Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo / dotshock
As more parks and recreation departments are forced to rely less on the general fund, the need to develop and utilize different revenue-building strategies has become important. First, department members need to understand revenue expectations and have a system in place to monitor progress. Second, they need to decide on the cost-recovery goal and at what level it will be tracked—division, facility, program, or all of the above. Third, they need to know the total general-fund support in order to develop strategies to reduce that support.
A powerful number to note is the actual per visitor/user subsidy amount from the general fund. For example, if a department’s general-fund subsidy is $500,000, and the number of visitors/users of the department’s parks, facilities, and programs is 600,000 people, the general fund subsidy is less than $1 per person annually (actually 83 cents). Then the “marketing campaign” is this: For less than $1 per person annually, the department positively impacts the community by providing exceptional parks, facilities, and recreational programs.
Two other important starting points for discussing revenue-building strategies are: