Ask Slashdot: College Club Fundraising On the Fly? 89
An anonymous reader writes "As luck would have it, I was video-attending the monthly meeting of my alma mater's amateur radio club last night and learned that a local Alumnus had passed, leaving a significant amount of equipment to the club, including a 'Big Bertha' tower that the club does not have a home for. This particular 'Big Bertha,' as it is called, is a 115 foot tall, self-supporting rotatable pole that can support an enormous number of antennae. There are thought to be only a small number of them in civilian use, and this was one of them. I also happen to be a member of the local University's amateur radio club, and our local meeting was right after the Georgia Tech meeting, so upon learning of the availability I immediately informed them that this tower could be had so long as they could support the logistics of moving the tower approximately 100 miles.
After discussing the logistics, and the fact that construction crews would be required on both sides, we came to the conclusion that a significant amount of money would be required, and that your typical intramural basketweaving team bake sale would not do the job. The use case for such a tower is not difficult to make with the University, or with local emergency services who would no doubt love to have space on such a tall tower in such a prime 'top of the hill' geographical location. Zoning will also not be an issue owing to the location having one other taller tower belonging to the college radio station, and a water tower on site. However, with most governments being cash-strapped and unlikely willing to contribute to the project, we need some more ideas on how to raise the needed funds.
So if you're a small University club, and need to raise $30-40K in a hurry, how do you do it? They are working on some small grants from local corporations, and also contacting the manufacturer to see if there is any goodwill there. But, many more ideas are needed. Thanks in advance."
After discussing the logistics, and the fact that construction crews would be required on both sides, we came to the conclusion that a significant amount of money would be required, and that your typical intramural basketweaving team bake sale would not do the job. The use case for such a tower is not difficult to make with the University, or with local emergency services who would no doubt love to have space on such a tall tower in such a prime 'top of the hill' geographical location. Zoning will also not be an issue owing to the location having one other taller tower belonging to the college radio station, and a water tower on site. However, with most governments being cash-strapped and unlikely willing to contribute to the project, we need some more ideas on how to raise the needed funds.
So if you're a small University club, and need to raise $30-40K in a hurry, how do you do it? They are working on some small grants from local corporations, and also contacting the manufacturer to see if there is any goodwill there. But, many more ideas are needed. Thanks in advance."
ks (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen lots of this sort of stuff on kickstarter... I've seen it be successful.
Re:ks (Score:4, Interesting)
The ham crowd is fairly well connected so news travels pretty quickly in that community and they like seeing this sort of thing.... Going viral is a reasonable possibility.
$40k isn't that much money.
Write a business plan (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like you have two customers already. You could also put up some WiFi antennas and become a wireless ISP. So all you need now is to write a business plan and find investors or take out a loan.
Is the tower worth this much? (Score:4, Interesting)
I might be modded off-topic, since the question was not "Should we raise this money?" but "How do I raise this money?"
Two questions:
1) Is $30-$40k a good price for this tower?
2) If the tower weren't available for free, would your club spend this kind of money to install a tower like this?
Disassembling the tower isn't free, and purchasing a tower new wouldn't come with this expense, and could be done on your schedule. The right answer might be to decline the donation.