One area the PDGA could improve is generating more publicity for the charitable giving of its members and affiliated clubs. PGA tournaments and the PGA tour does a better job than us of publicizing how much the tournaments and tour raise for charity.

An example... The Mile High Disc Golf Club participates in the Ice Bowl each year. From 2003 - 2007 we raised $25,456. In 2008 the total was $11,629. This year the total was a whopping $14,043.

In 7 years we have raised $51,128 for local charities. And we aren't alone. Clubs all across the country are doing similar things.

Seems to me that we, the PDGA, could and should do a better job of publicizing this. Is this info being used in the pursuit of new courses? or sponsorship? or improving the image of the PDGA or sport in general?

To my knowledge it isn't. Some years I see a short blurb in a PDGA affiliated magazine, some years not. Some years I see a small story on the PDGA website, some years not. Is it in the e-newsletter? Or on PDGA radio? And if it is...it isn't visible enough.

In my opinion...this is big stuff. The PDGA needs to make a bigger deal about it than we have in the past.

Any ideas how we can improve in this area?

Hi Pete,

Excellent idea. With our Competition Endowment Program including charity events now, we can track these events and report the amount donated as well as list the charitable organization. We will look into this further and incorporate it into the website.

Thank you for your thoughts.

For Pete's sake.

On a similar subject, I saw the grant headline on the home page tonight and was very surprised that the grants were so small in amount. Being that the PDGA is the public voice for the entire sport and at this point the future of the sport depends on the PDGA, I would think that a much greater amount of the organizations money would go towards the future of the sport in manners like these. What can be done to help further (and by further I directly mean sweeten the pot) these causes? By all means, PDGA donations and charitable monies should go back into the sport until it is self sustainable.

Is this info being used in the pursuit of new courses? or sponsorship?

To my knowledge it isn't.

I've always thought that $$$ is necessary for new courses and sponsorships.

Apparently you can build courses and award sponsorships with information now? That's great, we should definitely keep pumping money outside the sport and use publicity to pay for things.

Are you serious? You really don't see how having more of a positive image may help get more courses in the ground?

A quick example...a proposal is in to a city parks and rec department near Denver to add a course to a sweet plot of land that also has a group of mountain bikers wanting the land. for more trails. One of the decision makers is against the disc golf course citing "they are just a bunch of stoners who will litter the course with beer cans". Another of the decision makers has actually taken the time to read the proposal which includes thank you letters for the $50k plus the local club has raised for the community over the last several years and now has a different opinion of disc golfers.

Are you saying you don't see the value of spreading positive information around and how it can indeed help get courses in the ground.

That being said...we don't raise money and help out in the community to get more courses in the ground. But if our raising money for the community might help us get more courses why wouldn't we make that information as public as we can?

Yes, I am serious, Pete. Here's the problem I have with your argument: Your club and area disc golfers raised $50K, a GIGANTIC sum of money, well-done! You claim that the publicity generated from donating that money to charities may or may not sway consideration of local decision makers to give you permission to build a course.

If you want a course, the most direct way to get one is not to ask for permission for land to be granted, but simply to buy/create one. With fifty grand, you could either purchase land and make a private course belonging to the club, generating a self-sustaining pay-to-play course free of government intervention, or find a disc golfer with 40 acres already and sponsor the building of his private course, possibly having plenty of money leftover to do the same with with another land-owner.

Brandishing thank-you letters from charities will not eliminate the beer cans and degenerates that will surely trash your new public course. Why give local government the power to pull the course whenever they want after they see a bunch of 13-year old punks hanging on trees and making grafitti on t-signs? Keep the money in the sport!! Support local land-owners who dream of owning their own course! Build a Virginia tiki course and give city-dwellers something to do at night!

I simply cannot understand why, in a sport still so underdeveloped, clubs cannot wait to fling money to support whatever cause is popular that day. Disc golf is the passion of the people who are generating the money you fling about. We need and want more courses rather than warm fuzzies and thank-you letters.

Around here, the going rate for land is around $500k/acre. $50k is nothing (maybe a parking space or two).

Sarah,

I hear your argument but have to agree $50k isn't going to buy us much of a course in a major metropolitin area. Even an hour up in the mountains it won't buy anything. Go east out on the plains? Maybe but it won't be much of a course in some farmers flat field.

All I am saying is we have put in lots of time, energy, and money towards the community. Why wouldn't we make that more public even if it just MIGHT help get courses in the ground? This isn't the only way to get courses, but if it MIGHT help and the cost and effort to publicize it is near $0 wouldn't it be foolish not to make the information available?

In Dallas, we have started a charity expressly for the purpose of collecting funds to install new disc golf courses, and we have started a small series where we set up a temp course in a park where we have permission to install a "donated" course.

If you are trying to plant new courses, and seem to be getting nowhere with the municipality, inquire as to areas that could be used for disc golf if the equipment was not purchased by that municipality. If they are open to that idea, you can proceed to raise money for the course with such a charity as was described above.

Bill, you're the man! Like I've always said, BE the charity! I really, really like what Dallas is doing down there and I wish you every worldly success in your efforts to improve and grow the sport.

Pete, I don't have a problem with publisizing what's been done; my dad taught me years ago what you're describing: The GDB. You do what's popularily recognized as a Good deed: raise money and give it to some charity. In my opinion, it's kinda Dumb, when you're gambling on warm fuzzies of lawmakers to grow the sport instead of taking the reigns yourself. (Gambling on a government whim is ALWAYS dumb) And now you wanna Brag about it. Sure, I get it, but it's still just a GDB.

Here's the opposite: GSB. You raise money from disc golfers = Good. You build a new, awesome, private course on an enthusiastic golfer's land and the pay-to-play fees pay their taxes for them = Smart. Now let's Brag.

There really aren't any disc golfing landowners in the Denver area who want to build a course but don't have an extra $10 - $20 G's laying around for baskets, signs, a clubhouse, tee-pads and landscaping? That was more the focus of my argument. I understand land doesn't come cheap, but neither do courses and I know a few folks in the Detroit Metro area who have land but not the resources to turn it into a great course.

Also, the tiki course in Virginia can't be more than a few acres and it's wildly popular. You go out with some friends and improve your upshots and putting at a mini-course lit up at night by Christmas lights. There is sooo much you could do with fifty grand other than just give it away and hope for the best.

You are probably now going to argue that Helping the Community is noble and necessary and whatever else it is. Disc golf IS the community for most of us. When we throw Ice Bowls in Michigan for food gatherers, why don't the people accepting the food come out and spot in the snow? Why isn't charity a give and take? Would spending the day outside with your family learning about the sport and people that are putting food on your table be such a unreasonable notion? Rather, if disc golf is our community, we reesablish the give-and-take balance by taking $$ from golfers and then giving it back in the form of courses and resources. Go Dallas, way to really get it, Bravo!

Nope, not my style to argue helping the community is noble etc. If people want to help the community they should help the community for whatever reasons they have. If they want to do something else... feel free. It isn't up to me. I'm not the judgemental type.

If you believe the "Dallas" model is better than the "Virginia" model or the "Denver" model thats great. I hope people are successful in getting more courses using any and all of these. The more arrows in the quiver the better. I am just suggesting we take advantage of what I see as an opportunity to add another arrow to the quiver.

We both want the same thing... more courses in the ground. However they get there.

Some good conversation here and I would like to add yet another option:

The Educational Disc Golf Experience (http://www.edgediscgolf.org) is a program set up to grow the sport within our younger ranks. We have already seen an amazing amount of growth of school aged youth taking up the sport on a recreational level after initial exposure within their schools wellness programs.

Some of you have mentioned building more courses. One of the strongest forces in the planet are impassioned parents. As disc golf enters schools and youth programs their kids come home excited and talk about what they learned in school. With students wanting to play disc golf outside of school, parents get involved in either buying discs or just being informed to what their kids are up to. The more parents that know about the sport and that their kids want to play it, the more support there will be for anything going for public and city approval. Parents have money and will to follow through with support.

Do you think it is the kids demanding for the huge soccer complexes going up all over? It is the parents because their kids said they want to play soccer. So the parents build them places to play.

Check out this great EDGE program that helps to place programs at your local level: The EDGE Tournament Charity Program (http://www.edgediscgolf.org/files/EDGE_Tournament_Charity_Info.pdf)

I'm glad you chimed in on this one, Yeti, and I completely agree with what you said and your efforts toward the EDGE program. I think that one of the greatest ways to help the community is through face-to-face contact donating your TIME. When the Readings go to various communities and donate their time by teaching kids, the entire sport benefits. First, they present disc golf's best possible image; two healthy, enthusiastic, athletic adults devoted to a worthy passion. Second, to my knowledge, the money that EDGE receives to sustain efforts is meager compared to the impact it has on kids = massive bang for the buck. Finally, like the Yeti says, the perogative of EDGE is not to buy a pack of Cheetos for a 'hungry' family without ever meeting them, but rather to introduce by way of show-and-tell a wonderful way to spend time cheaply for kids who have access to a course.

After seeing the charisma the Yeti applies to his putting lessons, I say Bravo to one of the smarter charities our organization supports, and I sure don't say that very often!