(See Reports item, page 18)
The SIA Grants Program is based on lessons and precepts that we garnered from the joint committee. In the broad stroke I would say that we learned some very basic truths: NSAA’s customer is the skier. Our 15 million skiers are found somewhere in the 240 million U.S. population group. Marketing to them is considerably harder and more expensive than the basic SIA task of marketing to their customers, the 3,000 ski shops concentrated in rather finite areas of the U.S. (Yes, it is true that a few SIA members have a consumer franchise among skiing and non-skiing would-be skiers. But in general, we SIA’s market narrowly with the emphasis on vertical ski books. It’s not the same!)
The other truth is one we should have known from the start: the more we tried to nationalize our marketing efforts, the less effective they became. The trickle-down effect works as poorly in skiing as it did in politics. The action for learn-to-ski was not at our prestigious destination ski resorts; it was at the local or feeder ski area. The bad news was that this group was really not in touch with the USIA. We were spending fairly large amounts of money nationally touting the fun of skiing, but the message of how to promote skiing was not reaching the very people who were focusing on the family or learn-to-ski scene. It’s clear that the experience provided by the feeder/local ski area for the novice plays a major role in that skier’s commitment to the sport.
Enter the SIA Matching Grants plan: national marketing money budgeted to be spent in the local arena to promote the growth of learn-to-ski plans in the three areas that represent our constituents: alpine, cross country and snowboard.
The details are equally simple: the programs had to be motivational…the grant had to be spent exclusively in non-administrative ways… plans that were self-sustaining and renewable were preferred. Since available funds were modest, the overall amount per applicant was retracted to encourage diversity, and of course required a dollar-for-dollar match of the grant. With only $350,000 available from SIA, the multiplier was key to the scope of our plan.
One interesting angle to the Grants Program is that it is open to anyone or any association meeting the criteria, be it area, shop, club or charitable organization.
The results are in and well documented. The association received 340-plus inquiries for the grants, of which a little over 140 became applications with dollar amounts exceeding $3 million! Clearly there are organizations out there who are ready, willing and capable of paying the elusive never-never or infrequent skier. And they are located at the local level.
Twenty-seven grants were issued. The multiplied impact of the grant and program money totaled over $2 million. I have learned to be cautious with projections, but the sum of the numbers indicates the program will result in 186,000 new skiers. Great numbers.
I think this plan will work well. It’s simple. It has no administrative burden. It puts money where the action is. It multiplies a modest amount of money into a notable amount. And I must say that it is easier to match funds than it is to collect pledges that were always contingent on one thing or another.
NSAA’ers Unite: a similar plan by you might yield another 186,000 skiers!
