Colorado State University Athletics
New Look Ram Club Launches ?Drive For Five? Campaign
3/29/2005 12:00:00 AM | General
Fort Collins ? Colorado State University?s athletics department will launch its 2005 Ram club membership drive with a record-setting goal in mind.
All funds raised through Ram Club memberships are used to support scholarships for the more than 350 student-athletes competing in 16 intercollegiate sports offered by CSU.
Funds generated during the annual drive help offset scholarship costs projected to surpass $4 million next year. The remainder of scholarship costs are the covered by the department?s general operating fund.
School officials also unveiled a new name for the club, and introduce a long-term campaign to increase scholarship support. Formerly called the Greater Ram Club, the scholarship fundraising arm of the athletics department will now simply be called ?Ram Club.? A new logo, designed by Black Diamond Concepts in Denver which is owned by a group of CSU alumni, accompanies the opening of the drive.
The ?Drive For Five? campaign, initiated during this spring?s membership drive, was developed to increase awareness of the department?s long-term goal of reaching 5,000 Ram Club members.
?Reaching this goal would allow us to use funds from our general operating budget that fund scholarships to instead be used to enhance the various aspects of our sport programs,? said Director of Athletics Mark Driscoll.
The 2005 Ram Club membership drive has a goal of increasing membership from 2,329 to 2,600, and to raise $1.7 million in cash and gifts-in-kind.
The drive, which begins on April 1 and continues through June, will utilize over 150 volunteers. Volunteers will be split into 20 teams, half of which will focus on generating Ram Club members in Northern Colorado and the rest focusing on the Denver area.
Local businessman Stuart MacMillan will be steering the Northern Colorado team effort and alumnus Joel Cantalamessa will be manning the duties in Denver.
?The concept of moving to the team effort is to encourage participation from folks that haven?t yet been involved with this effort as well as to get the competitive juices flowing,? says Driscoll.
To date, a number of new volunteers have joined more than 100 dedicated veteran volunteers from prior campaigns to raise scholarship funds through Ram Club membership.
Ram Club membership levels begin at $100 and expand to the $10,000 level. Each level of Ram Club membership includes unique benefits including access to special seating at Hughes Stadium and Moby Arena, membership in the university giving clubs, priority parking privileges and more. Besides enlisting througha a volunteer or athletics department staff member, registration is also available online at CSURAMS.com.
For more information of the Ram Club call 970-491-4666 or visit CSURams.com and click on the Ram Club link.
