RamNation NIL

Fundraising update as of 1/31/24. A total of 42 donors have contributed a total of $5345. Thank you! For a list of donors see below.  


RamNation NIL Venmo Donate buttonMake a difference for Ram student athletes

For RamNation, our mission for NIL partnerships is simple. We will target quality student athletes who can benefit from gaining media experience (in an ideal world would be journalism/communications majors, although that isn’t always possible), while producing quality content for RamNation.com, having fun, and earning compensation for their time. We will always seek quality human beings that is are great representatives of the university and who will be enjoyable for our fans to engage with. 

We will ask our student athlete partners to provide the following for us:

  • Game recaps and other written content on RamNation.com
  • RamNation Radio Podcast appearances
  • Interaction with Ram fans in the form of Q&As on RamNation.com
  • And more

2023-24 athletic season plans

We are exploring ways to combine efforts with the Green and Gold Guard collective so that we can unify fundraising all through the Guard. In the meantime, we have remaining funds (and a few people still donating towards our efforts), and we will use those funds to pay student athletes for time they spend providing content for RamNation – primarily via podcast appearances. We don’t necessarily anticipate having one dedicated student athlete for the season, but rather selecting individual candidates as the season goes. 

We’ve thus far had appearances by star point guard Isaiah Stevens, star forward Nique Clifford, golfer Connor Jones, and quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, with more to come! 

Many thanks to our first RamNation NIL partners

During the 2022-23 basketball season, we had two featured student athletes from the men’s basketball team — senior John Tonje and true freshman Tavi Jackson. Both provided insights via written Q&A pieces as well as various podcast appearances. Both were very professional, courteous, and thoughtful in their content, and we appreciated having them.

Read Tavi’s thank you to RamNation NIL donors here

We were also able to host and pay several other basketball student athletes join us for extended podcast conversations, including Isaiah Rivera and Patrick Cartier from the men’s team, and McKenna Hofschild and Cailyn Crocker from the women’s team. 

Our very first partner was Christian “C.J.” Onyechi, who was a star defensive end for the Rams. C.J. is a tremendous human being, who was a treat to talk to and quickly became a fan favorite. He is also studying Communication & Technology (in the in the Journalism and Media Communications department), which made him a perfect fit for our first partnership. He showed up every week and put in full effort for us, just like he did on the field. C.J. started all 12 games, was second on the team in sacks (3.5), second in tackles for loss (9), and fourth on the team in tackles (and top DL with 58).

Read C.J.’s final farewell and thank you to RamNation.com NIL donors here.

Donation allocation

Thanks to fan contributions, we were able to pay C.J. Onyechi about $1900 for his content contributions during the 2022 football season. We were able to pay John Tonje and Tavi Jackson $750 and $550, respectively, for their contributions during the 2022-23 basketball season. We’ve also paid Isaiah Stevens, Isaiah Rivera, Pat Cartier, McKenna Hofschild, and Cailyn Crocker $100/each for their extended appearances on our podcast during the 2022-23 basketball season. We’ve also paid the same amount to Clay Millen and Mo Kamara following spring football 2023, as well as men’s golfer Connor Jones during the summer of 2023. Overall, we’ve paid out about $3880 and have $1000 remaining as of May 1, 2023. (Note: The gap you see between donation totals and payments/remaining balance is due to Venmo transaction fees for business accounts.) We’ll continue using our remaining funds to pay student athletes for their time with us during the summer months and evaluate how to proceed in the fall with remaining funds and additional incoming funds. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I donate? 

Right now, the best way to donate is via our Venmo business account at: @bdg-ramnation. This is connected to a business bank account (parent company: The Black Diamond Group). We will keep records of all donations that come in and payments out to our student athletes. If you do not use Venmo, but would like to get involved another way, email us at [email protected] and we’ll work out an alternative.

How much should I donate? 

Any amount is much appreciated! We’d love to have enough donors to continue support through the basketball and spring-sports season. Should the fundraising exceed expectations, we will investigate bringing student athletes from other sports into the mix. 

Is my donation tax deductible? 

Right now, no. We are not a 501(c)(3) organization and do not have tax-exempt status. Donations are helping pay a student athlete (contractor) for a tangible service that the student athlete provides, in the form of written content, podcast content, and other interactions with our fan base. There is a fan-driven collective coming soon that has 501(c)(3) designation, and if it is important for your donation to be tax deductible, we suggest you give to that effort. RamNation will also be partnering with that effort, which seeks to raise significant funds. We’ll share information when it’s ready to be public.

What will the student athlete receive from this partnership?

We are committing to at least $500/month for our first partnership. We may increase this depending on donations, but we also want to ensure we grow money in the account for other partnerships during the school year. Should we raise enough money to fund two student athletes (one football, one men’s basketball) from now through March and have plenty left over, we may look to increase the payouts to our student athlete partners, as well as seek other prospects. 

Will RamNation engage with other student athletes?

Our goal beyond football season is to also partner with a men’s basketball player for the 2022-23 season. We’d love to partner with student athletes from other sports as well, but it will come down to how much we can fundraise. Our goal is to work with multiple student athletes for the year.


Donor List

Bryan Archer, Anthony Baldessari, Kevin/Nancy Box, David Brown, Tim Bruny, Heather/Nate Caldwell, Joel/Laura Cantalamessa, Rich Carroll, Jordan Combs, Geoff Cowles, Heath Cronquist, Dave Delory, Kyle Fanning, David Fennell, Josh Fredlund, Ryan Gilbert, Gerard Gilmore, Steve Heyn, Tom Johnson, John Konegni, Ed/Joni Maycumber, Russell Maxwell, Ryan McElroy, Ryan McGrath, Sean McKenna, Dan Miller, Darin Miller, Ben Morgan, Richard Norton, Duane Pool, Matthew Pucak, Jeff Riley, Nathan Robertson, Jared Rossi, Michael Rowe, Michael Sanderson, Tyler Shannon, Philip Stanford, Daniel Sweeney, Zachary Wagner, Brian Walter, David Wood.