After a month of fundraising, the Lancaster Archery Foundation reached its goal of gathering $100,000 in donations to its charitable efforts during September.
And in keeping with the promise he made as part of a challenge, Greg Easton, president of Easton Foundations, said he’s ready to write a check on behalf of Easton Foundations to the Lancaster Archery Foundation for $100,000 to match those donations.
“I am excited to see the outpouring of support for this $100,000 challenge,” Easton said. “We did not think we would be writing the entire $100,000 matching pledge check but I am happy to be sending this check and excited to see what impact the Lancaster Foundation can have on youth archery. Thank you to everyone who contributed.”
Easton issued the challenge to Lancaster Archery Foundation as part of the 100th anniversary of Easton Archery, which was celebrated in September.
“We are so thankful to the many individuals, industry partners, friends and company employees who gave so generously over the past month to enable us to meet our goal,” said Rob Kaufhold, president of the Lancaster Archery Foundation.
“And of course we thank Greg Easton and Easton Foundations for their generous matching grant. We are proud to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Easton Archery with Easton Foundations, and we look forward to the many lives we can touch through archery with this $200,000.”
The Lancaster Archery Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to growing the sport of archery. It gives grants to a number of causes, including JOAD, S3DA, and 4-H programs, as well as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, clubs and summer camps looking to acquire new equipment to be able to introduce more kids to archery. The foundation also provides educational opportunities for archery athletes through college scholarships, and helps top-level U.S. archers pay to travel to international competitions.
To reach the $100,000 donation goal in September, the Lancaster Archery Foundation relied on several campaigns that saw donations come in from a variety of streams.
One of the leading sources of donations was Lancaster Archery Supply’s “round-up” program. This initiative, which started before the Easton challenge and will continue indefinitely, allows Lancaster Archery Supply website customers at checkout to round up their purchase totals to the nearest dollar, or by a determined amount. The money paid over and above the purchase total is donated to the foundation.
In a similar vein, many Lancaster Archery Supply customers made donations as a way to receive a variety of special gifts – Allen wrenches, hats, gift cards and bonus points - Lancaster offered to entice giving. And the Lancaster Archery Supply Pro Shop was given a Hoyt bow to sell raffle tickets for, generating thousands of dollars for the foundation.
Another prominent source of contributions was Lancaster industry partners. Representatives from equipment and media companies generously donated to the foundation to help meet the Easton Foundations challenge. Many appeared on a one-day, live-streamed donatathon run by the Lancaster Archery video team on Sept. 29 as a final push for contributions.
Lancaster Archery Supply employees throughout the company made donations during the donatathon to help the foundation achieve its goal. Foundation board members said this was unexpected, but they were pleasantly surprised to see the employee donations continuously add up through the day.
“Our employees floored us with their donations,” Kaufhold said. “We know they’re committed to archery through their work every day, but this went above and beyond.”
Finally, Lancaster Archery Supply gave its annual contribution to push the final donation tally to that magic $100,000 mark.
Lancaster Archery Supply is the original funding source for the foundation, and has provided – and will continue to provide – funds to the foundation for its work every year.
“It was incredible to see people from all walks of life and from all over the world come together to help us achieve our goal, and to put their trust in our foundation to help archery grow,” Kaufhold said.
And now the work begins for the Lancaster Archery Foundation to dole out grants to worthy programs and organizations.
The Lancaster Archery Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to expand, develop, and promote 3D and target archery to help people improve their confidence, discipline, and leadership skills through participation in competitive archery.
For information on how to apply to the foundation for a grant, or to make a donation, click here.