Northfield Soccer Association 2020 and Beyond

For nearly 35 years, the Northfield Soccer Association has provided the opportunity for the youth of Northfield to play “the beautiful game” that is loved the world over. The NSA has grown, many times and in many ways, over those years. We now offer soccer opportunities for kids from age 4 through 19, which encompasses around 500 kids on a yearly basis. The Spring Creek Soccer Complex is as top-notch a facility as you’ll find in a community our size. We have had many state championship teams, and feel the development of youth players has served our high school program in countless valuable ways. We have added paid staff in an effort to keep our coaching at a high level and to ensure that the many administrative tasks involved in running a club of our size are taken care of in a timely fashion, all while keeping costs to our families as low as we possibly can.

We have been blessed to have had a modest financial cushion to help smooth over the ups and downs of operating the Association year after year. We have months of great income when registrations are on-going, and months when we are in the red with expenses, but it has always pretty much evened out. When our entire traveling season was lost this year due to the pandemic, we made the difficult but correct choice to refund those 200 registration fees in total. This came to nearly $70,000. To add to that, we were unable to hold the Jesse James Shootout for the second year in a row. This is a dent of around $16,000 over the two years to our bottom line. All of this adds up to this: that modest financial cushion is gone.

While we will see some income from the upcoming fall traveling and Academy seasons, we will not be able to keep paying our paid staff over the winter months as we normally do. When registration begins for the spring 2021 season, we will see our income begin to recover. But, given the times, we are not planning to utilize this money for expenses until it is clear that there will be a season in the spring. We may not be able to provide any winter training this year as a result. This is not an easy time to put out a plea for help. The NSA is certainly not the only organization feeling the pinch in these times. But, we feel we have to be proactive to keep the NSA in a healthy financial state.

We are announcing a fund drive to try and raise enough money to run the Association, at least through the winter. It costs nearly $5,000 per month for us to operate at full capacity. We are setting a goal of $20,000 to be raised, which will get us to the time when we know that spring soccer is going to be a reality and we can stabilize our budget and set the course for the future of the NSA. We are reaching back to as many families as we have email addresses for in hopes of making this a success without putting strain on only a few.

If you own a business or have a contact with a business that may be looking for some exposure, we are offering sponsorship opportunities on our field signs at the soccer complex. The four signs that are along Jefferson Parkway are available for $1,500 each, and the four signs at other locations at the complex are available for $750 each.

Any sponsor for the fields would have their logo on the sign for two years. Along those same lines, any business (or individual for that matter) contributing $150 will receive a sponsorship on an In-House team jersey next spring.

If you prefer to donate via check, please send your donation to: Northfield Soccer Association, P.O. Box 37, Northfield, MN 55057.