Founded five years ago by PGA professional golfer Tim Brown, Miracle Golf Concepts assists non-profit charities, foundations, organizations and individuals in organizing profitable golf tournaments. To date, the company has helped organizations raise more than $4.5 million dollars.
Miracle Golf promotes a 40-player tournament format and assists event planners in organizing all aspects of golf tournaments including course selection, developing marketing materials, assigning teams and starting holes and managing fundraising efforts. Miracle Golf provides Web-based management tools to help organizers plan for the event, communicate with participants, process registrations and donations and track monies raised. Participants in Miracle Golf events, who solicit donations for the charity rather than just paying a registration fee, have access to Miracle Golf’s online fundraising dashboard, which includes fundraising e-mail tools and a corporate-matching program database.
Miracle Golf aims to make charitable events easier for organizers and more successful in raising funds, says Mr. Blankinship. “We’ve seen a real need for this type of service. Organizers spend a ton of time on these events and don’t always get back much in return,” he says. “Online fundraising is 3-5 times more successful than traditional methods, and Miracle Golf’s format and Web-based dashboard provide charities access to tools for successful fundraising that would be difficult for them develop on their own.”
Miracle Golf partnered with 126 different organizations last year and has worked with groups such as the Susan G. Komen foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the University of Georgia football team in hosting golf events. Although the company is golf-focused, it is willing to adapt its tools for other events, such as tennis tournaments and walk- or dance-a-thons, says Mr. Blankinship.
Miracle Golf does charge organizations a commission fee for their services, but this involves no upfront costs to the charity, which is helpful to smaller organizations, says Mr. Blankinship. Mr. Brown’s relationship with the PGA has also allowed Miracle Golf to provide free Nike Golf gift certificates to be redeemed at golf pro-shops, which increase in value with funds raised by the participant.
Mr. Blankinship’s goal for his involvement in the organization is to expand Miracle Golf’s services to the healthcare industry. According to Mr. Blankinship, the availability of Miracle Golf’s tools will benefit the fundraising efforts of healthcare organizations, which helps Miracle Golf meet its biggest goal — helping partner organizations raise awareness and funds for their causes.
“The current economic and political climate has made successful fundraising more difficult than ever,” says Mr. Blankinship. “With our tools, the charity wins by raising more funds, and the participants in the tournament feel rewarded by being successful in their fundraising efforts,” says Mr. Blankinship.
For Mr. Brown, the goal he has for each event can be summed up in a single story: “In [Miracle Golf’s] early days, we had a group call that wanted to raise money for a 6-month-old girl who had just been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia,” he says. “Her family couldn’t afford her bills, and they wanted to do something to raise money. In just 60 days, we helped them organize a tournament, and afterward, we helped deliver a check of $90,000 to the parents, who had no idea how much money had been raised. Seeing that check deliver was seeing someone’s life change right there.”
Learn more Miracle Golf Concepts.
