Fundraising tournaments

Many of our tournament directors are involved in fundraising efforts for their favorite charities. While most fundraising tournaments are unrated events designed to appeal to non-competitive donor players; some are sanctioned, rated events on our tournament calendar.

Sanctioned fund-raisers

If a sanctioned tournament is a fund-raiser (or as SOWPODS players have it, a fundraiser#), the beneficiary of the event must be approved by the Tournament Committee. The Committee will not unreasonably withhold its approval, and will primarily consider in its decision any possible harm that might come to NASPA, Hasbro or the SCRABBLE brand through its association with the proposed charitable cause.

Funds donated through NASPA

If a fund-raiser is approved as a sanctioned tournament, the tournament organizer may apply to the Executive Committee for some portion of the event’s participation fees to be donated by NASPA to the charitable cause. Such applications will be accepted only when the cause is a charitable organization: a 501(c)(3) in the United States, or registered as such with the CRA in Canada.

Applications will be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine the proportion of participation fees that will be passed on to the charity. Preference will be given to charities whose missions are closely aligned with ours, and to those who have not recently received donations from NASPA.

For the director, the NASPA event will run as normal. NASPA will still collect its normal participation fees, then make its agreed upon donation directly to the approved charity.