For those families that are returning, you will be familiar with the process. For families new to our organization, we want to make you aware of our fan letter requirements. In order to receive your jerseys, DCLL requires families to submit 10 "fan letters". The fan letter drive is by far our largest fundraiser of the year. As league costs rise exponentially (jersey costs, cost of baseballs, umpire fees, field maintenance and equipment costs, etc), we try to do all we can to not pass those costs directly on to our league families. In order to do this, we (and every similar organization) rely more and more on fundraising and sponsorships every year. Many organizations have turned to mandatory fundraisers where you have to raise x dollars or pay the difference, we rely heavily on this 'fan letter' effort
What is required? In order to receive your jersey, each family (if your family has 10 players, you only have to do this once) is required to turn in 10 fan letters. You will need to bring these on the night of jersey pickup or you will not be able to pick up your jersey(s).
What is a 'fan letter'? A fan letter is a pre-written letter that asks the recipient to consider support Dallastown Cougar Baseball. A copy of this fan letter is attached. The fan letter is already written with all of the required info - all that you (or more ideally your player) has to do is fill out the 'to' blank and sign their name. Then you stick it in an addressed envelope with a stamp. We ask that you do that 10 times, then just bring the stamped envelopes when you pick up your jersey.
What does it cost? The only cost is the cost of 10 stamps and envelopes.
Who do I send it to? We know you all hate asking for money. We do too. If you want to send them to friends and family, great! If you want to send them to local businesses, even better! If you want to dream big and send them to professional organizations or large corporations, that's ok too!
How much do I need to fundraise? The difference between this fundraiser and most organizations' fundraisers is that we do not require you to fundraise a certain amount of money. If you send out 10 letters and none of them respond, your commitment is done. We do get a lot of support for this fundraiser from the community, and while you may not get and responses, the next player may get donations from 8 of their 10. We bank on success by casting a wide net.
What if I don't want to? Unfortunately, this is our only mandatory fundraiser. If you would rather not participate, starting this year we are offering the option to "buy out" your fundraiser for $100. In lieu of the fan letters, please bring a check for $100 addressed to "DCA" when you pick up your jersey.
So all I have to do is print out 10 of these letters, put them in stamped, addressed envelopes, and bring them along to jersey pickup? Yep.
We hope this helps explain the what and why of our fan letter program. Thanks for your understanding and participation!