How camps can use seasonal pricing, waitlists, and demand data to improve stewardship, sustainability, and year-round operations.

Many camp leaders assume that revenue growth requires expansion. If budgets are tight or financial goals aren’t being met, the instinct is often to think about adding more guests, building additional facilities, or creating new programs. While those can certainly be effective growth strategies, they’re not the only options available.

In this episode of the Grow Your Camp Podcast, Carl Lefever and Mark Fisher explore a different perspective. Rather than focusing on how to serve more people, they discuss how camps can better steward the capacity they already have through demand-based pricing.

It’s a topic that makes many camp leaders uncomfortable. Pricing conversations can feel at odds with ministry, especially for nonprofit organizations that exist to serve people rather than maximize profit. But as Mark explains throughout the conversation, financial sustainability and ministry impact are not competing priorities. In many cases, thoughtful pricing decisions are what make long-term ministry possible.

Along the way, the conversation covers everything from waitlists and seasonal pricing to guest communication and organizational stewardship. Mark also shares the deeply personal story that led him from serving as a camp president to helping camp leaders across the country build healthier, more sustainable organizations.

Quick Camp Marketing Tip: Get Found in More Places Online

Before diving into the main conversation, Carl shared a practical marketing tip that many camps overlook: directory listings.

When parents, retreat planners, pastors, and group leaders search online for camps and retreat centers, they often discover organizations through third-party websites before they ever find a camp’s website directly. That makes directory listings a valuable opportunity to increase visibility without increasing your marketing budget.

Carl highlighted several important places where camps should maintain active listings, including Google Maps, Apple Maps, Yelp, TripAdvisor, local tourism websites, and camp-specific directories such as ACA listings, Camp Navigator, and Retreat Finder. Many of these platforms are free or very inexpensive, yet they provide additional opportunities for potential guests to discover your camp.

The value goes beyond direct traffic. Every quality directory listing creates another online footprint for your organization and another pathway back to your website. It also provides search engines with more information about your camp, helping establish credibility and increasing your chances of appearing in relevant searches.

As Carl pointed out, most prospective guests aren’t choosing another camp because they’ve heard something negative about yours. More often, they simply don’t know your camp exists. Directory listings help solve that problem by increasing the number of places where people can discover your ministry.

“The reason they’re not coming to your camp today is probably not because they’ve heard bad things. It’s probably because they just don’t know that you exist.”

For camps looking to improve their marketing without spending significantly more money, directory listings may be one of the simplest opportunities available.

For more details on how to get your camp listed in more directories, check out this in-depth guide on our blog.

The Story That Changed Mark Fisher’s Career

Before discussing pricing strategy, Carl asked Mark to share the story behind his journey from camp executive to consultant. What followed was one of the most personal conversations ever featured on the podcast.

While serving as president of Sandy Cove Ministries, Mark helped lead the organization through a period of significant growth. During those years, however, the pressure of leadership was taking a serious toll on his health. Over a four-year period, he underwent five stomach surgeries and relied on prescription pain medication to manage ongoing complications.

The turning point came when his wife made an observation that he couldn’t ignore.

“Our fifth son is being raised by a different father.”

Mark describes the comment as something that stopped him cold. It forced him to recognize how much the stress of leadership and years of medical struggles had changed him.

Determined to get off the medication, he pursued a medical procedure that was intended to help manage his pain. Instead, complications during the procedure resulted in temporary paralysis. After emergency surgery and a difficult recovery, he eventually regained movement and returned home, but the experience forced him to reconsider what the future might look like.

Several months later, Sandy Cove’s board of directors invited him to a meeting and asked a difficult but necessary question: Could he return to the role?

Mark knew the answer before he spoke.

“No.”

That answer changed the trajectory of his life.

Rather than simply helping him transition out of the organization, the board responded with extraordinary generosity. They provided a year of severance, continued medical coverage, and career coaching to help him discover what came next.

“That day, that generosity unlocked the future for me.”

Through that coaching process, Mark eventually launched what would become Inspiring Growth. A few years later, a camp director he had been coaching called him and said, “You’ve inspired growth in me as a leader.” In that moment, Mark realized his greatest impact wasn’t simply helping organizations grow revenue. It was helping leaders grow.

That realization became the foundation for the work he continues to do today.

Why Camps Often Think About Pricing the Wrong Way

When the conversation turned to pricing, Mark explained that his thinking was heavily influenced by a book about Southwest Airlines and its use of yield management. Airlines routinely adjust pricing based on demand, yet many camps continue to use a single price regardless of season, occupancy, or guest demand.

Initially, Mark encountered significant resistance whenever he suggested applying similar principles within camp ministry. Many leaders believed charging different prices at different times somehow conflicted with the values of a nonprofit organization.

That resistance revealed something deeper. For many camp leaders, conversations about money feel uncomfortable. Pricing can feel transactional, while ministry feels relational. As a result, some organizations avoid asking difficult questions about pricing altogether.

The challenge is that camps still have bills to pay. Facilities require maintenance, staff members deserve fair compensation, and ministry programs require resources. Financial sustainability isn’t separate from ministry impact—it supports it.

Throughout the conversation, Mark repeatedly returned to the idea that stewardship should guide pricing decisions. The goal isn’t simply charging more. The goal is aligning pricing with demand in a way that helps camps remain healthy and effective for years to come.

The Most Important Pricing Metric Camps Ignore

When Carl asked how camp leaders can determine whether they may be underpricing certain programs or seasons, Mark’s answer was surprisingly simple: waitlists.

While many organizations look to surveys, market studies, or industry benchmarks, Mark believes waitlists provide some of the clearest evidence that demand exceeds available capacity. If families are consistently trying to register for certain weeks after those weeks have filled, that demand is communicating something important.

“Waitlisting is really the indicator on a leader’s dashboard.”

In Mark’s experience, many camps collect waitlists without fully utilizing the information they provide. A waitlist can reveal where demand is strongest, which programs are creating the most interest, and where pricing opportunities may exist. It can also help leaders identify future expansion opportunities or determine whether additional sessions should be added.

The conversation also touched on the language camps use when registration fills.

Mark jokingly refers to the word “full” as the camp industry’s forbidden F-word.

“The F word. It’s four letters and it’s full.”

The humor makes the point memorable, but the lesson behind it is significant. When a camp simply tells a family that a week is full, the conversation often ends. The family moves on, and the camp loses both the opportunity to serve them and the opportunity to continue building a relationship.

A waitlist keeps the conversation alive. It gives families hope that space may become available, provides camps with valuable contact information, and creates opportunities to guide guests toward alternative weeks that still have capacity.

That small shift in language reflects a larger mindset shift. Rather than viewing capacity limits as the end of the conversation, camps can use them as an opportunity to better understand demand and serve guests more intentionally.

What Demand-Based Pricing Actually Looks Like

One of the biggest misconceptions about demand-based pricing is that it requires complicated software or constantly changing rates similar to what travelers experience when booking airline tickets.

Mark’s definition is much simpler.

Demand-based pricing means charging more during periods of higher demand and creating pricing opportunities during periods of lower demand. The goal isn’t complexity. The goal is alignment.

For most camps, the easiest place to start is seasonal pricing. Different seasons naturally carry different levels of demand, staffing requirements, activity offerings, and operational costs. Summer camp, fall retreats, winter programs, and guest group rentals often experience very different demand patterns, yet many organizations continue using a single pricing structure throughout the year.

By introducing seasonal pricing tiers, camps can begin matching pricing to demand without dramatically changing their systems or creating confusion for guests.

Mark also encouraged camps to develop a more intentional process for reviewing sales activity. Weekly meetings that examine new leads, lost opportunities, pricing objections, and booking trends can provide valuable insight into how demand is changing throughout the year.

Rather than treating pricing as fixed and untouchable, leadership teams can evaluate opportunities strategically. In some situations, maintaining a premium price may be the right decision. In others, adjusting pricing for a historically low-demand period may help fill capacity that would otherwise sit empty.

The key is making intentional decisions rather than relying solely on tradition or policy.

Using Pricing to Fill More Capacity

One of the most important themes throughout the episode was that demand-based pricing is not simply another name for raising prices.

In many situations, lower prices can be just as important as higher ones.

If a camp consistently fills certain weeks while struggling to fill others, pricing can become a tool that helps distribute demand more effectively. Families who cannot afford a premium week may have an opportunity to attend during a lower-demand week at a reduced rate. Guest groups with limited budgets may be willing to shift their dates if more affordable options are available.

Mark describes this approach as the “No, but yes” principle.

Instead of saying, “No, we can’t help you,” camps can say, “No, we can’t offer that discount during our highest-demand week, but yes, we can help you attend during another week.”

This approach creates options without eroding the value of high-demand programs. It also allows camps to serve a wider range of guests while improving utilization during slower periods.

Perhaps most importantly, it reframes pricing as a way to expand access rather than restrict it.

Real Results from Camps That Made the Shift

Throughout the conversation, Mark shared examples of camps that experienced meaningful growth after implementing demand-based pricing principles.

Some organizations saw significant improvements simply by introducing seasonal pricing. Others increased bookings by becoming more flexible during historically low-demand periods. In several cases, the biggest gains came not from raising prices, but from helping groups find solutions that made booking possible.

One example involved a guest group that was hesitant to book because the accommodations lacked nearby bathrooms. Rather than losing the reservation, the camp worked with the group to bring in temporary restroom facilities and share the additional cost. The result was a successful booking that might otherwise have been lost.

For Mark, these situations highlight an important leadership principle. Too often, organizations default to saying, “That’s our policy.” A healthier approach is asking, “How can we solve this problem together?”

That mindset shifts the conversation from enforcement to partnership.

Mark also pointed listeners back to the Grow Your Camp Podcast episode featuring Brian Mount from Hume Lake. By listening carefully to customer feedback and adjusting both program structure and pricing, Hume significantly increased participation and enrollment.

The lesson was simple: growth often happens when organizations pay attention to what their customers are telling them and respond thoughtfully.

What This Means for Your Camp

One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that growth doesn’t always require expansion. Sometimes growth begins with understanding demand more clearly. Sometimes it starts with paying attention to waitlists. Sometimes it comes from creating more flexibility for your booking team. And sometimes it begins with a simple seasonal pricing model.

For camp leaders who feel overwhelmed by the idea of changing pricing structures, Mark’s advice is refreshingly practical.

“Baby steps.”

Start with one change. Measure the results. Learn from what happens. Then take the next step.

The goal isn’t to implement a sophisticated pricing system overnight. The goal is to become a better steward of the resources, facilities, and opportunities that God has already entrusted to your organization.

Where to Go From Here

Healthy camps require both mission focus and financial sustainability. Demand-based pricing isn’t about maximizing revenue at all costs. It’s about aligning pricing with demand, creating more opportunities for ministry, and ensuring that camps remain healthy enough to serve future generations.

If this conversation challenged you to think differently about pricing, capacity, or long-term sustainability, consider taking a closer look at your own waitlists, booking patterns, and seasonal demand trends. You may discover opportunities for growth that have been hiding in plain sight.

To learn more, explore other episodes of the Grow Your Camp Podcast, subscribe for future conversations, or use the Get Help link at GrowYourCampPodcast.com to connect with Carl and Mark’s teams.

Thoughtful growth creates more opportunities for ministry impact.

Let’s grow camp… together.