Passed an incredible milestone yesterday. When we moved the SyraCRUZ Tailgate NIL Initiative into year 2, no one on the executive committee expected us to meet last year's fund raising total in terms of pure donations. There was a novelty factor last season that we expected to fade and other NIL initiatives popping up around the Cuse Community, some with affiliated tax benefits, that compete for your dollars. But you amazed us again.
With 2 weeks until kickoff, total pure donations for 2023 stand at $16,685 from 93 unique donors. $15,541 of that total has already been banked for 93%. That compares to last year's total of $16.432 from 76 unique donors with 100% follow through.
Adding in profits from 2022 merchandise and assuming 100% follow through on this year's pledges, that means that in roughly 15 months we have raised $34,919 to support Orange Student Athletes in 6 sports with more to come!
Still time to add to this total, donations are always accepted and appreciated and what we don't pay out this year will help establish a foundation to ensure we will continue into 2024 and beyond. See payment information at the top of this thread or PM me if you can help.
There have been a couple of teaser posts but expect a complete picture of our 2023 merchandise offerings shortly. We picked up the apparel yesterday and opened sales during a tailgate planning session at The Wildcat. The Tshirts and baseball jerseys look GREAT! And the youths T's featuring Otto are cute as can be. If you pre-ordered with mail delivery your merchandise will be shipped early next week. If you pre-ordered for pickup at a tailgate your merchandise is being packed as I type and will be marked with your name at our merchandise table for the Colgate game and all others including several roadies, If you have not yet ordered, I'll repeat that inventory is somewhat limited this year. We have already sold out of a couple of sizes on the jerseys and the T's promise to go fast. We will have an expanded selection of autographed photos available shortly. I will post mre details later, but this is a great way to support individual student athletes including a great action shot of LeQuint Allen. We also have a limited number of highly coveted koozies left!
Tailgate video guest offers have all been issued and accepted. We will pay Joe More, Jakob Bradford, Chris Bleich, Josh Ilaoa Donovan Brown, Caleb Okechukwu and Josh Kubala $250 to sign our 50-50 raffle football and appear with Enrique in one of his weekly videos. We have an enhanced offer in place for LeQuint Allen to do the same for a payment of $1000.
Tailgate guet appearance offers are being finalized. We will kickoff at the Colgate game with three members of our National Champion men's soccer team. Rather than a single $500 payment, Jeorgio Kocevski and the Pagano brothers, Nino and Francesco have agreed to appear en masse for $400 each. Sadly I have yet to get a response from Judah Mintz for the WMU game, so we are working on a women's lacrosse day. Army is shaping up as a mens lacrosse guest and Clemson will likely feature women's basketball, Boston College will be a men's basketball feature with at least two prominent members of Red's inaugural squad interested. I am leaving Wake Forest open for now as a holiday weekend game may be challenging to fill and applications will continue to trickle in. I'll confirm names as these dates are locked in.