An RBC Heritage without fans means millions lost for Beaufort Co. charities. What now?
Nearly 140,000 fans bought tickets for RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing last year. When they did, the money from their tickets went to 84 different charities.
This year, no fans will be in the stands at the 18th green in Sea Pines, and the effect on charities will last much longer than the tournament itself.
In typical years, the Heritage Classic Foundation distributes around $3.3 million to charities all around South Carolina. So far, the foundation has raised about $850,000 for charitable partners in 2020.
“Heritage tends to be a pretty sizable source for our partners,” said Derek Paton, vice president of sales and marketing for the foundation. “We’re anxious to get back at it.”
When the tournament was canceled on March 17, the foundation gave ticket holders the option to donate their ticket costs, defer the tickets to next year or receive a full refund. Seventy-five percent chose to get a refund.
The foundation distributes money to its charities through its Champions Fore Charity and Birdies For Charity programs, where the foundation matches 15% of donations. When the tournament was canceled, those programs were halted, the foundation’s website says.
But some programs were safe. The Heritage Classic Foundation awards $175,000 in four-year scholarships to students in the Lowcountry, and those scholarships were awarded in January. They were unaffected by the pandemic, Paton said.
‘2020 was that year’
For local nonprofits, the disruption in Heritage funds is just another mark of a bizarre year.
“Well, 2020 is going to be one of those years that is a blip … we’re not going to see this as a trend,” said Erin Hall, chief development officer of Hopeful Horizons, one of Heritage’s beneficiaries. “Five or 10 years from now, when we we look at giving history, we’ll say ‘2020 was that year.’”
Hall said Hopeful Horizons, a children’s advocacy, domestic violence and rape crisis center, typically receives several thousand dollars from the Heritage Foundation.
Although the organization benefits from the Birdies for Charity program, Hall said losing the foundation’s match of other donations throughout the year is going to be the most difficult.
“That’s not money we can make up,” she said. “Five thousand to $10,000 might not seem like a lot but ... how many new donors do I have to find to make up the match?”
Hall said she’s not sure yet how the drop in funding will affect services.
“I think all of us in the nonprofit world are just trying to make sure that we still do all the things we normally do,” she said. “We want to make sure that everybody knows that we’re still here and still doing the same work.”
Ahmad Ward, executive director of the Mitchelville Freedom Park on Hilton Head Island, said his organization is also adjusting to major changes caused by the pandemic.
“Across the board, we’re trying to plan and brace for a lot of the stuff that we’re used to happening not happening,” he said. “The (foundation) matching program is the big contributor.”
Mitchelville recently completed a master plan that includes new construction of a historical center and displays on the island’s north end.
Ward said his organization is fortunate that construction hadn’t started before the pandemic, because the changing timelines and financial vulnerability could have been much more destructive.
“Because we were delayed, we did not catch the hit that a lot of other organizations did,” he said. “The delay kind of insulated us.”
What’s next?
As the tournament without spectators marches on, the foundation is creating ways to make up for lost ticket sales.
On Tuesday, the foundation launched the “Plaid Pledge,” a donation program that directly benefits the S.C. Hospital Association and the 84 charities that include Hopeful Horizons and Mitchelville Freedom Park.
“We’ve just launched plaid pledge program. We hope that over the week it gets national exposure” on the tournament’s TV broadcast, Paton said. “We’re hopeful that we can close the gap or ease the pain of what we’ve traditionally been able to get.”
