Challenge Grant Added to MBB Fundraiser
3,133 Views | 15 Replies
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Sebastabear
10:21a, 4/17/24
You may have seen that some very exciting MBB players have entered the portal over the last few days. Players that could immediately transform our prospects and make Cal extremely competitive in the ACC. You'd like Cal to get some of these players.

Well one of your fellow fans feels the same way and I'm thrilled to announce that they've made a $250k challenge grant to turbocharge our program. Between now and May 1st they will match on a dollar for dollar basis any and all donations made to the collective for MBB up to $125k - potentially adding another $250k coach Madsen has to help generate NIL opportunities for our players and to get the best outcome for Cal possible. I am not guaranteeing with this money that we can get whoever we want. Other schools are also generating funds and going after the same players. Often very hard. But Madsen is great and with enough in NIL funds he can help prove it.

A couple of notes. I have seen people writing things suggesting that players from affluent families are less interested in robust NIL opportunities. I think it is fair to say that their outlook on those is different but I don't think "less" is the word I would necessarily apply. Sometimes the wealthier the family the bigger the number has to be in order to make them feel like it is meaningful. And as many of us have seen in our lives, the wealthy often use money as a measuring stick. It's a sign of respect and appreciation. College players are no different. They actually may be even more sensitive to it given the apples to apples comparisons that can be easily made. "I scored X points and my friend scored Y points. Why is his NIL number bigger than mine? Do you love him more"?

Also on this whole "40 year decision" thing, we generally aren't talking about players choosing between a terrible academic school and Cal. Sure there are very few (if any) real basketball schools with better academics than ours, but you can go to a school with very good academics and if they have a lot more in the way of NIL opportunities that can absolutely tip the scale. Silly to think, regardless of the wealth of the family, that it can't.

Bottom line, Cal fans need to step up if they want to see a better outcome here. Hope is not a strategy. Action is a strategy. Do what you can.

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball
Sebastabear
6:36p, 4/24/24
Pleased to report that we have hit our challenge grant amount for MBB. Our generous challenger can be revealed as Mr. Ray Lee. An anonymous donor put in $100,000 to fully meet Ray's challenge on his own and then Ray added another $25,000 to that mix to match the $10,000 from Bear Greg and the BI community and many of the other generous donations that have been made by you all. So $250,000 was added through the challenge grant alone!

Puts our fundraising from this drive at $377k at the moment. Have a week to get to our $500,000 goal.

I believe!!
HoopDreams
6:44p, 4/24/24
Freaking awesome ... those are extremely generous gifts and will make a huge impact for our team. Thank you so much!



7 days left ... Let's do this!

http://spot.fund/bnjhdsc

JimSox
11:32p, 4/24/24
Oh my! I hope this money gets put to good use. Many thanks to those generous donors!!
DaveT
11:06a, 4/27/24
Quick bump. Not a bad day to contribute if you're on the fence. Madsen + staff have shown they can recruit, they just need the resources to make the most of their opportunities.
Sebastabear
11:47a, 4/27/24
In reply to DaveT
DaveT said:

Quick bump. Not a bad day to contribute if you're on the fence. Madsen + staff have shown they can recruit, they just need the resources to make the most of their opportunities.


Staff is amazing. I honestly don't think with the right resources there is anyone he can't land. I don't think we've had anything like this at Cal in a long, long time.
Sebastabear
3:31p, 4/27/24
25 new donations just in the last few hours. Thank you all! Really appreciate folks showing their enthusiasm for what the Staff is building here. Go Bears!
PtownBear1
10:10a, 4/29/24
Surprised that we're still only at 125 unique donors on the challenge grant. When I contributed a couple of days before Stojakovic's commitment, I was somewhere around number 82/83. With the major recruiting success since, it's pretty disappointing only another ~40 donors have jumped in.

Come on Cal fans! College athletics is now a subscriber model whether we like it or not, and if you're devoting your time to following it, it makes no sense to not subscribe to help make the product enjoyable.
DaveT
12:09p, 4/29/24
We could definitely use more donors, but I'm floored by the generosity of those who have donated. $425K+ and still time left to hit the $500K goal. That's pretty amazing!
Johnfox
8:24a, 4/30/24
Men's basketball goal has been reached! 698k was donated!
Sebastabear
8:32a, 4/30/24
Pleased to note we exceeded our fundraising goal for men's basketball and are tantalizingly close for football. This is thanks to some major gifts that we received in the last 24 hours. Most notably we received a $250,000 anonymous gift for football and a $250,000 anonymous gift for men's basketball. This came from the same individual. Bless you! I also put $100,000 in for football myself as payment for two slots at an NIL event that we are going to put on with some members of the football team in Italy this summer. Will post more on that in the next day or so, but there will be a few tickets for those who have the means and are looking for a once a lifetime opportunity. Once we came up with it I knew my son and I had to be there. Please don't tell my wife.

But this doesn't mean our NIL needs are met. To clarify, these were just fundraising drives with what I thought were achievable goals. We still need money in all three sports. Particularly in men's basketball where we have rung the bell hard. I think once the final recruiting rankings get sorted, this will be a top five class nationally in MBB. Simply amazing. But that was not inexpensive. So we continue to need donations above our goal and would appreciate whatever support people want to offer. Also we continue to need some people to make significant gifts to women's basketball. Appreciate those who have thrown in what they can, but we really need some needle moving gifts there.

Go Bears!

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball


[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball
DaveT
8:35a, 4/30/24
We're now at $698,600. That's amazing! There's still time to donate - we could crack $700K (or even more) on a $500K goal fundraising goal. Huge thanks to Sebastabear, the CALegends team, and the incredibly generous donors, big and small. So exciting to see how far the program has come in such a short time.
mbBear
8:39a, 4/30/24
In reply to Sebastabear
Sebastabear said:

Pleased to note we exceeded our fundraising goal for men's basketball and are tantalizingly close for football. This is thanks to some major gifts that we received in the last 24 hours. Most notably we received a $250,000 anonymous gift for football and a $250,000 anonymous gift for men's basketball. This came from the same individual. Bless you! I also put $100,000 in for football myself as payment for two slots at an NIL event that we are going to put on with some members of the football team in Italy this summer. Will post more on that in the next day or so, but there will be a few tickets for those who have the means and are looking for a once a lifetime opportunity. Once we came up with it I knew my son and I had to be there. Please don't tell my wife.

But this doesn't mean our NIL needs are met. To clarify, these were just fundraising drives with what I thought were achievable goals. We still need money in all three sports. Particularly in men's basketball where we have rung the bell hard. I think once the final recruiting rankings get sorted, this will be a top five class nationally in MBB. Simply amazing. But that was not inexpensive. So we continue to need donations above our goal and would appreciate whatever support people want to offer. Also we continue to need some people to make significant gifts to women's basketball. Appreciate those who have thrown in what they can, but we really need some needle moving gifts there.

Go Bears!

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball


[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball
Have some of the bigger donors committed to an on-going yearly contribution? I hate (for you and the team) that this all starts again from zero 10 months from now, or whenever?
Sebastabear
9:09a, 4/30/24
In reply to mbBear
mbBear said:

Sebastabear said:

Pleased to note we exceeded our fundraising goal for men's basketball and are tantalizingly close for football. This is thanks to some major gifts that we received in the last 24 hours. Most notably we received a $250,000 anonymous gift for football and a $250,000 anonymous gift for men's basketball. This came from the same individual. Bless you! I also put $100,000 in for football myself as payment for two slots at an NIL event that we are going to put on with some members of the football team in Italy this summer. Will post more on that in the next day or so, but there will be a few tickets for those who have the means and are looking for a once a lifetime opportunity. Once we came up with it I knew my son and I had to be there. Please don't tell my wife.

But this doesn't mean our NIL needs are met. To clarify, these were just fundraising drives with what I thought were achievable goals. We still need money in all three sports. Particularly in men's basketball where we have rung the bell hard. I think once the final recruiting rankings get sorted, this will be a top five class nationally in MBB. Simply amazing. But that was not inexpensive. So we continue to need donations above our goal and would appreciate whatever support people want to offer. Also we continue to need some people to make significant gifts to women's basketball. Appreciate those who have thrown in what they can, but we really need some needle moving gifts there.

Go Bears!

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball


[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball
Have some of the bigger donors committed to an on-going yearly contribution? I hate (for you and the team) that this all starts again from zero 10 months from now, or whenever?
If we don't broaden this base we're dead. The whole thesis is to win a bunch of games and show excitement and improvement and bring in some of the vast network of additional donors that should be out there to support Cal sports. We can't keep hitting the same people up over and over again. So short answer is no. Hell I'm not even sure I'm committed to continue to do this unless it shows results and some of those with means on the sideline step up. We shall see.
mbBear
10:04a, 4/30/24
In reply to Sebastabear
Sebastabear said:

mbBear said:

Sebastabear said:

Pleased to note we exceeded our fundraising goal for men's basketball and are tantalizingly close for football. This is thanks to some major gifts that we received in the last 24 hours. Most notably we received a $250,000 anonymous gift for football and a $250,000 anonymous gift for men's basketball. This came from the same individual. Bless you! I also put $100,000 in for football myself as payment for two slots at an NIL event that we are going to put on with some members of the football team in Italy this summer. Will post more on that in the next day or so, but there will be a few tickets for those who have the means and are looking for a once a lifetime opportunity. Once we came up with it I knew my son and I had to be there. Please don't tell my wife.

But this doesn't mean our NIL needs are met. To clarify, these were just fundraising drives with what I thought were achievable goals. We still need money in all three sports. Particularly in men's basketball where we have rung the bell hard. I think once the final recruiting rankings get sorted, this will be a top five class nationally in MBB. Simply amazing. But that was not inexpensive. So we continue to need donations above our goal and would appreciate whatever support people want to offer. Also we continue to need some people to make significant gifts to women's basketball. Appreciate those who have thrown in what they can, but we really need some needle moving gifts there.

Go Bears!

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsFootball


[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsMensBasketball

[url=http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball][/url]http://spot.fund/CALegendsWomensBasketball
Have some of the bigger donors committed to an on-going yearly contribution? I hate (for you and the team) that this all starts again from zero 10 months from now, or whenever?
If we don't broaden this base we're dead. The whole thesis is to win a bunch of games and show excitement and improvement and bring in some of the vast network of additional donors that should be out there to support Cal sports. We can't keep hitting the same people up over and over again. So short answer is no. Hell I'm not even sure I'm committed to continue to do this unless it shows results and some of those with means on the sideline step up. We shall see.
Appreciate the candid answer, and, because it can't be said enough, thanks for your continuing efforts...
Sebastabear
5:17p, 5/10/24
I'm a bit late on this but didn't want to shut things down too early as some donations were still trickling in past our May 1st self-imposed deadline.

With that said, I'm now pleased to announce the successful conclusion of the Lyons and Transfers and Bears, Oh My! Fundraiser.

The Cal community in just a few short weeks contributed an ADDITIONAL $932k to our football fund against our $1m fundraising goal. It's amazing that we could come within a whisker of this given all the incredible support we had already received and the fact that we were at the tail end of the entire recruiting cycle. Thank you all for your generous contributions to help make our football team the best it can be. I think you'll be pleased with the final results (still a few big pieces in play - no rest for the weary. Should know soon).

Even more impressively, the Cal Community shattered the $500k goal we set for MBB by raising $705k in just a few short weeks. Amazing! Coach Madsen is a recruiting machine, but that top 10 rated transfer class doesn't happen without you. Thank you!

And our WBB fundraiser went very well as well raising significant additional funds for the team, even if we never got quite close enough to flip that total live.

A heartfelt congratulations to all of you who donated. And I have to give particular thanks to those of you who wrote those five figure and six figure checks. Without your support this would have gone nowhere. You are the foundation on which all our success is being built.

Of course, just because we are ending these campaigns does not mean the need for funds is over. In MBB, in particular, you might have noticed we really stretched. We landed several players that the bluest of the blue bloods wanted on their teams. And we got them. But that didn't come without a price, so our need for funds is still significant. Even if you missed the campaign but would still like to help, we would very much welcome your support.

https://calegends.com/calegendsdonate/

As always, Go Bears!
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