On July 1st, Spirit Racing Systems launched a fundraiser for the 2019-2020 race season!

Look at us being all early ‘n’at. Usually, Spirit raises money close to race day, but the chose to fundraise during the summer this year to try to get better results. Plus, starting to raise money early would ideally help the students plan better financially and allow them to focus on building and racing. 

Buggy costs money

If you didn’t know, Buggy is pretty expensive sport — go figure. Even in a non-build year, buggy costs run over $10,000 for wheels, raceday fees, monetary sacrifices to the buggy gods, tshirts, etc. This year, the team is planning on building a buggy, so their target is a bit higher: $18,000.  

So how’d the fundraiser go?

The team’s fundraising goal was to raise half of the desired budget for the year; the remaining amount could be raised from material donations and smaller fundraising efforts, (e.g. t-shirt sales, whenever the buggy gods choose to rain money from above, etc). We sought monthly recurring donations because this spreads out the load for the donor and enables a more predictable income for the team. We aimed for 75 donors with monthly donations of $15 or more ($13,500). Four alums pooled their resources to commit an additional $2,500 if we reached 75 donors.

The fundraising campaign ran for one month. Though we didn’t get 75 donors, through the graciousness of 18 supporters, we raised $333 per month (monthly donations) and $2280 in one-time donations. This is $6,226 over 12 months! Not too bad, huh?

As an added bonus, we heard from alums we haven’t heard from in a long while and got to know how much this team means to our people. We even heard from one CMU Alum who wasn’t able to be on the team because Spirit Buggy didn’t exists but she wanted to support the team! 

The team still needs to raise over $11,000 and/or procure materials to cover the remaining costs. So, where do we go from here and how can you help? 

Buggy materials

The team is actively seeking material donations as well.  If you have any connections or are willing to donate any of the following - let us know in the comment section below:

• Screen Printing T-shirts

• Gift cards (Home Depot, Costco, Target, Walmart)

• Flashlights

• Headlights

• Hand warmers

• Sustenance for Rolls and Recruiting - Donuts, Pizza, etc.

Help

We’d still like to reach 75 donors and it’s not too late to donate. Please consider donating: https://www.spiritracingsystems.com/fundraiser. We will probably do one more large push in the fall.