in return for sponsorship in the event. We also had support from Green Living Magazine, an online publication that promoted the event.

In planning specifically for an environmentally conscious event, we offered incentives for carpools and discounts for those arriving in hybrid vehicles. We also have a green golf pledge that each participant must sign. It serves as an educational tool on fundamental ways of committing to a green lifestyle. We mandated the use of reduced plastic water bottles and reusable cups, and recycling containers were everywhere.
How did DoJiggy help with the planning and success of your event?

In keeping with our environmentalist ideology, we keep the use of paper for promotional materials to a limit. In that way, GolfRegistrations is a critical element. It is an inherently green system for registration since it is an online service. In addition, it provides excellent reporting features and the ability to process credit cards; we were able to attain a 95% collection rate on charges. The system is also fairly intuitive and really easy to use. You don't need to be a computer whiz to understand the functionality. If there is a hiccup in building or managing the site, the customer service is excellent. Overall, it was just awesome. We are thinking about making it mandatory for our clients to use this system. I really feel that if you do not use GolfRegistrations as a consultant, then you are just wasting your time.
Tell us about your success...How many participants? How much did you raise? Did you accomplish your goals?

We had 80 participants and raised almost $18,000. It was a bit shy of our goal. A golf tournament can really make money through sponsorships, and we were not able to capture as many as we had hoped. Besides this being a first annual event, we also faced the overwhelming obstacle of a difficult economy. Arizona is one of the states that has been hardest hit, and we felt that as we sought sponsorship support.

The public response was very positive and we had incredible feedback. We had a green goodie bag that was really popular and we recycled 95% of the materials used in the event. We feel very satisfied in our ability to educate the public on green initiatives and especially the idea that golf tournaments really can be ecologically conscious.
Do you have any advice for other organizations?

If you are planning a big tournament, it is really helpful to consider using a consultant, or at least a skilled and experienced person as an administrator. Committee members and volunteers are often difficult to keep on task, and a third party is always helpful in motivation and organization.
Based on an interview with Bob Wikes, Founder & President, 4 Green Golf
www.tifgolf.dojiggy.com
www.4greengolf.com

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