Paul and Tom share their journeys in transforming Catholic Sports from a kickball league into a nonprofit 501(c)(3) community across four cities, combining faith and sports to combat loneliness and foster deeper connections
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Welcome to Episode #9 of the Sold Out podcast where we interview league organizers across the country for tips and tricks on how to sell out leagues.
In this episode, with Paul and Tom from Catholic Sports, we delve into the journey of establishing a vibrant sports ministry that fosters community and faith. Founded in 2010 by Paul after a challenging career setback, Catholic Sports started with a simple kickball league in Denver and has since grown across San Diego, Chicago, and DC with multi-sport league offerings for more than 2,500 players. Paul and Tom share their experiences, from overcoming initial challenges to building a sustainable nonprofit, all while maintaining a mission-driven approach centered around combating loneliness and fostering deeper connections through faith and sports. This episode highlights the power of community, the importance of mission-driven work, and the unexpected paths that can lead to fulfilling one's calling.
Below is the full transcript from this episode. The Sold Out Podcast is available on Spotify and Apple, or you can watch the entire interview on our YouTube Channel!
Tune in every other week to hear AREENA interview the country's best league organizers about their success in selling out leagues consistently.
Lance (00:00.764)
Alright, today we have Paul and Tom from Catholic Sports. Thanks for being here guys. So let's get started with the basics. How did this thing get started?
Paul Spotts (00:11.782)
Yeah. So in, in 2010, I started Catholic sports and, it was actually in, after the 2008 market crash, the company I was working for in sales had, had gone under. And so I was job hunting in a really tight market. And, and I had a friend who was coming through on a med school rotation who I ran into at a party or just randomly. And, and she said, you should, you should start a sports ministry. And I said, why would I do that? And,
Lance (00:40.444)
Thank you.
Paul Spotts (00:41.688)
And, and, and I also said, I had done some ministry work before, which is how I met her and, in campus ministry. And I basically was not at a point where I wanted to go back into fundraising. didn't want to go into ministry work, wanted to have a career and buy a house and prepare to get married, and all that stuff. But, but after that conversation, I was just, I just, actually went to prayer and, and I just felt like there was a little movement by the Holy spirit to just say, Paul, are you willing to be open? And,
Lance (00:46.652)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (01:11.544)
And I was like, okay, I'll be open Lord, but that's all I'm gonna be. And I started talking with some other groups that were doing some similar stuff around the nation, doing sports ministry in the Catholic sphere. There was only two of them, so that wasn't hard to talk to them. And I found out later that there was an Atlanta group that actually was shutting down. And then there was a Kansas City group that's still operating today.
Lance (01:26.012)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (01:37.926)
And they were quasi helpful in the sense that they gave me advice on like, I guess more so encouragement than advice. And so then after a couple months like talking to them, I was just kind of like, okay, Lord, like is this what you want me to do? And I wasn't getting a clear answer. I was like, well, I guess I'll just give it a shot. And I had no rec league experience. I think I played in three college intramural games. I played high school sports, but I had no clue what I was doing. I had no clue where to start.
Lance (01:45.212)
Hmm.
Paul Spotts (02:07.872)
But we started with a kickball league in 2010. We had very little Facebook marketing and we had a little blurb that the Catholic diocese put in their paper. And I was pretty convinced that young adults didn't even read the Catholic paper because it was mostly for the grandmas. But we ended up with 150 people that came out for that kickball league. And just from that, yeah. And so I had a priest friend who was a spiritual director of mine.
Tom Darabaris (02:25.172)
And we ended up with 150 people.
Lance (02:29.308)
Just from that.
Paul Spotts (02:37.688)
I met with him halfway through the league and he goes, Paul, I think you found your calling. And then he's like, how long can you last without an income? Like, thanks father, appreciate it. So, and that, and that was basically it. I knew from the beginning that if I was actually going to go full, full in on this and that if it, if I was going to follow this as my calling, that I had to go full time, because otherwise it would go the way of most of these young ministries, which is basically last about 18 months. And then somebody gets married and moves on or gets engaged or.
Lance (02:44.952)
Yeah.
Tom Darabaris (02:45.108)
I appreciate it. So, and that was basically it. I knew from the beginning that if I was actually going to go more on that, I could haul the...
Paul Spotts (03:07.544)
gets a different job in another city and it falls apart. So from an early stage I just knew I had to go all in.
Lance (03:14.812)
Nice, okay. And yeah, you went the nonprofit, the 501C3 route. And that was, I guess, because it was a part of this ministry. What was the thinking?
Paul Spotts (03:25.094)
Yeah, I mean the big thing was is because we were putting the Catholic name on it, we knew that we would have a little bit more of a limited audience and reach. And, but that was what was important to me having come from a ministry background. And so by doing that, I knew that the only way to really make it work was to get donations, which is really the only reason to become a 5 -1 -C -3, because it's more of a nuisance than anything. When you start dealing with boards and you deal with government paperwork and stuff, it's a lot easier to do it for profit on that.
Lance (03:43.324)
Mmm.
Lance (03:54.492)
Hmm.
Paul Spotts (03:55.)
But we needed the donations in order to grow and expand and make up for that market reach that we weren't going to have by putting the Catholic name on it.
Lance (04:04.412)
So, yeah, walk me through like kind of the mechanics then, I guess, at the beginning, because so you put this in a paper, you got 150 people signed up. You're not the first people I've heard that started with kickball. And I guess you chose that for similar reasons, very accessible. Lots of people can come and do it. You need a ton of experience.
But like, I mean, how exactly did you find like a church for the facility part? And in terms of, you're doing donations, but I guess are there still fees or like, how did you think through just the fundamentals of actually making it work that first and kind of second season?
Paul Spotts (04:28.134)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (04:38.964)
yeah. I mean, that's a great question. Like I, I, I don't even know if I can remember how we thought through those fundamentals because I, like I mentioned, I had no clue what I was doing really, but the, but our, we did, we did get, the, the diocese here at the sem, the, the, on the set works on the seminary grounds and they actually had an old softball field. I think one of the Catholic, high school girls teams was using it. and so they, they ended up donating that for the first season and letting us use it for free. it, there's actually a kind of a fun story behind it because at the end,
Lance (04:43.408)
Yeah.
Lance (05:03.74)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (05:08.6)
end of that season, they, I didn't find this out for a few years later, but there was like streamers and, and, and noisemakers that were left in the trash. And it's because we, we actually had a team that was a, run that the team captain was a worker in the diocese. He was actually, I think the chancellor at the time and, which is a fairly high position and he, he had recruited a team and they had not won a game the entire season. And then at the end of the season, they, they were going in for the championship. So they actually,
Tom Darabaris (05:32.403)
Thank you.
Paul Spotts (05:38.456)
We're doing well in the championship and so he's so excited. He went to the dollar store and bought all this stuff and a few years later I I was asking the Diocese like why can't we use the fields again or like could we or like exploring this and one of the maintenance guys said well we found all this party stuff in the trash and I was just kind of like I just kind of held my tongue I'm like man like you didn't find beer cans everywhere. Did you like you found people having a good time? It's kind of a funny funny little misunderstanding story, but but that that field hasn't really been
Lance (06:01.34)
Right.
Paul Spotts (06:08.312)
very well maintained nowadays, we wouldn't even use it anyway. But back then it was in a lot better shape. But yeah, so the diocese had donated the fields, but on the nonprofit end, one of the toughest things for me has actually been the lack of board experience.
Lance (06:24.604)
Mmm.
Paul Spotts (06:25.606)
And that's probably not super common in a lot of, without being a 501C3, it probably isn't common in a lot of record sports industries, but I had heard of boards, I'd studied business, I knew there were corporate boards, but I had no clue how they functioned. And so to start a 501C3 though, you have to put together a board of directors.
Lance (06:40.54)
Mmm.
Paul Spotts (06:46.534)
So I had recruited a few people to help me with that process and that was super helpful. But it was just kind of a situation of you don't know what you don't know. And there's a huge shortage, I think, in the nonprofit world for leaders who actually understand how nonprofit boards operate and are willing to volunteer to be on a board. Because it's a big commitment to be on a board. So you really have to be passionate about the mission.
Lance (06:50.396)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (07:11.868)
Yeah, I'm totally unfamiliar with any of that. So these boards, I mean, I guess it's like, it's pretty restrictive. Like there's requirements that you have to meet in terms of the number of people on the board and their duties. And this also has to be documented or what's the kind of main burden there.
Paul Spotts (07:28.774)
Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is just, well, so the IRS requirements usually are three members have to be on the board. Now, some really small profits can kind of game it and do a closely tied board, a family board, so to speak, and have some nepotism or something. But what the board is supposed to do is it's supposed to manage the interest of the public.
Lance (07:36.668)
Mm.
Lance (07:48.476)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (07:53.766)
So if you're receiving donations from the public and they're getting a tax deduction, the IRS wants to make sure that there's a say, that the interests of the public are being voiced in the management of the organization. And so the board's main functions...
since then I've learned are really like they're in charge of who's the executive director or president as I go by in my case. They're responsible for hiring them. Then they're also responsible for setting the mission vision and have a high fiduciary responsibility, which means they make sure that the budget is held, money's not wasted, the public donations are spent towards furthering the mission. And so in a good functioning board, there should be a lot of independence.
There shouldn't be a family nepotism or anything like that because you want the board to be represented well. And so ideally that would come from participants. It would come from.
donors or stakeholders, people with venues, and you want a spread of skill sets as well, marketing, finance, legal, those type of things. So if situations arise or decisions need to be made strategically, you have some good sounding boards to go to.
Lance (09:10.524)
Yeah, that makes sense. OK, so I have more questions, but I'm curious. I guess, Tom, when you come into the picture, was this much later on, or how did that kind of?
Tom Darabaris (09:21.907)
Yeah, so I came on about a year and a half ago as a director of development to do a lot of like our national fundraising and everything. And I had actually played in the leagues about six years ago. So most of our growth has been, you know, really through word of mouth and, you know, my connection into the league was basically I had a...
friend who was playing and was like, hey, do you want to, do you want to substitute in this league on Sunday? And I was like, sure. And showed up. I turned, it turned out I was actually substituting for him. I had, I did not get the memo. So showed up knowing absolutely nobody. But everybody was really cool. Everybody's really welcoming. And, you know, for, for where I was in my life, you know, I hadn't really, I grew up Catholic. I didn't really have strong like Catholic community or friends.
that were like really practicing the faith and to be able to start, I mean I played basketball growing up, played in rec leagues back in Boston when I was living out there. I mean, basketball was just an easy introduction for me and from there just started surrounding myself with people that were just living differently in a way that has been just incredibly fruitful for my life.
You know, that's the other thing when it comes to just the charitable or the us being a 501c3 is really just like built on a mission of like recognizing that there's just a lot of loneliness and isolation for people out there. Sports is just, it's a great way to build community and connect them. You know, our community has seen just a ton of good fruits when it comes to.
Lance (11:05.916)
Yep.
Tom Darabaris (11:18.29)
getting people connected, getting people married, getting people introduced to some of their best friends that can change their life. It played a huge role in my faith conversion and just making my life better. It started with just a simple invitation to my favorite sport. That's really the beauty of it. We see sports as just that.
that easy in road and there's a ton of stories just like mine that have happened over the last 14 years.
Lance (11:53.916)
Yeah, no doubt. I feel like a lot of people get into this space, myself included, on that topic of loneliness and community and all those metrics are just up and to the right and kind of a bad way over the last few decades. I think one of the quotes I used to say was like the average number of, or the number of people who say they have no close friends has like tripled in the last 20 years. There's just so many people who have like almost no connections and they're sitting at home, they're probably watching Netflix and so these kind of...
Tom Darabaris (12:18.926)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (12:21.852)
These kind of things are obviously I think you know being in the space super important So that was a focus for for both you guys It sounds like it wasn't this you liked sports But it was really this this mission of the community and then I imagine with the the you know way you guys are approaching this it was you know beyond I guess just that or I guess I'm saying a lot of leagues they want to build a community myself included, but I wanted to build a business that was sustainable and
We call this podcast Sold Out because we're like, how do you build an okay, sustainable business that you can provide for your family and all that? Your approach was the community, but then also this sort of mission approach. So how does that work for you guys in terms of the way you think about running this with that kind of other mission, I guess?
Paul Spotts (13:04.614)
Yeah, sure. I mean, for us, like the leagues are the means to the end, right? They aren't the end themselves. So the leagues are the funnel that draw people in and then hopefully, and in their registration process, we're going to invite them to join a Bible study. And in that Bible study process, we're basically going from sports community to a deeper community of faith.
Lance (13:20.412)
Mmm.
Paul Spotts (13:27.75)
Now, I like the joke, like if someone wants to just come out and play basketball, that's totally fine. We're going to make sure they feel welcomed because we want our participants to be able to go to the bar, have a good time. And if they like their bartender and recognize their six four and they need a sub for their basketball team, they're going to invite them. And if the person's like, Hey, it's Catholic. Is it okay that I'm not Catholic? Like, well, can you dunk on some Catholics? Then yeah, get out here. You know, so, so we want the leagues to stand alone to some degree. Like we do pray before our games, but we don't require it. And we have.
Lance (13:43.452)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (13:49.252)
Yeah.
Lance (13:57.244)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (13:57.656)
but I think we...
especially from word of mouth, but also from experience, we have a little better culture than some rec leagues because of that. Every now and then you'll hear people that will pull back the cuss words and things. And then I kind of remind them, cussing isn't a sin, it's all right. But still it gives that little sense of like, there is a little better culture. I like the joke that we only had one fist fight I've known of in 14 years. And that was between two blood brothers. So...
Lance (14:07.196)
Mm.
Lance (14:15.608)
You
Lance (14:29.948)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (14:29.96)
That's kind of like, okay, right, we can excuse that one.
Lance (14:33.628)
Yeah, that is different. I think we launched a few leagues kind of around Texas and then within like a year or two, I mean, we had the fights and we had somebody hit somebody else with like a chair on like the back of the, I mean, just, yeah. So it sounds like you guys have a little bit of a cleaner, better thing going on there. So how big is it now? So you started with 150 people responded to this way back in the day. And then where are you at now? And is it you mentioned basketball, is it?
Paul Spotts (14:43.014)
12 .6.
Yeah.
Lance (14:58.524)
Is it just basketball or is it still kickball? How many sports are you doing and how many leagues, how many players, that kind of thing?
Paul Spotts (15:06.246)
Yeah, so we do, our main liens are basketball, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, wiffle ball, and a little bit of soccer. Sometimes futsal, sometimes outdoor soccer. They capture all those tongue. I think I got them all. We do this.
Tom Darabaris (15:21.748)
Yeah, I think so. But yeah, what's interesting is we've actually over the course of time tried to pick the leagues that build the community the best in terms of specifically picking sports that have teams of four or more people avoiding sports that are super competitive.
cause, you know, get the fist fights or the chairs, I guess that's a new thing. But yeah, we would try to, but yeah, it's in terms of just the growth. I mean, we're in, so we started in Denver and now we're in four cities. So San Diego, Denver, San Diego, Chicago, and DC, and have over 2 ,500 participants nationally. And that's just in the leagues. We do have, you know, Bible studies and events too that I've been able to.
spring off of that as well.
Lance (16:21.692)
Cool, okay. Is that 2500 like any given season and y 'all are running year -round?
Paul Spotts (16:26.47)
No, I think it's a lot smaller than the secular ones. It's $2 ,500 per year, roughly. Between $2 ,500 and $3 ,000.
Lance (16:34.972)
Got it, okay. And so you're in four cities and so yeah, that's a lot of change. But it sounds like, are the Bible studies and all that like a part of, like you're coordinating all of those things or you're a funnel to invite people to do these things and then they're kind of on their own? Or how does like the full scope of it work?
Paul Spotts (16:55.366)
Yeah, so the Bible studies are led by volunteers that lead them. Usually our staff leads them as well. But we have about 20 Bible studies between the four cities. And so there's just a group of young adults that are like, yeah, I'll lead a Bible study. Some of them play in the leagues. I would say probably 50 % of them. Some of them never play in the leagues. But they're just looking for that deeper community, and they aren't sports -minded. But they're happy to meet with people weekly.
Lance (17:21.916)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Tom Darabaris (17:25.235)
It's also an extension for people who are getting older, maybe stop playing in the leagues as much, but they can still read and participate in the Bible studies too.
Lance (17:39.26)
it. Okay, so the model is, I guess you guys rent fields and do you have like church partners and that you're working with in each of these cities or and that is how we're getting some of your field space and then you kind of set up the league and then you kind of coordinate some of the Bible studies and that's sort of the the primary kind of I guess model.
Paul Spotts (17:58.982)
Yeah, yeah, you've got the gist of the model. We do city parks for our fields typically. Yeah, we haven't found super great grass field partners in the churches, but for gym space they've been excellent.
Lance (18:04.188)
Okay. I got it.
Paul Spotts (18:16.134)
because we're on a similar mission. Since our missions align there, they're usually much more welcoming as far as like pricing and stuff. Not all of them donate time, but sometimes they will, which helps us with the pricing. But sometimes we get above market rates from the churches too. And then we have to navigate that situation. Like how bad do we want to work with the church? But most of the time we try to work with the churches because we also want to work with the church.
Lance (18:39.292)
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Spotts (18:46.04)
want to keep that attachment of what we're doing.
Lance (18:51.324)
Got it. So.
Paul Spotts (18:51.814)
help them grow as well because they struggle to reach young adults. Especially in this culture, we're seeing a decline in participation in churches across the board by young people. And so if we can help drive them in by just playing sports in their campus, we're happy to do that. And then we just encourage them to find ways to cater to them. Sometimes we get the churches, we'll plan the social events that we'll do. And then we can just invite people and we don't have to do as much coordination on them.
Lance (19:19.068)
Yeah, that makes sense. So I guess I'm curious about the donation, because I mean, if someone's listening to this, they might be going down this path of like, I want to build community. There's a lot of very mission oriented people, I think, in this space who see the same things we're talking about. So I'd be very curious to learn how you get the donations and how you think about that. But I guess I'm also curious on, I often talk about kind of the player experience and the differentiation between choices that they might have. And there's this community aspect, which is different.
Paul Spotts (19:29.254)
Thank you.
Lance (19:45.948)
Are you all able to, you mentioned pricing as well, are you all able to lower prices enough that it's, you know, you're seeing that as a compelling reason for people to like, yeah, I'll go and try this out. It's not as expensive as some private fancy facility or how do you think about like the pricing and then what that's gonna cover and then what the donations are gonna cover?
Paul Spotts (20:05.894)
Yeah, that's been, I would say, maybe a challenging question that we've had to ask ourselves over the last 14 years. And I think the way that we kind of think about it is the leagues we want to self -sustain, but the donations we want to basically fund some of the overhead for the mission part, so for the Bible studies, for helping the volunteers, and for our growth.
Lance (20:18.492)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (20:29.35)
And I think we're very close to that. But in order to get there, we basically have to price close to market.
We try to be under market slightly, even if it's 10 or 20%. Sometimes we might be a little bit more, depending on the league. Sometimes we might be right around market. It just depends on the marketplace. But what we've kind of found is that by putting the Catholic name on it, we limit our market. And a lot of the leagues are able to produce a profit in the for -profit space by scale. And since we limit our scales, the donations can help that. Having the Catholic Church partners can help that. So.
So it's kind of a balancing act there, but we haven't really been able to find that we can just reduce our prices because of the donations, not if we want to grow. If we wanted to stay small, maybe that could work. If we just were saying, hey, we want to just be in one city and we want to do this as a hobby or a side. But I don't think that works if we want to make sure that this sustains past us. If we want this to last 20, 30, 40 plus years, we kind of feel like we need to have an organizational structure that's sustainable.
Lance (21:34.172)
Yeah, that makes sense. And I think, I mean, I don't know how you guys feel, but we've done basketball and it feels more challenging to make the costs work, at least for us, because we had two referees and a scorekeeper who in our system does the stat tracking and stuff as well. So you've got three staff that have to be there. Is y 'all's model like that as well, or is it one ref for basketball?
Paul Spotts (21:56.326)
We did for basketball, yeah, we do two refs. We have the captains do the scorekeeping. So they've only but we don't do stats be too complicated. I volunteers do it I think.
Lance (22:01.884)
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even that, right? Two referees and it's a small court. There's not that many people like on some sports in terms of like the number of people. So our experience was that it was harder to be profitable or make the numbers work than it was with soccer. Is that the same for you guys?
Paul Spotts (22:24.902)
Yeah, I think, I mean, I think you're probably getting this from, from other people, but the right now, the shortage on official on officials is just crazy. And so we've, we've, we had a, we had one ref crew this, this year that wanted to double their rate from year over year. And we were just like, we can't do that. this is, this is craziness, you know? and, and so we, it actually delayed our launch and our ability to market our league because we had to go back to drawing board and try and recruit some reps outside. And I think that's been a, one of our pain points of not being able to scale larger and, and
Lance (22:33.308)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (22:54.856)
is that we also don't have the, we haven't yet built the ability to recruit our own internal refs and train them. I know some leagues will hire out a ref and then use them as a trainer as well, and we just aren't that size that we feel like we could do that. And...
Lance (22:56.156)
Yeah.
Lance (23:02.844)
Mmm.
Lance (23:13.756)
So are you using an assigner or do you mean you're just having to hire like certified refs that have a higher market rate?
Paul Spotts (23:20.934)
We try to work with assigners as much as possible to offload that pain point of recruitment. But like in this case, we had to abandon the assigners and just go back to posting. I think we post on Teamwork Online.
to try to recruit the officials and we were able to find one. And thankfully we don't do a lot of, like when we do soccer, we're not doing like six leagues in one city at a time. We're doing one league at a time. So I think in that sense, it's slightly easier to recruit. But you're absolutely right. It does create a huge pain point on pricing. And I would actually say that that's been a real challenge we've seen since COVID and in this inflationary market is that all the costs are going up, but the
the base of participants or recent college grads typically or early career. And so there's this downward pressure on our prices for them to participate, but an upward pressure on cost. And it's making it a really hard, a really difficult environment. I mean, it's probably every week or every other week we get a complaint about cost. And part of our, I also think that for our market, part of those complaints are people who don't play in other leagues. So they don't have a price comparison. And they're just saying, why is cost,
Lance (24:33.02)
Yeah, because it's like everybody.
Paul Spotts (24:34.376)
up and we're like why is it going up at McDonald's? I think it's like this is the market I'm sorry like we're doing the best we can but it's just like this is the reality of the situation is everything is going up and so it's making it very difficult with that downward pressure.
Lance (24:37.884)
Yeah.
Lance (24:46.524)
Yeah.
I mean just to get like a little bit detailed like what are the rates that you guys have seen from before and to now in terms of the range of what you guys are having to to pay just again I know you were yeah for officials because we were operating we were like we had no idea what to pay and so we were Throwing numbers out and then it was off and wrong we were increasing and that's what happened with soccer increasing I think to like $40 an hour per rev up from originally was 25 and it just kind of kept going up until it felt like there was not a
Paul Spotts (24:58.694)
for officials.
Paul Spotts (25:07.814)
Yeah.
Lance (25:18.012)
as much of an issue for us in terms of them turning over and for us it also mattered a lot like how many games they would get in a row and like if you just bring them out for one game you just can't you know it doesn't really matter what your rate is. Is that? Yeah exactly all that so is that similar to what you guys have sort of seen?
Paul Spotts (25:26.245)
Right.
Yeah, you got to justify the drive and the time. Yeah.
Paul Spotts (25:36.582)
Yeah, yeah, when we first started, we had people that were passionate about what we were doing and they would officiate for 10 or 20 bucks a game.
Lance (25:45.148)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (25:45.894)
And that worked for the first five years or so. And then we had to increase, that was probably five or six years ago that we basically doubled the $20, $25 a game. But in the post COVID market, we think kind of the market rate is roughly about 40 to 50 bucks an hour. But yeah, we've had people that have asked us for 75 to 100. And we're just like, no, can't do it.
Lance (26:10.652)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some of the time, at least in my experience, they're getting 75 or 80, but it's often because they're doing like one match things with like a high school or something, and that's what they'll pay. And so we've had to be like, yeah, it's not, you're going to get three matches and you're going to make more money in an evening, even though you work a little bit longer. And so there's some of that dynamic at play a little bit as well, I think. So how do you then, so you've got your pricing and you guys are working on that. And I definitely want to go into like the growth.
And how y 'all think about setting up each city and that some of the sort of the tactical things there But then on the donation side like how do y 'all manage that? How do you fill in the gap there? I guess Tom you're involved heavily sort of in that piece But is that like a you kind of have you know like a pitch deck which you've got materials and you're working with specific churches who are like hey This is a great way look how many people we've gotten into So, you know these Bible studies or how does that sort of piece work? And how do you how do you think about setting those deals up?
Tom Darabaris (27:10.257)
Yeah, so when it comes to like charitable giving I mean more often than not people need to have a personal experience with the charity so a majority of the people that play or that that donate to Catholic sports are people who play in the leagues and so for us it's you know, they they need to have a really good experience they need to you know a lot of our Donors, you know people who had conversions and
Lance (27:18.36)
Mm -hmm.
Tom Darabaris (27:40.05)
found their future spouse or they made all of their friends, they moved to town and it's giving them that sort of experience. So there's a vast majority of our donors, our people who play in the leagues. And then we do have a lot of just people in the Catholic sphere who just love that.
that what we're doing from an evangelization perspective and building Catholic community as well. We're very different in that the church doesn't really invest in a lot of social ministry, things like sports.
Lance (28:30.556)
Mm -hmm.
Tom Darabaris (28:33.681)
There's a stat, 85 % of all US parishes, not just Catholic churches, all across Christianity spend 0 % of their ministry dollars on relationship ministry, stuff to get young singles together, help married couples, it's just not on their radar. Marriages are in decline and this is in an environment where people are lonely and isolated and everything. So for us, we're actually kind of just like doing something that's really different within the...
within the Catholic spirit definitely to build community. So there's an appeal within the Catholic world for that but we're really trailblazing. So it's like kind of educating people that this isn't just intermurals. There's something bigger going on. So yeah, so it's a little bit about selling that story to people who are not connected and then also...
Lance (29:22.172)
something.
Tom Darabaris (29:33.233)
just cultivating people who have really great experiences within the community as well.
Lance (29:40.444)
That makes sense. I know when I was like 25 and going to church and I felt like there was this cliff, or I guess I was actually younger than that, but I graduated college and gone and there just wasn't, felt like there was nothing in terms of meeting people at college, which is great. And so when I went to church, I was like, is there anything for like young adults that we could like do? Can I make friends here? And so I think I helped like start something up and I don't think it even lasted. And it felt like at the time that...
If you're in that window of period in your twenties, then you feel the problem. And then like now I'm 35 and I have kids and I don't feel the problem anymore. And I'd almost, it's not that I don't relate. I do. And I still play and all that. And I know the space, but yeah, it didn't, it didn't feel like other people are as aware of this, like social cliff and how bad it was. And then with sports in general, and also it feels like, you know, there's it's easy to rally around youth and like helping kids. And so you'll see a lot of money kind of pour into that.
Paul Spotts (30:15.558)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (30:32.07)
Yeah.
Lance (30:35.932)
Whereas for whatever reason with adults, it's just like, I don't know, you don't get quite the same energy around this problem.
Tom Darabaris (30:35.985)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (30:44.39)
Yeah, I think culturally what happens is there's kind of this perception of like parents will pay for their children. Right. And so so sometimes like even back to that like price point issue, the parents are paying 100 to 150 dollars per kid to like play in like a six week season of soccer camp or something. But then the rec sports industry is like 100 dollars for like an eight week season.
And they're paying licensed officials and the youth are splitting a field in three and paying teenagers to officiate. And the economy of scale is totally different. But it's because parents are willing to take care of their children. But there's kind of this cultural understanding of you're out of high school, you're out of college, you're on your own. And there's some truth and validity to that. And that permeates the church too. There's some truth and validity to that. But that doesn't mean we need to stop helping them.
Especially in that early career, we need to build that foundational resource to at least help them.
Lance (31:42.46)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (31:43.078)
to launch as they establish on their own. Especially the young adults that are getting out away from their parents and not living in the basement, they need an even bigger help up because it's a challenging economy, it's challenging life. What do they call it now? Adulting. Adulting is difficult. Let's help them adult. Don't just abandon them.
Tom Darabaris (31:46.481)
more to be established in their families. And so, especially those that, the many dogs that are getting out of the way.
Lance (32:00.22)
Yeah.
Tom Darabaris (32:00.913)
Yeah.
Lance (32:05.5)
It is difficult. It feels like it's gotten harder and harder. Yeah, so that, yeah, yeah. So then I guess if somebody else is listening to this and wants to do down this nonprofit path, you're talking about, the donation piece is not, you don't have to just have some wealthy entity that's cutting you a $500 ,000 check every year and loving your mission. It's like small checks for people who have played. Are there any?
Tom Darabaris (32:26.065)
You want to just have some healthy.
Lance (32:34.492)
tips or tricks to help somebody to like tactically execute that kind of thing? Like when someone, I'm trying to imagine like an hour system or something, when someone registers and you're asking them, hey, do you want to make an extra donation on top of your leak payment? And then you give them increments or like what's been the most effective tactic to actually get people to participate and donate?
Paul Spotts (32:55.526)
Yeah, I mean we do that. I think in your system that would be the solution is like having a donation option and the checkout flow. And that's a small trickle, but the big key has been having Tom follow up with them. You know, so if they add $20 onto their registration, then having Tom call and say, hey, look, we really appreciate, thank you for your care for this mission, for donating that little extra, would you be willing to meet so I can just share our mission and vision and see if you might want to make that into a monthly donation?
Lance (33:09.34)
Mmm.
Lance (33:25.244)
Mmm. Got it. So you're connecting, yeah.
Paul Spotts (33:26.694)
Right? So that follow -up becomes critical because like Tom mentioned earlier, it comes down especially to that personal relationship. You know, because usually when we're giving to charity, it's do we care about the mission or do we trust the people? Those are usually two of the first big questions. Either the mission is critically important to the point where I'm happy to just give them money and go away, or I care about the people so much that I trust that whatever I give them, they're going to make good use of.
Tom Darabaris (33:28.113)
I think that's all I'm going to say for you because I talked earlier. It comes down especially to...
Lance (33:41.244)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (33:52.764)
Yeah, totally. It's kind of like with sponsorships, and I'm curious to talk about that with you guys if that's ever crossed your mind. But it's like, people really want to know the ROI. Like if a bar is going to sponsor a league, it's like, are you bringing people to my bar, and am I going to make any kind of money off this? And it's the same thing, people are donating, and it's like, is this advancing a mission truly that I care about? So that makes sense. It sounds like some real work to call and follow up and do all that kind of stuff. Does that?
How does that change once you have the relationship and they're donating monthly? Are you sending reports out to say, hey, this many members played and this is where your dollars are going? Or how do you make them sort of, or do you keep following up every six months? Or how do you ensure that they stay satisfied for a long period of time?
Tom Darabaris (34:34.194)
sure that everything's doing like satisfied.
Yeah, I think you just continually meet with them. I mean I still play in the leagues and stay connected in the community so I'm able to connect with our donors there. We do send out a lot of communication just to tell them about the fruits of the mission and everything. I mean coming from...
I was in sales for like 10 years. This is my first time like moving into a fundraising role. It's different in the sense that like fundraising and charitable giving, it's an emotional appeal, right? So you're appealing to, as opposed to like, you know, our just like set ROI, like it is in sales where it's like, when you get this, you're gonna donate, you know, so it's, yeah, when you...
pay us this, you're going to get X amount or I don't know why with charity it's more just kind of like you're sharing the fruits, you're sharing these stories. It's a lot of storytelling where it's just kind of like the things that and normally these people have some sort of connection, that personal connection and it's ensuring that hey, this thing is still cranking, it's still growing, showing the growth of the organization and doing that sort of storytelling.
And really just kind of, it's more of a heart appeal than it is a head appeal.
Lance (36:08.732)
Yeah, I can imagine that if I was to get like a response and you were to share even one person's story of like they were in kind of maybe a dark place, they got plugged in, they found community, now they're a believer like that would probably go a long way. Maybe even more so than saying like 243 people came out last week and you know, so that makes sense. So what, could you walk me through I guess the operation, the sort of the tactical piece of you guys are in four cities.
Paul Spotts (36:28.006)
Yeah.
Lance (36:36.988)
Do you have somebody locally that is helping that's sort of on staff or is that a volunteer or and what's the process of getting off the ground? I mean we talked a little bit about finding facilities and there's different rates and you have certain types of partners that you're looking for. But I guess yeah how is each city sort of set up and how does it get off the ground?
Paul Spotts (36:55.494)
Yeah, I think you're, so in 14 years, I don't know that we've nailed that completely well, but I think what we've...
And I guess I'll just share like kind of the experience because the first I would say roughly nine years our growth model was intimately tied to recruiting missionaries Which is what I knew in campus missionary work So we recruit missionaries. They would fundraise their salary. They would run the leagues. They would do the marketing They would do lead the Bible studies. They were the linchpin for the community and And and and that was a good for where we were at but what we recognized
Lance (37:22.844)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (37:33.672)
is that it wasn't sustainable and it wasn't sustainable because we couldn't recruit missionaries fast enough. So we had places that would call us and say, what would it take to bring you here? And our response was, well, do you have a missionary? No? OK, we'll call us back in three years, unless you find one.
Lance (37:38.268)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (37:48.422)
You know, and that wasn't a good growth model. We really felt like what we were doing was important enough to grow faster. And so there were a couple things that happened. And one is we had a location where we didn't have a missionary to fill it. And so we had to figure out how are we going to sustain it without a staff member present? And so we launched a volunteer model. And the volunteers actually kept it sustainable. Small, but sustainable in the city.
Lance (37:48.604)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (38:18.438)
And we thought that was a good band -aid, really. Like maybe a plug gap until we could recruit a missionary. But since we weren't recruiting missionaries fast enough, we had to ask the next question of how are we ever gonna grow if we can't fix this missionary recruitment piece? And so recently we switched to where we're hiring contractors. We're calling it the Catholic Side Hustle.
And so it's basically like getting paid like an Uber or Lyft driver. It's not a lot, but you can run a league on the side and get paid a small amount and also do something that has a little bit more ministry or mission minded and still have a full time job and pay your bills. And we actually believe that this model is actually gonna be sustainable and actually help us grow a lot. In fact, we're planning on trying to triple, not triple, double our geographic reach within the next year and a half.
Lance (38:47.516)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (39:09.19)
and it's because this has opened up that path. Now there's still some questions we have to answer, which is most all of our expansion locations have primarily been because we had that missionary on ground.
Lance (39:09.372)
Wow. Yeah.
Lance (39:21.084)
Mm -hmm.
Paul Spotts (39:21.702)
network and reach people and help get the teams together. And without that, now we're going to have to rely on these league hosts doing this Catholic side hustle. And maybe with a little bit of HQ marketing and support, are we going to be able to have that same reach? And we don't have a full answer to that yet. We're still in pilot phase. We're actually, we're regionally trying to launch in Colorado Springs right now. And we're just starting to network in Houston to launch in there next year. And, but,
We do believe that we're going to figure those pieces out and we'll be able to expand, but we don't have the full answers yet.
Lance (39:57.436)
Yeah, okay. It's sort of similar to how we tried when we were running leagues. We still called them a commissioner and then we would pay them essentially like a percentage. It was basically a flat rate per team that was playing any given night was kind of how we thought about it. And you know, we could find people. It can still be tough to...
like when you're doing that remotely to have the same level of like you're getting them where they need to be in terms of, you know, motivation and knowledge and all the things actually execute super well. So yeah, I mean, but it's, it's an interesting, if you can, if you can dial it in and then write the, there's a lot more that you guys can do. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So I guess maybe a couple more questions, but for those people or the refs or any of the other other.
Paul Spotts (40:35.814)
Yeah.
Lance (40:47.452)
you know, pieces in terms of like staffing. Do you have any tips on how to find good people and how to retain them and motivate them and manage performance or, and I know there's probably, you had a lot of thoughts maybe in the missionary model and now you're kind of on a new model and so maybe that sort of changed, but do you have any thoughts to share kind of bits of wisdom on how to like build and manage a good staff?
Paul Spotts (41:10.338)
No, I don't know if I have any advice on that. I mean, that's a challenging pain point, right? In the world, I think right now, you know, when I first, I like to joke with people that when I first started Catholic sports, that the church, but it also applied to the corporate world, was stuck in liability mode.
Tom Darabaris (41:12.529)
I'm a Bible -ean. I think that's a challenging game point right in the world, I think right now. You know, when I first... I like to joke with people that when I first started Catholic sports, the church, but it also applied to the corporate world, was stuck in like a really bad situation. You know, in the early church, they were worried they were going to have their head cut off. We're just worried we're going to have to see.
Paul Spotts (41:35.75)
Right? I'd say, you know, in the early church, they were worried they were going to have their heads cut off. We're just worried we're going to get sued. You know, but our whole culture, corporate structure, has shifted now to HR. Right? It's now the HR department that is running the business, not the lawyers.
Lance (41:42.396)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Spotts (41:52.134)
And there's reasons for that, you know, culturally people want a work experience that's amazing and incredible for them. And, you know, there's almost like a lost sense of like work should sometimes be hard and that's okay. I can fight through it. It's going to get better. So, yeah, it's a very challenging environment. Now we do have the benefit of being Catholic and being mission minded. And so a lot of people that are interested in working for us,
typically have a share of value system with us. And that makes that piece easier on the recruitment end. Most of the recruits coming share our value system. Now we also aren't gonna hire someone if they don't. Depending on the role, we're allowed to make sure that they fit that religious piece.
Lance (42:24.476)
Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Spotts (42:43.75)
And so that helps to a degree, but there's still temperaments and things like that. But for us, I think one of the bigger pieces is just making sure we try to keep a good culture. And so we tried to do some work on that recently. We tried to institute basically a Monday morning workout. We go to a local gym and we work out together. It worked a lot better when they actually had a team fitness class. So we were all doing the same thing in the same room. But now we just show up and we see each other and we high five and then we go work out.
Tom Darabaris (42:51.505)
You know, for us, I think one of the biggest pieces of attention is the work. We decided to do some work on that recently. We checked in at an institute basically on Monday morning to work out. Again, we've got a study. We work a lot better when we actually do fitness class, or what? Now we just show up and we see each other and we high -five and we work out. But that's been awesome. We also are...
Paul Spotts (43:13.656)
But that's been helpful. We also, since we're Catholic, we also meet for prayer in mass, Tuesday through Thursday before we start our day. And then once a quarter, we get together for an offsite. It's quasi -retreat. We have prayer in mass time, but a lot of it's business meetings. Let's get together as a team and really talk about what's going on, what we're experiencing, and how we're growing, where we're going as an organization. And we found that that's really important with
Lance (43:14.532)
You
Paul Spotts (43:43.56)
having these satellite locations is to have that continuity of like we're on the same team. Even if you're in Chicago and we're in Denver, we're on the same team, we're dealing with the same issues, we're doing the same good work. And it gives us time to also come together and hear little stories like Tom was mentioning of people whose lives are changed by what we're doing. And really that's, I think, ultimately for our team what fuels them and keeps them going is that their work makes a difference in people's lives.
Tom Darabaris (43:57.361)
It gives us time to also come together and deal with this very important issue.
Tom Darabaris (44:11.985)
There's not H2O. And so, I'm separated from just being about to say it. Because I hold on to whatever it is. So it's real. We just keep this stuff.
Paul Spotts (44:13.48)
people's lives, it changes lives. And so it helps separate it from just being about the sports. And as I told our board earlier in year three, if we just keep this about sports, I quit. Because I'm here for a mission, I'm not here for the sports. The sports are great and I want them to be as professional as possible. But we have to do something more or else I'm gonna get bored. And so I think that fuels our staff as well.
Lance (44:38.524)
Yeah, yeah.
Totally. And how many people are on staff that are coming to these off -sites and whatnot?
Paul Spotts (44:48.55)
Yeah, right now about six or seven. So we have a few extra contractors. We have several contractors, but staff wise we're about six or seven.
Lance (44:56.86)
Got it, got it. Okay, so I think maybe one more question, which is, you know, 14 years, you said, I mean, you've seen probably a lot of changes in a lot of ways, but how about technology? What was it like 14 years ago, and how has that evolved, and how do you think that that plays into your mission and all this kind of stuff?
Paul Spotts (45:15.662)
Yeah, yeah sure. When we first started and I had no clue what I was doing, we had a PayPal registration form.
So it was super low tech. I think there was zero fees on it too, but it was basically like, what's your name? What's your email? Here's my 30 bucks or something like that. So I think that served us for the first year or two. And then it was a real pain point because then I'm having to reconcile, did the captain pay? Did the players pay? We've been on league apps for a while, but one of the
Lance (45:22.588)
Mm.
Paul Spotts (45:52.52)
And there's been some good parts, some challenging parts. One of the big pieces I think they're building out is some analytics pieces, but we found a need for that earlier on. And so we've built out some stuff with that using Zapier. So that's kind of a cool technology of being able to attach your API calls to Zapier and be able to offload your data or work together with data. So it helps integration with QuickBooks for our accounting, helps load things into a database where we can merge.
Lance (46:10.092)
Yeah.
Paul Spotts (46:22.392)
merge our old registration systems with the current registration systems. And so that's been a helpful piece for sure. But I would say the biggest features that have been the most helpful and the reason that we even switched away from PayPal is the email reminders, helping with the communication between players and captains. So getting game reminders, it's essential now.
Lance (46:25.212)
Mm -hmm.
Tom Darabaris (46:32.721)
But I would say the biggest features of doing this on the phone, that we've switched from the Wave and PayCon, is the email reminders.
Lance (46:40.828)
Mm -hmm.
Tom Darabaris (46:46.291)
Any game reminders?
Paul Spotts (46:50.694)
You know, if they, if, if people don't get a game reminder a couple of days before the game, then they forget. And which is kind of funny because I don't, there's not much that I pay for that I forget about, but, but there's different people that have different priorities and they, you know, so, so that's been super helpful having, having things like that where we can just give captains features that, that really helped them do their job better. Because, and I think this is the same probably for a lot of, a lot of rec leagues that aren't doing draft leagues is that the captains really become the
Lance (46:56.028)
Hahaha.
Lance (47:01.5)
right.
Paul Spotts (47:20.648)
linchpin. You know, if you have good leaders that can recruit a team, you want to keep them. They're going to come back every year if you give them a good experience. And part of that is making sure that their lives are made easier through the platform you're using.
Lance (47:21.692)
Mm -hmm.
Lance (47:33.98)
Yeah, totally. Yep, that makes sense. Sweet, okay. I think we're about out of time, so that was good. Appreciate all the stories. I think there's a lot of helpful tidbits in there that, especially somebody gonna go down the nonprofit path and how on earth to sort of wrangle something like this, you guys have a lot of great experience, so thanks for sharing all that.
Tom Darabaris (47:48.05)
Thank you.
Paul Spotts (47:54.054)
Thank you. It's a pleasure, Lance.
Tom Darabaris (47:55.858)
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Lance (47:57.244)
Yeah.
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