We posted an announcement today about a goal we set with our friends at the Western Golf Association to try to establish a No Laying Up Evans Scholarship at Miami University.
I have no idea where NLU will go over the coming years, but the idea of having a named scholarship that’s endowed and funded in perpetuity as something to show for the community we have is an idea that struck all of us pretty hard. Who knows how it will go, but this is an idea and a goal we’re all very fired up about and excited to chase for however long it takes to get there. I wanted to hop on and share a bit more context for the people #OnHere.
For the past few years, our community (particularly all the individual Roosts) have done an insane job of raising money in all kinds of ways for all kinds of causes around the world. One area where we’ve felt a little sheepish as a company is not having some sort of center of gravity idea or program set up where we could chase, measure and hopefully achieve a tangible, real goal as a collective. All the shotgunning of charitable dollars across local causes is awesome and will surely continue because Roosts can and should support whatever they see fit. But we wanted to create this pathway for any Roosts that found it to be a good target for their own charitable giving, as well as any community members who might not be able to make it to an event or wanted to contribute in some way.
Our plan as a company is to make ESF the beneficiary of all of our NLU-run events (Summer Festival, Roost Club Championship, NIT, etc.). The company also plans to match the amount raised at those events as a further contribution.
I could go on and on about why we picked this cause in particular, but the short answer is what’s in the essay above. So often, I personally feel so cynical and distant from so many things in the game of golf. And the WGA/ESF is one of the things that walks the walk and ladders up to all the things we all love about the game. It’s a very admirable blend of accessibility and traditionalism that has become very hard to find in recent years as most people/organizations in golf have chased all kinds of sugar highs to #GrowTheGame at all costs. Every time I’ve taken an ESF caddie, it’s made my day better to meet them and hear their stories and see how a few club members or a caddie master has created an on-ramp to something so powerful in their lives. Hoping to do a lot more of that through this goal.
If anyone has any questions/comments/concerns, I figured I’d start a thread here. And of course, I’ll drop the obligatory link in case anyone has any interest in helping us kick off the fundraising:
Absolutely love this and will set up a donation to the NLU ENS.
In the interest of throwing out ideas - I know the 100-hole hike is for Youth On Course, but maybe a similar concept for an NLU sponsored event to raise money specifically for the NLU ENS?
Another idea - regional Roosts setting up Ryder Cup style match weekends in support of the NLU ENS. We do this to raise money for The First Tee here in Upstate SC. It’s been a running event for over a decade. Take the top 12 amateurs and top 4 seniors from both Greenville and Spartanburg County and compete in a 2-day Ryder Cup style event. Day 1 is Foursomes and Fourball, Day 2 is Singles. It’s a blast and typically raises about $40k per year for The First Tee.
How can we support this with company matches? My company matches $1K in donations. @djheadley and I both used our company matches for ESF donations collected from Mudness. When the company does the matching donation I believe it gets donated to the general ESF fund.
If you already had a donation/match from a previous form, not sure if they can allocate to us at this time, if that is what you are asking…but I can ask to find out if that’s the case.
DJ: I made a donation from the Fidelity Charitable Donor Advised Fund (DAF). I put the title of the NLU campaign in the comment section, with the charity listed as ESF. My gifts to my university get routed to the correct clubs with this info, but I don’t know about ESF? They should be able to allocate this to the NLU campaign, I hope…? Could you check with them, as there is a big pool of tax efficient gifts in DAFs.
Two Updates: 1. I was given an update from Fidelity that they are reviewing my request. This surprised me, as I imagine someone else has given the the Evans Scholars in the past, but there was no detail…2. No more from DJ Pie, but I am not sure I responded correctly. A similar donation to the Uni. of Notre Dame did get to the right club, so I have hope.
I was really stoked to hear about the goal this year guys. I’ll make a dono when my company matches are active later in the year. For now, I picked up a sweet Seamus Evans + Bandon headcover to evangelize a bit! Cheers
If anyone else is interested in this type of donation, here is a link to the instructions on how to go about that - direct wire transfer donations, donations from IRAs, and donations from DAFs.
If you donate this way, we ask that you copy me (Casey) and Jerry Dudek from WGA/ESF to alert us of the donation so that we can work on the backend to make sure it allocates correctly to the NLU Endowed Named Scholarship fund.
Thanks everyone!! Let me know if you have any questions.
