Advocating for the Future: A Workforce-Based Fundraising Model for Club Management Education for Chapters and Clubs

Description

Planting the Seeds Early: A Workforce-Based Fundraising Model for Club Management Education.  The UMass CMAA Student Chapter, in partnership with its Faculty Advisor, has developed an innovative, workforce-based fundraising model that plants the seeds for career pathways, workforce development, and club engagement within the first six weeks of the academic semester. Rather than relying on traditional fundraising methods, this model leverages student staffing as an earned-value exchange in which clubs receive professional event support in return for a charitable contribution to the student chapter. In Fall 2025, the model was implemented through three distinct club events across the Northeast: the GreatHorse Member Guest Tournament in Western Massachusetts, the James E. “Jake” Hoffman Memorial Scholarship Tournament at Brookmeadow Country Club in Eastern Massachusetts, and the Hermitage Club Hoedown celebrating the opening of the ski season in Vermont. Collectively, these multi-day events generated $6,000 in chapter funding within six weeks while simultaneously addressing club staffing needs, supporting memorial and member-driven initiatives, and providing students with early, hands-on exposure to high-impact club operations. This scalable and transferable model strengthens the club talent pipeline, delivers immediate value to clubs, and aligns directly with CMAA’s 2026 theme of Planting the Seeds for Success.  These three workforce-based fundraising events exposed students early to clubs at on-site locations in the first two weeks of classes and completes a large portion of the funds raised for the year to attend both the World CMAA Conference and the National Student Education Conference.

Implementation

The workforce-based fundraising model for club management students and the clubs was implemented for three events at three different clubs this Fall Semester 2025.  All three clubs have invited us back and it is an excellent way to help clubs when staffing is short, helps students get exposed to clubs early in the semester, and then helps them to complete all of the fundraising within six weeks into the semester.  Each has become so popular that the clubs are also looking for ways that students can return during the year or season to help with other special events.