Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Nicewander.
Hi Dan, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Our Story – In the fall of 2023, 15 long-time Mustang enthusiasts met to create a car club with the foundational values of respectful camaraderie, overall fun with Mustangs, and a focus on making an impact for local charities, all with the goal to ensure that the club would never lose sight of those values. Our roots go back to 2014 with the Southwest Metro Mustang Club, the original Mustang club of the Twin Cities Metro area.
Our Purpose is clear. We want to give like minded Mustang owners a place to gather together, but we also want to have an organization that can have camaraderie with respect in addition to that fun with our rides. An overarching goal for the club is to have community impact through our charity focus.
Our Mission is to share our enthusiasm for owning and driving both old and newer Mustangs, promote participation in the hobby by both young and old, and use our events and activities to do good by helping our communities and local charities.
In all our activities, we seek to foster an atmosphere that encourages living out our Values:
Passion – Inspiring the Next Generation of Mustang Community
Excellence – Providing Exceptional Experiences at a Value
Team – Working Together with Respect
Service – Having the Heart of a Volunteer
Stewardship – Using Our Resources to Their Best Impact
Experience – Wowing through our Community Impact
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been a fantastic ride so far in our first few years. We have over 200 members from all over Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa. We host dozens of activities every year including cruises, a car show on the west side of the cities in the spring, off season activities while the rides are put away for the winter, and our marquee event – Mustangs At The Island, which is held the last weekend in August before Labor Day each year. This 3-Day event draws over 300 Mustangs from the upper Midwest but we’ve had participants from as far away as New York, Florida, and Utah.
Our proudest part of this club is using these events for raising money to help those who need a helping hand. Our focus is typically on Veterans, children and women at risk, but we’ve also helped other non-profits. So far we’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars to impact others with our Mustangs At The Island having raised over $70K alone. We’re pretty proud of our community involvement, and that’s one of the main reasons my wife Lynn and I are involved. Plus we get to hang around with some really cool folks and sweet rides of course!
But to effectively do this we focus on having professional, well run activities that strive to be as efficient as possible in order to maximize our impact. We’ve been told our 3-Day event is one of the best run Mustang events people have gone to. That goes a long way to ensure we get folks to return and gives the club and community something that’s very different in the car scene I believe, and really helps to attract sponsors and partners as well.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
All of the membership leaders are volunteers which allows us to pass along 100% of our profits to charity when we have an event. We try and get as many members involved in all of our activities as we can, including our leadership positions which rotate every year. We stress the importance of participation and welcome spouses to join in on all of our activities.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Car clubs in general are having a tough time with declining memberships and participation. Many of the traditional enthusiasts are aging, making the push for younger members critical. But we plan each year’s activities without knowing who we have that will help and without help we can’t do the activities. So we lean into overcommunicating to ensure every member know the opportunities we have and we push the social media side of things to reach out to the younger audience. It’s all about scale to make the biggest charitable impact, and so far we’ve been successful growing significantly each year.
Pricing:
- Yearly Membership is just $20
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lakecountrymustangclub.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lcmcmn/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LCMCMN and https://www.facebook.com/MnMOTM
- Other: https://www.mustangsattheisland.com/
