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UMaine 25-26: Marques My Word: Back to the Big Time

Drew S. said:
So the language when you go to donate to the student athlete experience fund is ‘including but not limited to…’ This is general fundraising dressed up as something that is supposedly specific for the team. I get times are tough financially for the school, but it’s really scummy what they are doing between this and jacking up ticket prices using some outfit from PA.
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Given that you can select a specific program to support for each sport and each gender (i.e, specifically select Men's Ice Hockey), I think a blanket declaration of "scummy" behavior is a bit of jumping the gun. That being said, these days nothing surprises me in terms of greed and underhanded tactics in this country, but there's really no evidence just from this to suggest the funds are being improperly used.
 
amkirby10 said:
Given that you can select a specific program to support for each sport and each gender (i.e, specifically select Men's Ice Hockey), I think a blanket declaration of "scummy" behavior is a bit of jumping the gun. That being said, these days nothing surprises me in terms of greed and underhanded tactics in this country, but there's really no evidence just from this to suggest the funds are being improperly used.
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The phrase ‘including, but not limited to’ gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want with the money. In a literal sense this money is staying in the program, but I’m sure there is money behind the scenes that it is offsetting the donations, if they need them to.
 
Drew S. said:
The phrase ‘including, but not limited to’ gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want with the money. In a literal sense this money is staying in the program, but I’m sure there is money behind the scenes that it is offsetting the donations, if they need them to.
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People really will cry about everything.
 
Drew S. said:
So the language when you go to donate to the student athlete experience fund is ‘including but not limited to…’ This is general fundraising dressed up as something that is supposedly specific for the team. I get times are tough financially for the school, but it’s really scummy what they are doing between this and jacking up ticket prices using some outfit from PA.
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Under designations it lists unrestricted which would be a general donation to UMaine athletics as a whole, but you can earmark a donation for men's ice hockey (or any other specific program).

Assuming these $$$ are going where people designate, this a good way to approach fundraising. The hockey team will obviously eat the largest chunk of donations but it also allows people to throw money into the black hole that is football, if they so choose to.
 
Drew S. said:
The phrase ‘including, but not limited to’ gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want with the money. In a literal sense this money is staying in the program, but I’m sure there is money behind the scenes that it is offsetting the donations, if they need them to.
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Yes....the money will be used in THE MEN'S ICE HOCKEY PROGRAM for the Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund......which I'm sure was communicated to the donor before they gave them $500K.

Honestly Drew.....you probably need to find another program to "root for". 🙄
 
umhockey91 said:
Yes....the money will be used in THE MEN'S ICE HOCKEY PROGRAM for the Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund......which I'm sure was communicated to the donor before they gave them $500K.

Honestly Drew.....you probably need to find another program to "root for". 🙄
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It’s his money, he can do whatever he wants with it. I’m not concerned at all with that and my posts didn’t have anything to do with it. My problem is with how they are trying to sell this fundraising push to average fans/general public/whatever you want to call it.
 
Drew S. said:
It’s his money, he can do whatever he wants with it. I’m not concerned at all with that and my posts didn’t have anything to do with it. My problem is with how they are trying to sell this fundraising push to average fans/general public/whatever you want to call it.
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So what exactly is the problem again?
 
Drew S. said:
The phrase ‘including, but not limited to’ gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want with the money. In a literal sense this money is staying in the program, but I’m sure there is money behind the scenes that it is offsetting the donations, if they need them to.
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I dont like it either and will give me pause to chip in
They NEED transparency.
 
umhockey91 said:
So what exactly is the problem again?
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They’re marketing this revenue push as trying to make teams more competitive when they’re really dialing for dollars to balance the books. I get there are major financial challenges at the school right now, but they need to be honest about them and not try to pull the wool over peoples eyes.
 
Drew S. said:
They’re marketing this revenue push as trying to make teams more competitive when they’re really dialing for dollars to balance the books. I get there are major financial challenges at the school right now, but they need to be honest about them and not try to pull the wool over peoples eyes.
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Feel free to file a FOIA to get the line-by-line allocations, but that would be WILD to be putting out there in a press release
 
Drew S. said:
They’re marketing this revenue push as trying to make teams more competitive when they’re really dialing for dollars to balance the books. I get there are major financial challenges at the school right now, but they need to be honest about them and not try to pull the wool over peoples eyes.
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How do you know this? Sounds like you are being slanderous.
 
umhockey91 said:
How do you know this? Sounds like you are being slanderous.
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Just compare what they’ve said publicly to the fine print. It’s right on the donation page.

I looked at the system’s FS for the first time today and it’s pretty shocking. The system barely collects any more tuition/R&B revenue now than they did 10 years ago. Their expenses in that time have gone up significantly, but instruction expense isn’t up very much. The state’s subsidy is up quite a bit as well. The system should make major changes but it’s a third rail politically.

Jude has a really tough job, and I don’t want to minimize that, but I think there is a better way to handle things. As someone else said this is like the second coming of Blake James.
 
dabears91 said:
Brandon Holt named a first team All-American. Well deserved. We (and mostly just I) have under appreciated and underrated how good this guy was for Maine. One of the most underrated players I can remember playing at Maine in the last 25 years.
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Totally agree with the under appreciated, from me also. We will surely miss him next year. Congrats to Brandon, good stuff . Hoping to see a good game today.
 
As a former non-profit development guy, designating a program for your donation rarely changes the various program budgets. Let's say there are 5 sports and the budget for each is $2MM. The org has $7MM on hand and needs to raise $3MM. Three donors each chip in a million apiece, designating different programs. No change to program budgets. Two donors designate one program, and the third a different one. No change to budgets. All 3 donate to one program, now the budget is $3MM for that program, and the org still needs a mill for the overall budget. What typically happens is that the popular program is funded from donors and the unpopular ones are funded from the general fund. It's like refusing to let your tax dollars fund the military - it doesn't affect any budget at all, it simply lets you get warm and fuzzies that "your" money, once it is in a massive vat of cash and completely unidentifiable, goes where you "want" it.
 
Man these hockey ticket price increases have everyone going full paranoid with conspiracy theories. Tell Arthur S. Demoulas to take his $500K back.....we don't need it!

🙄
 
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