[JONAT] That pesky $45 tour fee...

[Mark Stephenson]

Bob,

I think the argument that people determine value based on cost is true
if you are selling something. I have a friend who made airplanes from
left over stained glass. At $5 he hardly sold any. At $20 he sold a
bunch. It's one of those rare exceptions to supply and demand. If we
were arranging hotels and catering meals then the "you get what you pay
for" dictum would apply. However, what we have here is a volunteer
effort. We aren't really trying to "sell" anything -- we are just trying
to cover costs. I think most people know that coming in.

Well, as I said, if we have a set fee, there will be two groups
participating in my Sector. There will be the JONAT group and the local
club members. The local club members can become part of the JONAT group
if they want the goodies, but if they just want to do the club thing
they can participate that way.

OK, you got me thinking and I've come up with a completely different
idea.

Does $0 work? Not if we have costs associated with things to get this up
and running. Out of pocket expenses shouldn't be borne by the
volunteers, if at all possible. By the same token, we shouldn't put
together a bag of goodies that raise the cost, if people don't really
want them.

As you well know, I'm in the KISS school with a few other SCs. I think
we should forego most, if not all of the goodies the first time around
-- at least goodies included in the fee. If we want to supply
JONAT-logoed bonnet badges, key chains, tire pressure gauges, emergency
repair kits, pins, hats, t-shirts, jackets, or items at the sector
level, (all available BTW, if anyone wants me to price them through a
customer of mine). I think we should make them available for individual
purchase on the web site. We can make some money on those if we want --
the perceived value dictum will apply. If people want to buy something,
great. If they don't we'll know what to not produce two years from now.
There's more detail to this concept, but I'm talking generally right
now.

I'd encourage everyone, both SCs and participants, to do as much from
the Internet as possible, things like printing out their own sector maps
to keep costs down. I'd charge individuals for sector maps or have them
pay to copy them themselves if they need them at the start of a sector.

In other words, if an out-of-pocket expense can be assigned to an
individual participant, it would be up to them to pay for it. If not,
then it comes out of a general fund. What comprises unassigned
out-of-pocket expenses? In order of importance (IMHO) -- web hosting,
office supplies, vehicle expenses to check out the routes of each
sector, even food and lodging expenses to check out the food and lodging
in advance if there's enough left over. I know my wife and I are
planning a romantic Valentine's getaway to check out the route, food
stops, and lodging from Phoenix to Williams to Lake Havasu and back this
weekend. (Yes, I'm in the doghouse.)

If we have 500 participants, a $10 donation would give us $5000. Are we
anywhere near that out-of-pocket? Even if you head honchos had $1000 in
expenses, that would still leave about $200 average per SC to cover
expenses (which I thing should be apportioned based on sector mileage).
Don't call the $10 a fee or a charge. Just give the participants some
idea of what went into the tour -- most have some inkling of that
already -- and explain that the $10 is to reimburse all of the JONAT
coordinators for a portion of the out-of-pocket expenses they incurred
putting this trek together.

OK, thought process is coalescing....

Even better, what does everyone think about making the donation totally
voluntary? Suppose we have a donation space right at the bottom of the
registration form with four check boxes... 
[ ]$10  [ ]$25  [ ]$50  [ ]Other $______   (Most people pick the middle
one. :->)
...and a "why we need your donations" explanation that spells out the
time, effort, and cost that went into JONAT. If we really wanted to get
carried away, we could print up a list of all the donors and in what
range they gave and make that a part of the route binder:
<$10 (which would include anyone who didn't give anything and make them
look like a real cheapskate), $10-24 (kind of cheap), $25-49 (decent
givers), >$50 (very generous). We can keep some seed money for 2006, but
anything beyond that we can give to a charity, perhaps something like
one's that are trying to preserve Jaguar habitat in Central America. All
that minimal cost stuff I was brainstorming about a few paragraphs up,
fits in with this. Excess money goes to a charity so anything any of us
can do to keep costs low, increases what we can give. We can say that
right on the website.

Here are a few examples of possible recipients:

http://www.targetearth.org/jaguarcreek/eden_jc_reserve.html
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/jaguar/index.html
And the one I was really looking for (sponsored by Jaguar Cars):
http://wcs.org/7490/jag-index/

I can't imagine participants not getting behind this. I would be totally
behind it and I think it will bring in more money than we need.

We're incorporated as a non-profit, correct? We'd just need a PayPal
account and a mailing address.

Next time around, we can get fancy and offer premiums for larger
donations, etc. We can use our excess donations going to the charity as
a selling point for sponsors. And, after we have one under our belt with
a bunch of participants, sponsors will be begging us to be included.
(OK, that might be a bit of wishful thinking.)

OK, you've kept me up way to late. 

Mark - AZ

-----Original Message-----
From: jonat-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:jonat-admin@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Bob
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 10:16 PM
To: jonat@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: [JONAT] That pesky $45 tour fee...

Mark

You and Bob both have some very good points, and one's that we really
need to consider.  I guess I had been thinking from a personal
standpoint that $50us ($70cdn) would be a pretty small cost for a Tour
that will cost much more than this once you roll gas/meals/lodging into
it, but perhaps I should be thinking about the single sector
participant.

If we have a minimum fee, of say $20 for the Tour or less, it would be a
bit more palatable (basically to cover the cost of a good "rally badge"
for the front of the cars to identify participants).  This would be a
nice souvenir collectors item, and you'd probably have to be a real
cheapskate not to fork over the $20.  Any other costs (i.e. shipping,
etc.) would have to be borne by donations, either by one of us or by an
outside group.

Zero, of course would be better, but if we have say 500 individual
participants, and a $20 badge cost, that's $10,000us.  Can we raise
this?
We'd need a fundraising guy to come up with this in pretty short order.
(Volunteers?)

I personally think $0 is not the right number.  I have learnt over the
years that people tend to put the value on an item in relation to what
it costs them (and I don't necessarily mean money).  I'd rather see some
fee, a reasonable fee, that will not scare too many people away.

I guess the basic questions are:
Is $50 the right amount, or will we loose the participants.
Is $20 the right amount, or will some still be scared away.
Is $0 the right amount.

Comments?

Bob England
'69 E-Type & '72 XJ6
Jaguar Owner's North American Tour (JONAT) Route Coordinator
<http://www.jonat.org/>