Crowdfunding for judo projects

Most of the government subsidies are used by federations to sponsor all of the foreign travel of its athletes to tournaments and for training camps, their training facilities and activities, and the salaries of office and coaching staff. Very little goes to grass root activities.

In addition, a lot of money obviously changes hands within the IJF circuit, in particular at the executive board level.

All judo activities that fall outside of this framework financially may face considerable challenges. This is already so for jûdôka wishing to participate in major international kata championships or master's (veterans) championships.

The following website is a crowd-funding website that lists as number of judo-related initiatives for which financial support is being sought. I believe that the movie about Fukuda-sensei was partly sponsored in this way and was one of the more successful crowd-funding projects. Overall though it seems to me that the majority of jûdô-related initiatives unfortunately have a hard time attracting funding in this way too.

I am interested in hearing from people who have experience with fundraising in this way or who have other constructive thoughts about the process.


http://www.indiegogo.com/explore?utf8=%E2%9C%93&filter_title=judo

The silence for a week may be indicative of the level of support for the idea.  

I watched a guy go through the crowd funding exercise for a martial arts project.  It did not turn out well - according to him.  He'd placed a very high amount on a film project, and while he did get a good amount of money, it fell well short of his goal.  I think the psychic toll was substantial, and maybe that's part of the hazards of such an approach.

NBK

In the UK a number of elite athletes are using crowd funding via Facebook as an attempt to rise funds for participating in qualifying tournaments for Olympics etc. Tom Reed and Jodie Mullen are but two.

I have tried over the years to organize several events to raise funds for the local and regional dojos. If you consider the expenses in time and efforts for organizing and administrating such ventures, the results are very small in monetary returns. Of course, parties, social events, calendars issues, posters sales etc demonstrations and judo Shows do attract clientele and some small amount of $$ but there may be a downsize to this: the aims attempted are not always reached, the demo do not always present the true facets of judo and the if one seek to improve the material side of the dojo, benefactors are seldom encountered.
There is new tendency now, in metropolitain cities to offer local championships in EXTREME judo and Kosen styles in order to attract different crowds who may later be benifical to the membership in some ways...
By presenting such special events may also present some training confusion to those judoka participating. Training under the IJF and National rules is something to get used to, training with no rules...may in deed be more detrimental...I raise the question to those who have experimented with such events.

forgeron judo wrote:I have tried over the years to organize several events to raise funds for the local and regional dojos. If you consider the expenses in time and efforts for organizing and administrating such ventures, the results are very small in monetary returns. Of course, parties, social events, calendars issues, posters sales etc demonstrations and judo Shows do attract clientele and some small amount of $$ but there may be a downsize to this: the aims attempted are not always reached, the demo do not always present the true facets of judo and the if one seek to improve the material side of the dojo, benefactors are seldom encountered.
There is new tendency now, in metropolitain cities to offer local championships in EXTREME  judo and Kosen styles in order to attract different crowds who may later be benifical to the membership in some ways...
By presenting such special events may also present some training confusion to those judoka participating. Training under the IJF and National rules is something to get used to, training with no rules...may in deed be more detrimental...I raise the question to those who have experimented with such events.

Some good comments you raise, thank you.

I am not surprised to hear about the limited success. On the other hand, my perception is that the three US judo organizations seem to greatly benefit from a very limited number of individuals, all millionaires. As these are private people well alive it would be improper to "drop their names here", but most people involved in American judo will know of them. If you look at the lists of special judo life memberships, funds or special donations, they always outrank everyone else in terms of donations. The gifts are regularly identified in the magazines of these judo organizations, in what even seems to be a contest of ending on top of the being the largest judo donor. There was at one point in time a contribution here from Dr AnnMaria who mentioned the individual support of the late Frank Fullerton to the team or team members, who would take it upon himself to pay for certain expenses whenever the athletes were in need. This system of a limited number of affluent individuals seems to work well in the US, although I do not typically find an equivalent of this in judo-related organizations or events in most other countries. Maybe it has to do with the specific culture in the US where any form of "socialism" is frowned upon and vilified and considered a prelude to communism, leading to support being limited to grants, and charities with people even mentioning their support to charities in their CVs, something I have never see anyone except for Americans do. So this must be cultural, and possibly related to more significant tax benefits. However, I have no expertise in finances or taxes, so what I write here is speculation, and I will stand corrected if people with more knowledge in such matters offer a different take on this. Nevertheless, it boils down to the same, namely that apart from funds from Olympic Committees, state or government going almost exclusively to the elite athletes and NGB stafff and operations, not much exists in addition to that for grassroots or individual projects, except for in the US individual contributions of a very limited number of affluent members, and perhaps --at least in theory-- crowdfunding, which in reality does not seem to work well for jûdô.

In Europe the only large sums coming in traditionally had to do with grey-area funds, such as the casinos of Charlie Palmer, Marius Vizer, etc. Sponsors seem to be involved only in very major competitions, which is when you see their name appear on the gi of the national team or similar, but once more the grassroots or other initiatives fall out of the boat.

My club back in DC used it with great success: http://dcjudo.com/gotothemat/

In the UK Colin Draycott used to provide strong financial support. I do not know if he still does.

Have to agree with FORGERON and CK…  
One observational insight to consider (substantiating an obvious hypothesis) having examined several types of crowd funding vehicles used by various judo athletes in the US ranging from Elite Senior level to Juniors and Juveniles who all require fund raising for international competition:  There is a direct relationship between the amount of funds that a crowd-funding (for a judoka) can raise and the number of ‘persons who can personally relate’ to that individuals plight.  IE, the more popular the individual is (wider publicity of site) - the more funds that they are able to raise; alternatively, the fund-raising capacity of less-popular individuals (lesser known juniors transitioning into seniors) are limited to crowds comprised from their inner-circles.  Thus, lesser known judoka are best advised to maximize their crowd-funding potential by striving to optimize the solicitation of their crowd-funding vehicle from within their family, friends, and team inner circles…
Also, leveraging the use of existing non-profit organizations (tax deductable) seems to have substantial potential/benefits for individuals such as Boys and Girls Club of America, New York Athletic Club etc…  Similarly, regional, state and clubs at the grassroots level should consider establishing their own non-profit organizations iot provide funding support for their up and coming judoka’s national and international competition travels…   IE Patrick Burris is the founder and CEO of the USA Stars Foundation – a non profit (501c) organization.
A good article on the subject and few examples:
http://judoadvisor.com/2014/06/crowd-funding-for-athletes/
http://www.nonprofitfacts.com/

http://nickdelpopolo.com/
http://judohannah.judopro.com/
http://makeachamp.com/nickkossor
http://willwinserra.com/
https://www.rallyme.com/rallies/175
https://rally.org/

Well, when you click the link http://www.indiegogo.com/explore?utf8=%E2%9C%93&filter_title=judo you'll see two of my campaigns, that latest one called Tribe of Judo. We've been specifically trying to raise money for mats for a free kids judo class.

We've had success, but not from the crowdfunding side - the mats and money we have so far I could have gotten by sending my daughter around with an empty pickle jar asking for a donation (which we did). I get lots of people that tell me they think the class is great and what we're doing is good work, but don't get many dollars.

In my experience, crowdfunding is only real effective for technology or art, because people can fund things they want to see or have themselves. Just not much of that in a judo cause unless you flat LOVE judo. I think a lot of people who really want to support judo are tied up trying to get money for their own projects.

If you want to know more about my campaign it's here: http://igg.me/p/921852/x/6548883. If you have any more questions, just let me know.