Okay, so I keep hearing about Charity poker tournaments, and I think I want to put one on. I dealt poker for 5 years and managed a room for another 2 years, and think that it would be an oppertunity for me to use my poker knowledge to help a good cause/causes and possibly generate some extra income.

Basically few questions off the top are, where do we get prizes?
Are they generated via sponsors?
How do you pay the tournament staff (IE dealers/floor people/myself)

anything else anyone knows about this would be awesome.

Thanks.

I've done a handful of charity events including poker, so I'll give it a stab.,

Question first - so I'm lost - are you already working for a cause/charity - or you are just wanting to "give back"?

Regarding Prizes:

1. Get cuddly with gambling laws in your state. If you are a registered 501c3 - you get some exceptions when it comes to money paid by an entrant into a gambling event - but you really need to be up to speed.

The last event I helped with, the group wasn't a registered 501c3 (non-profit organization) - so we couldn't "charge" extra to play in the poker tournament. We had a entry fee for a dinner and auction we provided *and* if you so inclined you could play in the poker tourney -

Which leads me back to prizes....most likely you'll be keeping most of the cash (again this may vary in your state) - so you'll need some other prizes. The people putting together the event should be knocking on doors of local business for donations. Again, this where being registered 501c3 is going to go along ways. Companies are much more apt to give to a 501c3 - than Sally's Poker Fundraiser or whatever. Hit up hotels, resorts, sport teams for your top prizes.

As far as paying your staff - wtf - this is a charity event, every possible $$$ should make it's way back to the cause/charity. There will be some expenses - but billing for labor sucks imo.

Recruit people from your home game circle, or just ask around - people want to help good causes and will do it for free.

If you want to make some extra $$$ as a poker tournament director - just privatize yourself and try to sell the idea to corporate parties, retreats, private parties, etc....

Sarge

Not to be a downer, but I think you're biting off more than you can chew right now.

Build your network first. Get involved with gaming companies, start attending poker games. To go at this full-force with a staff and everything, you're going to need a lot of investment capital, and you don't even have a player base. If you're still asking where to get prizes, I think there's a lot more to be done than you realize.

I just ran a charity event for someone who had no idea how to market and promote a game and they made enough that it was worth the afternoon, for certain.

Your biggest challenge is likely the law in your state. And although I'm likely to get another fistfight request for being a law-nit, I'll remind everyone: gambling for-profit, even if the "profit" is for a non-profit or a "real" charity, is likely illegal where most readers of this thread will live. So, OP, check your laws, and everyone else reading this thread do the same if you're thinking of doing the lord's work while running a poker tournament.

Now, as with most of these posts, I'm not saying that running a charity tournament is likely to get you arrested, as the climate in your state/country/province might be well suited to running these sorts of things -- but tread carefully. Even my tiny little event was illegal by my state's law... ...but nobody's going to break them up. Running them every week is another story....

As to your questions:
Your prizes are generally generated two ways. First, your patrons know that they're playing for a portion of the prize pool, and that the balance of said prize pool is going to your charity. Second, you hit the streets and you beat up business and corporate donors. You exchange advertising for those businesses -- "Hey, everyone, Ray's Pizza and Car Wash donated third prize tonight, a pizza party for 6 and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax! Go visit them just off exit 112 next to the Howard Johnson's! Thanks Ray's for supporting <insert charity>!"

If you intend on running an enterprise that requires a staff that needs paid, you're looking into another beast entirely. The staff for a charity event will donate their time. The staff for a charity room -- a poker place that you run that gives its profits to charity -- I mean, after it pays you, of course, right? That seems to be your goal. How do I get paid for my *cough* charitable work? ...so, in that case, now you're just running a business. And, if you're askin', you start with your gross, subtract overhead, interest and one-offs, and now you've got net profit. Give that to charity. Repeat next month. [Hint: You're part of the overhead, so's the lawyer you're going to need.]

Yeah, that's the impression I got, but maybe I was wrong.

If it's just a one-off for what's basically an upgraded home game with an existing base, you could do a lot worse than listen to what Pali has to say. But if you're looking to create a business from scratch, well, you have a tough road ahead of you.

You mean the charity is your self right?

Seriously, if I could run a card room and contribute to a charity to make it legit, I'd do it.

If it looks like Im just trying to masquerde as a Charity, to make a living thats not the case at all. Thats not my intention.

Im just exploring how I can leverage my strengths into something that is actually good for causes and the community and provides me a living. Im not looking to get rich pretending I'm helping people, im looking to contribute and obv keep a roof over my head is important too.

I am great at networking and really good with people and like I said, I have poker experience (Harrahs and WSOP) so im just exploring.

I appreciate the feedback so far though.

Well - start small.

• Acquire chips, tables, cards and tournament supplies (pens, timers, deposit bag, etc.)
• Visit business until you have one that will donate their space to provide you a tournament. A bar or resturant or Elk's lodge will do, as well anyone who has tables and chairs and stands to make money selling beers and nachos while your people play - or has some other reason to want you in their building.
• Visit businesses telling them that you're collecting for charity and want to included them as sponsors in your flier and at your game. Tell them that a large enough donations gets them on your t-shirts (they're $4 each in bulk, printed). Tell them that any donation helps.
• Tell the world that you're having a tournament. Advertise everywhere within your budget (which might mean Craigslist and Facebook). Visit bar poker games all over the place and get cozy with those folk.
• Have said tournament and extend your network.
• 50-50 is a good plan for the cash you take in (prize/charity) and pimp the rebuys-add'ons (It's for charity! Give! Give!)
• Supplement or replace your prizes with the cash equivalent items from your sponsors. Can't afford 3rd place and still give a good prize to first? Time to give away that 1-hour massage or pizza party.
• Raffle off the rest of your items and give chips for bulk raffle purchases.
• Repeat.

^^ Good advice, but I'd do it in a different order. The last thing you should do is buy the equipment you'll need. Here is my order of events, without the details Palimax offered above:

1. Determine if it is legal, and what it will take to be legal.
2. Write a business plan. I cannot stress this enough. It will be your roadmap on this project. Everything else you do will be based on this plan. http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/index.html
3. Find sponsors.
4. Find players, at least get an idea of how many you might get.
5. Find a space to play.
6. Develop your marketing plan to promote this, what you will do and what you will spend.
7. Go back and rework your business plan based on what you've learned above, to revise your projected expenses and revenue.

Now you are ready to spend the cash for the equipment you'll need.

Your missing out on the point of a charity fund raiser. You are not suspose to provide yourself a living or even profit from it. You donate your time.

Well, sure...

...but I work for (read: employed by and get paid by) a charitable organization. While it'd be dandy if the 50,000 or so of us would give our 40 hours a week freely so that my employer could do charitable work, it's just not possible for them to deliver charity on the scale they do that way. [Oh, sure, they send a lot of people bills too, but the more paid services we sell and the more efficiency I create in my job - the more charity we get to provide too...]

There's nothing wrong with being a paid staff member of a charitable organization as long as you don't become their primary beneficiary.

When I worked for the charity two weekends ago as "Tournament Director," I could have taken a small payday -- and they offered -- and if I did it every weekend for them, I'd have to consider it; but as it was I did it for free.

If that's too long winded: It's OK to be the guy who gets paid to clean the windows at the church.

Yours sounds like a different case then the OP. You have a fulltime job hired by the charity and I assume a properly registered non-profit organization. Ok thats fine.

The OP doesn't sound like he has been hired or is working for a non-profit organization.

Exactly how I feel about it.

I think you are misreading me then, its not like I want to open up a game in my garage this week. I am exploring what roads I need to go down to use my background in poker to contribute in a positive and creative way in my community, and YES to support myself while doing it. I would have absolutley no problem hosting a tournament to help a kid get funding for a mission trip or for a baseball team on a random weekend for free, but I am thinking of something more largescale.

Every non-profit starts small. Some are created primarily for the benefit of the founder, no doubt about it. But most have a one or two person paid staff and do real good in the world. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I think this is beyond the scope of Home Poker. What you can do varies greatly by jurisdiction (and the pull of your competitors), and none of us are adequately versed to be of much help.

Most (all?) cities have a Bar Association, and most (all?) of them offer a one-time quick cheap consult. I've used this a few times, to great success (sometimes getting a long-term lawyer out of it). You just call 'em up, describe what you need, and they set up a meeting with a lawyer suited for it. Half-hour meeting, costs like $30 or something. This may be a good first step to finding out what's even legal for you to do.

Good luck!

As an attorney, and someone who has been part of the bar association referral service, I can tell you this is probably not the route to go for the advice that will be the foundation of your business and determine whether or not it allows you to make a living, or ends up with you in front of a judge. Those referral services have little or no qualifications other than "Member of the Bar Association and Attorney in good standing." It guarantees no real expertise.

You would need to hire an attorney to make sure you can do this at all, and it doesn't have to be a super expensive relationship with the attorney, but it is going to cost you a little.

Well, okay then.

I think the approach to take here, instead of forming a charity yourself, is to approach existing charities (once you have some more formal plans put together) and offer your services to that charity. You approach them and essentially ask them if you can use their name to put on the tournament, in exchange, their charity gets X% of the money raised, and you take X fee (whether or not this is fixed or a percentage I am not sure). This might be a more feasible approach, but it is still a lot of work to even get to the point where you are able to walk in the door and offer your services.

The benefit of this approach is that you can use their pre-established networks for donations and sponsors, and instant legitimacy. The downside is you have to have the charity believe in you to let you in the door.

It's not bad advice, I just think in this case the stakes are too high to rely on that kind of advice. I can tell you that the referral services are great for simple domestic issues, simple criminal issues and a lot of business issues, but this is a specialized question and really is going to be the cornerstone of this business, or charity or whatever you want to call it, and I would be nervous just taking the advice of any attorney off a list for this one.

This was exactly my thought. There are quite a few Non-Profits that I would like to get involved with in my area, and I think I could offer them a valuable product.

But you will need insurance, any gaming licenses or at least advice to make sure it's legal, dealers, supplies... it's not a light undertaking.

Ah, so you're looking to contract out TD services to existing charities?

Sorry, the term "Charity" can mean so many different things. In Michigan, for example, "charity" rooms are all over the state, as permanent locations. That's a far cry from running a fund-raiser for the red cross (or whatever).

Yes, basically I want to offer my services promoting and running tournaments for these NPO's to help them raise funds. Again, this was never exclusively about charity, or exclusively about making money for myself, but a combination of both. It is a large undertaking, but I feel its a good "niche".