Team Funding

[mafzal]

How do you guys pay for travel, competitions, costumes, etc? Private teams and college teams I'm sure are different, but maybe not. I'm wondering what kind (if any) of sponsorships or fundraisers other teams have done? Is winning a couple of competitions enough to support you for ahwile, and even if so, how did you scrape by before prize money?

My team is new, but we registered as a school club and get $1500/year [Not straight up, but we are "eligible" to use that within the school's guidelines. So far we have been able to use school funding to help with costumes, t-shirts, and Gatorade [but they refuse to pay for anything off-campus]. We need money for registration fees and more props right now.

 

[Manjot]

do couple of parties each month and ur set

 

[Sher]

1500 is good... most of the money probably went to buying outfits, but you might not need to buy any next year so you can use that for competitions. Also, some competitions are willing to pay travel expenses. My team (Bulldawg da Raaj) doesnt get anything at all from our university. All our money comes from prizes and gigs/parties we perform at. Try to get the word out in your community and see if you get any gigs from there.

 

[mafzal]

To Manjot:

Can you elaborate? Club parties? Do you team up with an party-throwing company (local desi "entertainment co.") or do it yourselves... I'm really new to running a competitive team, especially starting from scratch we really need the money. It helps so much! What kind of parties have you thrown in the past?

 

[Pooja]

We aren't an official club either which really sucks in terms of getting practice space funding etc. and even if we were NYU won't pay for off-campus expenses and it's probably similar to the $1500/year around there...

We did a lot of gigs at weddings/UN/Desi Events/Dinners...things like that...ask your family friends to spread the word or if there's a large Desi community mention it on Desi radio/newspapers and stuff...

Or do a Bhangra dance party fundraiser event on campus if there's enough people in the community you think would enjoy it...and just charge a few bucks, hire a DJ/dholi...vois la!

 

[Jeeti]

The university team I was on had a really hard time with funding as well. We were constantly asking the government board for money, as well as other indian associations if they had any funding they could throw our way. As mentioned, parties are a great option especially for your area, I'd imagine you could bring in quite a crowd. For the independent team, we just sent letters to every uncle or aunti in the immediate area explaining what exactly we were doing, what we needed help with and if they could contribute a couple bucks. You will be surprised with the response you'll get. Make a template for the letter and if you make each person on your team send out say 5 letters, 12 people on your team...60 letters...

just a suggestion...

 

[Havish]

Funding is hard for starting up a team but the are many ways to get money, most of which have been stated already.

Do wedding performances, If you are in contact with the local desi community, you can usually get wedding gigs for a good amount of money, usually ranging from 400-700 dollars performance, depends on number of people and stuff. And the summer is wedding season

Also see if there are volunteer opportunities around you area, for VCU, we have a theme park called Kings Dominion near us, we can go as a group and volunteer there for a day and they pay us as employees, and it can generate a good amount of money, and they are really open to it because they can put it down for taxes and stuff

Try to sell t-shirts and try to talk to uncles and aunties for funding, or if they own businesses ask them to sponsor you or to provide donations to get started.

And at times, it might just come to the point where people will have to pitch in themselves, where the team can provide for part of the costs, but each individual has to throw in some money

 

[Varun]

The best way to get gigs is to first contact a DJ company, desi wedding planner, or banquet hall that books alot of parties. The gigs they get, they will contract you under them as well and after your performance you can just pass out business cards to any uncles and aunties that wanna book you later on.

 

[zagreus]

Our team just started this past year, and it took us quite some time to get where we are today. We solely relied on gigs and competitions (having won one local competition that paid well). These gigs helped us a lot! For us, we had to start getting paid less for stuff, then as our name built up, we can now charge a nice price.
We also charged team dues, i think it was 30 dollars from everyone, and that helped a lot! When we had to buy outfits (we had a great deal from UVA and we jumped on it), I personally covered the costs. But i knew the costs would come back to me when we did gigs.

We're now getting brand new outfits (from Govind and his people...thanks a ton for that), and we're getting set up for gigs in the summer. Basically, market the team. If you need money, start cheap...get cheap gigs (100 bucks or so) and build some credibility. It goes a long way! Get involved in your local community as well.

My school decided not to give us funding last year when we became a group. I hope this year they'll help a little. If not, we'll have to work with what we have, and continue to raise money by any means necessary. These ideas from the other people help a lot, and I might as well get those to work as well!

 

[mafzal]

Any teams throw parties?

 

[Manjot]

To Manjot:

Can you elaborate? Club parties? Do you team up with an party-throwing company (local desi "entertainment co.") or do it yourselves... I'm really new to running a competitive team, especially starting from scratch we really need the money. It helps so much! What kind of parties have you thrown in the past?

I meant like dancing at brown parties lol like receptions/engagement or even some birthday parties...make some business cards and give them to the owners of the halls and then get the owners to give the cards to whoever that comes to book the hall...people are always looking for some kind of entertainment/bhangra performances...maybe even give like $50 to the owner of the hall for each party so they can get something out of it as well

 

[Vick]

How much do teams earn doing these gigs? Iv seen some numbers thrown out there... Personally I would never pay $700 bucks to watch a 5 minute routine... Thats more than a hundred bucks a minute... I'd consider that a pretty big waste of money... Considering that you have to feed the team as well, it's a pretty expensive venture... I'd rather spend it on a better DJ or something...

 

[250Dholi]

In Vancouver I'd say on average they get like $300-$400 (from the experiences I've seen) and potentially more depending on the popularity of the teams. Even Dholis can get that and more, if they're really well known around here.

 

[Vijay]

Our Bhangra club here held a party in fall 06 i think it was, "midnight bhangra" at a small club/bar. luckily it was a new place so we were not charged for using the place for our party. our intent was for it to be a fundraiser event, but we only ended up breaking even after the dj and sound equipment costs. but something like that can help raise money. our student association allocates funds based upon the size of clubs, so we always get some money from the school too.

also, try to get in touch with larger indian associations in ur area. the indian association of buffalo holds an annual dinner/banquet and they ask us to perform there each year, usually get 200-300 for that. unfortunately, i think its a lot easier for established, university teams to get asked to perform at weddings/banquets/events, etc just because thats what people know in the community. i feel like an uncle would automatically think of vcu/gw/nyu/uci/umich bhangra, as opposed to a newer team. with that said there are of course tons of ways to get ur name out there as ppl have explained.

 

[Kaur]

PANJ is a independant team, so we dont get anything from school etc.. All the money that we get comes from doing performances, be it receptions, conferences, corporate events etc. Depending on how many ppl perform we make 400-800 each event, we get a lot in the summer.

Throwing a club night is a good idea, we are actually holding one next month, you easily make about 2grand depending on how many ppl come. Pub nights are a good idea too, but they are a lot more work. Other then that look for sponsers, make up a sponsership letter and go out to local businesses, usually they are more eager if you have a few competitions under your belt.

Hopefully that helps

 

[zagreus]

Oh yeah....
Get in good with local DJs! Luckily I've played dhol with lots of DJs, and now they know I'm part of a bhangra team. So we've somewhat monopolized that...since they now have a contact person to deal with.

And Vick, i know that's expensive, but hey, people want to pay for it...we just do it. I doubt i'd pay that much to see a team dance. I'd pay that much to see a few teams dance. But even then, that'd be awkward to have a competition in the middle of a wedding reception.

 

[Vick]

Hey if uncles want to pay that kind of money, more power to the teams taking it in... I wouldn't expect any team to turn that kind of money down... I was talking more from a personal perspective... No team is worth $700 bucks.. Not even KJ of old...

 

[Manjot]

yeh we do a routine of like 6-7 mins on songs with 6-8 guys and usually get like 400-600 depending on how far it is.

 

[kinnell]

Here's some of the stuff we do. I'm the president of an organization called EKTA Dance Productions at Case Western Reserve University, which primarily manages and fundraises for our bhangra, raas and fusion teams.

We do get funding from our USG (Undergraduate Student Government) and we're very skilled at making appeals and such. We usually tie in around $1000-$1500 a semester. Please realize that my organization sponsors ALL three teams, so this entitles each team with $300 to $500 per semester approximately.

In addition, we have organized fundraisers with Qdoba (they pay you $1 for EVERY meal you buy with a coupon.) If you literally stand outside Qdoba giving coupons to everyone who walks in and also get all your friends to come, you got more $$.

Calling local grocery stores owned by indians and local indians is also beneficial for asking for sponsorship. We usually get t-shirts made and their names are product placed on the t-shirts. Also, we have an on-campus pub/diner. We spoke with the owner and we threw our own night at the diner with our own DJ and all. We brought in an enormous crowd and we also bartended to help out. The owner promised us a portion of the tips, and our friends kept on buying drinks and tipping us. We got around $400 from that event.

I have a few other events that should be just as lucrative, but they're in the planning stages. I hope this has helped and has given you a few ideas of your own.

 

[tonygarcha]

We all spend money from our own pockets for any trips. But in the past we have done a pub night. It may seem like a lot more work, but its actually the best type of event. Its more interactive in a sit down environment than a club where ur all over the place. We did one last year and it was a success, you don't raise a huge amount of money but its still enough to cover one aspect of a trip. Plus its more fun because you can socialize with more people in that environment, have contests, raffles, etc...