Coyotes Charities offers $10,000 grant
Announced this week by Mike Nealy, Phoenix Coyotes Chief Operating Officer, the Coyotes Charities will be offering a chance at a $10,000 grant to the local area non-profit organizations and your hockey associations.
The grant would funded via a ticket sales fundraising program.
"All partnering organizations will be able to sell the tickets at a discounted rate from the gate price. In addition, the organizations will be able to keep the difference between the discounted price and the gate price as a fundraiser, meaning all participating organizations will benefit from the program"
The grant will be given to the local organization that helps sell the most Coyotes game tickets for the 2010-11 regular season.
My thoughts:
I kind of like the idea. Sure the Coyotes get the best deal in it; because they are going to have more tickets that are at least sold. I think this will work towards embding the team more into the community; hopefully the ownership and all of the associated drama is solved soon that will also make a huge difference in developing a strong fan base.
The next challenge for the team is to now get the people that bought the tickets to fill those seats during the games.
If I was in the Phoenix area and was working with a local non-profit (which I have experience with non-profits – I even have been a fundraising chair) I would jump on this.
The team had a great year last year and I do not think it was just some fluke. They have made some good acquisitions this summer – especially with Ray Whitney coming on. I am still a huge fan of Sami Lepistö (if you do not know my story about him and the Caps I will fill you in some other time) even if a lot of my hometown Michigan readers do not like him because of what he did in the playoffs.