WE DID IT! WE DID IT!! WE DID IT!!! Another Record year!
You all are AMAZING!!
As we start closing the books on our St. Baldrick’s donation, I am excited to announce that Growler nation has answered the call again and raised OVER $212,000! Let that sink in………………….
That is $5k more than last year. So we managed to once again pass $200,000 and continue to beat our previous year. We have done this in basically every year minus the Covid year. As I said last year… I STILL have no words…
Special Thanks to our big individual fundraisers in 2024! Scot Carboni, Chip Hopkins, Jessica Kronen were all over 5K. I also wanted to call out the creativity that continues to allow our fundraising growth year over year. North Hills did their own fundraiser and pulled in over 4k. Overserved auction grabbed over 5k. Seven Oaks had their Pickle Ball tourney to help Team Kona raise just shy of 10K and all 3 Satellite events made record numbers in terms of proceeds! We also had an external event at Bottle Rev 3 and also one at Wandering Moose. Rich Clingman sold popcorn and initiated a 50/50 raffle by his own direction. Amazing. The last point I’ll call out is the fact we had about the same number of giving units, but overall people are raising more money. Some of our heavy hitters raised less this year and we also didn’t have two female shavers driving up donations… but we raised more than last year. We weren’t chasing a million… and we raised more than last year. The momentum is growing. I personally ALWAYS want to exceed the prior year and I was admittedly nervous coming into this year. You all have proven I don’t need to feel that way in 2025. I am now confident we’ll pass $215K in 2025. You all will find a way!! I feel so blessed to be a part of all this. Thank you all!
Give this new fundraising total we are now….
#1 SB event in North Carolina
#2 SB event in the Southeast
#8 SB event in the entire country!
… for all St Baldrick’s Events!
You all should be very proud of what we collectively accomplished TOGETHER! Our goal was #1 in NC like last year and we did it again while also climbing into the Top Ten nationally for the SECOND time. Again… AMAZING!!
This should be my last email of the “season” 🙂 I expect the number to creep up some the remainder of 2024 with corporate matches and the potential for more giving but $200K was my hope and beating 2023 my stretch goal, so I am 100% content!!
The Growleadership team already met earlier this week to download our thoughts and we look to be even better in 2025. I think the model is set and I really don’t expect many changes beyond creating efficiencies and rounding out some rough “backend” processes. The only tweak to the GPI will be to set the division weight as 0,2,4,6 next year (as I mentioned before). Enjoy your winter, pat yourselves on the back, and keep as healthy as possible until we see each other in 2025.
We are in talks to arrange some “sponsor recognition nights” over the winter where we’ll attempt to send some “patronage” to our food sponsors on a night that may normally be light for them and where growler nation can go and eat and pay them back for their support and also maybe see each other before next summer 🙂 Stay tuned for emails on that as we figure out how best to pull it off.
It was a pleasure being involved in the event once again and I wanted to express my Thanks for the “gift” I was given by the collective Growler community. I will speak for Cristine and Allison and extend their Thanks as well. Not expected, but much appreciated. It came at a good time for me personally 🙂
Bill Speri