Background My organization is the Citadel Wrestling Association (CWA). This is a not-for-profit organization that is meant to boost the wrestling program and help raise funds for The Citadel Wrestling team. As head of the CWA I am working very closely with the Athletic Department and the Athletic Director to make sure I am following protocol in my quest to make the wrestling team a top 15 program in Division I wrestling. The number one goal of the CWA is to improve the wrestling team financially in the best way possible. In order to do this, it is important to know what the top financial goals of the Athletic Department are. Some of the major goals of the Athletic Department is to endow scholarships and subsides costs. Scholarships endowments are now essential to saving non-profit athletic programs at the college level. Endowments are interest-bearing accounts that have limits to how often you can withdraw from it. The original money that is invested is basically untouchable but the interest is what can be used. Most endowments yield a 5% interest rate. For such athletic programs like the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who has around $212,000,000 in endowment funds dedicated to athletics, the yearly interest can be rather large. The endowment interest is then used on specific things like coach’s salaries, team expenses and helping fully fund a team with their scholarship ceiling allotted by the NCAA. As this pertains to wrestling, 9.9 scholarships is the maximum allowed for Division I NCAA collegiate wrestling team. The wrestling team at The Citadel is not currently fully funded, allowing about 8 scholarships. In order to fully fund the team, which would allow for better recruiting and make for less of a financial burden on the school, a full scholarship endowment would cost about $400,000 dollars. The usable interest at a 5% interest rate would be $20,000 a year. Also we must compete with teams that are in our conference like Chattanooga who have 3 full-time coaching positions and 9.9 scholarships. The Citadel offers 1 full-time coaching position and 8 scholarships. In these early years of the CWA, our goals are to subsides travel costs and establish the CWA by growing our resource base. We are currently using our resources to build the base by buying t-shirts, brochures and employing staff to focus on the bigger goal down the road, scholarship endowment. Much like a small business, in the early stages we are not making much money and we end with very little retained earnings because the resources are being used to grow the base which intern will hopefully grow to accumulating over $40,000 a year. It would be great if we could spend about $15,000 of this money on yearly expenses and put $25,000 dollars a year toward the endowment. Chapter 1 – Understanding the Service Side of OM An Athletic Director needs to set the tone for fund raising with the administration and individual teams. The focus of my OM Journal will be fund raising in the athletic program, specifically wrestling, done by the Citadel Wrestling Association. There is a set amount of funding each team gets and there are financial needs a team has to keep up with in order to be competitive which go beyond a universities minimal funding. The more money that is raised the less burden each team puts on the school. Another large goal of any athletic department is to have fully funded teams. For example, legally any NCAA wrestling team can have maximum 9.9 scholarships because of title IX. As of right now the Citadel wrestling team is not fully funded. The more scholarships that are endowed by the athletic department, the more likely the wrestling team will become fully funded. To clarify, an athletic department looks to create as many endowments as possible. But if somebody wanted to donate $400,000 dollars directly to the wrestling team and wanted that money to be specifically for the addition of another scholarship to the wrestling team, this is made possible. That is why creating an association for each individual program is imperative. Chapter 2 – Mission and Strategy with Appeals For the Citadel Wrestling Association it is important to note that the people that we are looking to invest in us, or our customers, are The Citadel Alumni and NCAA wrestling fans. Productivity is defined as dollars per appeal and donations made per appeal. This definition will be explained further in the journal. Operation Management decisions need to be made in fund raising in college athletics. In college athletics, football is king but to an athletic director the most important investment is endowing scholarships and teams. In order to do this there is some important data to find; such as, acknowledging who the big donors are. One particular reason for this is the athletic director will want to make sure that the donor is not receiving appeals, requests for money, from multiple places within the schools athletics. In this journal entry I would like to bring an understanding of the core competency that is the importance of an appeal. An appeal is any form of asking money from a donor: brochures, emails, cold calls, or a personal ask. There can be much variability within fundraising. One way that variability can come from within is when there is not proper communication about who is currently asking money from a particular donor. The Citadel has found that there are some individuals that like to spread out their money to multiple teams at The Citadel, there are some that want to give one big lump sum and left alone, and then there are some who can’t stand being asked by multiple sources at The Citadel. The risk of the baseball team asking a donor for money that has already been asked by the wrestling team and volleyball team for money can lead to an annoyance that can run a donor off. Variability also can come from asking the improper amount. For example, a team does not want to ask for a couple thousand dollars for team expenses while the Athletic Director is looking to get one hundred thousand dollars out of a particular person to put toward scholarship endowment, this can show a lack of communication and it can side track the donor. Chapter 3 – Determining the Project Schedule This year while I was putting together the brochure for the wrestling team that I would eventually send out to Citadel wrestling fans as an appeal, it took 2 weeks to approve the Citadel Wrestling Associations new emblem. I had done all the activities that led up to printing the brochures except for having the emblem approved. The wait on the approval of the emblem delayed the printing of the brochure by 1 week therefore delaying our opportunity to receive money. This week delay kept me from being able to make CWA koozies that I was hoping to sell for fund raising purposes, more importantly for building the our base, at the last home football game. The activities needed to get the brochures sent out and t-shirts created are as follows: Activities | Description | Immediate Predecessor | A | Find a brochure maker | - | B | Put wording together | - | C | Put pictures together | - | D | Create emblem | - | E | Get emblem approved | D | F | Emblem on shirts | D,E | G | Emblem on brochure | D,E | Chapter 4 – Forecasting Last year was the first year of the Citadel Wrestling Association. When I tried to find the best way to forecast when donations would come in, I had limited data but I did pot the data using the month of the donations that came in and how many gifts where given during that time.

The total gifts in dollars equal $8,225, which came in the form of 27 gifts. Eventually this type of data will allow us to benchmark sales quota for those in charge of fund raising for the CWA. This type of data is attribute data, this data does not give the amount of donation but simply says that a donation was made. With several years of this kind of data, the CWA would be able to set benchmarking goals for how many units should be picked up in the particular month. A unit would be a donation.

Chapter 6 –Attribute v. Variable Data When the CWA is keeping data over the next few years they can have both attribute data and variable data. The attribute data that we can keep is how many people say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to them after they send them an appeal. This data can be used to show if they can get more ‘yes’ or ‘no’ replies through personal asks, emails, or phone calls. This will help them find our best practices and we can also see who is saying ‘yes’ and who is saying ‘no’. The variable data that the athletic program can receive is how many dollars are brought in each month. This will make for better forecasting and benchmarking of a dollar amount for the fundraising team. Tying this in with the benchmarking example from chapter 5, the CWA will soon be able to give two benchmarking goals to the graduate assistant, dollar goals and unit goals. Dollar goals will increase our capital resources while unit resources will build our memberships.

Chapter 17 – Maintenance & Reliability As head of the Citadel Wrestling Association and as an assistant coach of the wrestling team, I am always challenged to be aware of what needs maintenance. For example, last week I received a $400 donation to the Citadel Wrestling Association, but I had to turn around and write that check over to the school because one of our students punched 6 holes in the wall downstairs in the locker room. Not wanting to go into detail about how we punished him, the fact of the matter is, the money that I am hoping to put toward a scholarship endowment and other activities can be sidetracked by actual maintenance. This student is an example of variability from within. This type of variability slows down financial growth and this slows down productivity because it takes me away from fundraising when I have to focus my attention on getting things replaced. Reliability is hugely important for the success of the Citadel Wrestling Association. At The Citadel, every dollar that is donated to the school, athletic program or Citadel associations, is accounted for by a particular method. For instance, all of the athletic associations donations have to make there way to the Assistant Athletic Director, Geoff Von Dollen. Mr. Von Dollen then has our checks deposited into our respective bank accounts and then reports this information to The Citadel Alumni Center. The Alumni Center records the name of the individual that gave money, how much they gave and what year the person graduated from The Citadel. This is the most important part. After this is recorded, the donor then receives a ‘Thank You’ note in the mail that verifies that the person and the person’s class got credit for their level of giving. By the end of the year, the donations are counted and then released showing which class gave the most money. This process creates a competitive spirit in fund raising for each class. There are two ways for me to get these donations in the proper hands at The Alumni Center. First, by checking our mail daily and as soon as I receive a check I walk it immediately to Mr. Von Dollen. Second, receiving donations through the website I had created by Jarrett Sonta, The Citadel Alumni Center Director of Communications. This website has a merchant account setup that allows donors to give directly to our account and the information that is needed to send them a ‘Thank You’ note will be automatically updated to the Alumni Center. This website can be accessed at foundation.citadel.edu/wrestling. The process by which people give donations through the website is by far the most effective and reliable process. Sadly, checks have been lost in the past and people are not happy when you hold their check for too long. With this information I will continue to promote donations through the website. The website makes for a quicker process to get people’s information to the Alumni Center and people’s money deposited into the CWA bank account. Supplement 6 – Variable and Attribute Data: Going Deeper As a supplement to chapter 6, which I briefly mentioned attribute data, it is important that I make good use of control charts for attribute data by way of P-charts and C-charts. The need for attribute information in the industry of fund raising is mentioned earlier in my chapter 6 summary but will be elaborated on in this section. We recall that attribute data is information that can be categorized as good or bad, pass or fail, yes or no, which differs from that of variable data, which can be measured. As it applies to fundraising for an athletic program, or more specifically Citadel Wrestling Association, I can get attribute information from each appeal that is sent out. Appeals are every project that is purposed to raising money in any form of asking for funds. Several examples are: phone calls, foot prospecting businesses, emails, mailings or brochures. Instead of looking at this data for defects in a product like a manufacturer would, I would look at the charts to find if there is an abnormal amount of ‘yes’ responses, which would stand for the simple fact that there was a donation made. Also, I would be able to see if there is an abnormal amount of ‘no’ responses. This data would help me be much more effective by showing me where most of our success in gaining donors comes from. Digging further into this information, I could break each ‘yes’ response into a specific form of appeals. I would now be fixing my focus on variable data. My hope would be to eventually be able to see which form of appeal brings in my largest dollar donors. I would be looking to see if there is any correlation in specific forms of appeals and a higher dollar donation. For instance, the attribute data may show that brochure appeals gain us the most amount of donations, meaning whether there is a $75 gift made or a $1000 gift made it would still register as a donation. But after comparing a brochure appeal to a personal phone call appeal I might be able to see if there is a larger amount of donations made through the brochure appeal but phone calls bring in larger dollar donations. In the early stages of the CWA this information is priceless because it allows me to focus more on what is important to us at our current stage, building the memberships or building the dollar amount. Put side by side with my marketing plan, nearing our first members event, it is important to get people to attend and see the growing support which in hopes will reunite relationships among former teammates and alumni creating a tightly woven community that will be able to not only hear from the association but will actually see the people that are apart of the association. Chapter 16 – Inventory & Just-In-Time The Citadel Wrestling Association members receive a t-shirt, polo and/or jacket; depending on how much money they give to the association. The memberships are seen on the brochure and website as the following: Takedown Club ~ $75
Membership Card
Free admission to home wrestling events
T-Shirt
Vehicle Decal
Email
Newsletter

Near Fall Club ~ $125
Takedown level
Team Polo

Free meal at home events (beginning December 18th, 2010)

Pin Club ~ $400
Takedown & Near Fall level
Jacket Club

Autographed poster

Annual wrestling plaque acknowledgement in wrestling room

Champion Club ~ $1000 Takedown, Near Fall & Pin levels Golf tournament entry
Personal As you can tell by this list of gifts that I send to the donors, there is inventory involved. These items are stored with plenty of room in our storage closet. Membership cards are the first piece of inventory mentioned and these are by far the easiest things to keep in excess inventory. I ordered 300 membership cards that have a blank spot for the name and the year. The box that holds all of these cards is about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide and one inch tall, not big at all. This amount of cards will last us 3 years and takes up next to no room at all. The next batch of cards will not need to be produced for another 3 years. The company that did our cards has the processes saved and it will take just the click of a button and be on my doorstep the next day. Just-in-time inventory is an understatement when talking about the membership cards. The next most difficult piece of inventory to deal with is the jackets. The Jacket Club jackets are very particular and are not as often purchased. The just-in-time approach works in batches. In this early stage I have had about 8 people give a gift over the amount of $400, which would mean that I owe 8 people jackets. The only problem is I cannot order these one by one and still get a good price. I have to order in batches of 10, 20, 25 and 30. I currently order the jackets in batches of 25 jackets. This gives us a lower price and also leaves us more liquid than buying larger batches. Buying this many jackets allows me to be prepared if people give donations at the matches or during the season. Lastly, the posters and the brochures are created just-in-time each season. This happens in one big batch. The postures and brochures are either mailed out or passed out. This is a simple process and they are both updated once a year because of schedule and team changes year to year. Module D – Waiting Lines Because this topic has kind of been touched on earlier in chapter 17, I will choose the most clear cut way that waiting lines effect the Citadel Wrestling Association by way of single-channel multiphase systems. Sad but true, there are times that the CWA checks go through one of the other two coaches before they get to me. This has led to an occasion or two where we lost someone’s check. For example, if I am off campus and the coach puts some checks on my desk. The checks could be waiting on my desk unattended for the next two nights on my desk instead of in the safe mailbox until I return from a sick day, vacation, class, or any reason. This extends the phases and brings more variability that is not necessary in the process. Personally, I think that no envelopes that are addressed to the Citadel Wrestling Association should ever be moved from the mailbox by anybody but me. By leaving it in there it allows one less phase in the process. I will be able to walk it immediately to the assistant Athletic Director who will then take it to the bank for me. This would eliminate misplacing the checks and variability in the process. This is why I am now pushing for people to donate through the online merchant account. This is the easiest solution to any waiting lines because the money is directly deposited into our Citadel Wrestling Association bank account.