Running a team isn’t inexpensive, especially as the costs for everything seem to just go up, up, up! Fundraising is becoming an increasingly important part of how sports teams meet their financing needs. In this post, we’re going to break down some old (and new!) ideas that your team can successfully use to raise cash for your next tournament, new gear, or whatever else your team needs!
It goes without saying, but you’ll see the best success when your entire team – and their families – are engaged.
Host a Bowling Tournament
While not quite as popular as it used to be, people still love to get out there and bowl! Bowling is fun, loved by all ages, and easy to set up as a round-robin style tournament. Local alleys are also usually pretty amenable to a tournament, especially if it’s for a good cause. We’ve had success negotiating a portion of entry fees and food/beverage sales.
But the big-ticket for your team isn’t a small cut of the entry fees- its the tournament itself!
For a solo tournament, have a $15 “buy-in” per player. Set up matches where four to six players square off against each other. With a few lanes to bowl in, and with the average game taking under 40 minutes to complete, you could earn a decent amount of cash for your team in short order!
Having some choice prizes from local vendors is an ideal way to reward the winners. Look for something that is sought after in your community, and don’t be afraid to get a little unconventional. We connected with a local rancher and had a series of boxes of beef jerky in different sizes and flavors up for grabs. We gave everyone a sample pack when they bought their ticket and the results were gangbusters!
Sell Food
Solutions like TeamFund make a food fundraiser an easy affair, and it’s hard to understate how well these types of fundraisers can work… especially when you’ve got some seriously good eats up for grabs! You’ll see the most success here when you’re offering up something that is either priced competitive, or something that is hard to obtain in your area.
The beef jerky I mentioned above? Yea, that worked out great as a prize for the bowling tournament… but even better as a stand-alone item for sale! Because it came from a local rancher, it really was the best jerky ever and people gobbled it up.
Expect to see a 10-15% return on food items sold, meaning that for every $1,000 your team sells, you could see up to $150 in cash come your way. Not bad!
A few ideas that we’ve seen work really well:
- Specialty olive oils
- Specialty cheeses
- Packaged meats (sausages, jerky, etc.)
- Fresh chicken breasts
- Desserts (mmmm)
- Popcorn
Sell Coffee
Sure, I could have tossed this above in the “food” category, but coffee really is its own animal, isn’t it? And people are always looking to find a new gourmet blend to start their day with.
The key to making this one work is having something truly unique. Nobody is going to kick cash for your fundraiser if they can get the same coffee for less money on Amazon. Look for local roasters, or approach local artisan coffee shops, and offer their ground-goodness for your fundraiser. Coffee sells, and great coffee sells out.
Sell Flavored Popcorn
Okay, okay, this is the last food one, I swear!
Turn the team players into little entrepreneurs by having them create and sell flavored popcorn. First, have the members of the team survey their fellow students to discover which popcorn flavors are the most popular. Is it cheddar, sour cream and onion, or caramel?
Take the top three flavors and make multiple batches to sell at school. Have them available to purchase during the lunch hour for an entire week. Since popcorn doesn’t cost much to make, you’ll have a nice little profit in the end.
Host a Talent Competition
The only cost with a talent competition is picking up a few trophies to give to the winners. Ask students to sign up with a talent. This can be anything from singing to dancing to telling a few jokes. Kids can do a trick with their dogs, put on a short skit, or show off their karate moves. A diverse group of talent makes for a great show. Once you have your talent in place, you can begin selling tickets to the event. For a few extra dollars have parents send in baked goods that you can sell to the audience.
We recommend setting a time limit – say 3 minutes max per contestant – to ensure that your talent show doesn’t become an all-night affair.
Host a Dog Wash
Contact a local dog park and see if they will allow you to host a dog wash there. Once you have permission you can put out flyers around town, in local vet offices, and throughout the school. Charge a set amount for a wash and a dollar or two extra for a dry.
You can supercharge this one by approaching local groomers asking if they’d be willing to donate some of their time for a premium wash, where the professional gets involved and shows your team how it’s done! This is a great group event that brings awareness to your team and the sponsors of the event itself. You’ll be amazed how many groomers will hop on board since it doesn’t cost them anything other than a bit of time.
Watermelon Eating Contest
Host a watermelon eating contest. All this will cost you is a few watermelons.
To start off you’ll need to create a few categories, such as girls ages 5-10, boys ages 13 to 15, parents, or teachers. Once you have 10 to 12 categories, you can begin selling tickets for that category. On the day of the event give each contestant a large piece of watermelon. The individual who finishes their piece first is the winner. You’ll need a few ribbons to hand out to each winner, which can be purchased cheaply if you can’t get them donated.
Rent a Team
This one is one of our favorites because it’s so easy. Rent a team is exactly what it sounds like: parents/communities/associations/etc. kick in some cash to “rent” your team. They could be shoveling driveways, mowing lawns, cleaning up litter… you name it! As long as the ask is reasonable, why not? The cost to this one is almost nothing outside of some time spent on flyers/classified ads.
Note: make sure you have a volunteer that is always watching the team when they’re being “rented”. Handing 12 kids a bunch of snow shovels unsupervised sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Rubber Duck Race
This one is always a crowd-pleaser.
Here’s how it goes: purchase a batch of rubber ducks in bulk and then sell the ducks to students, parents, and teachers. Each duck will need a unique number placed on its back with a permanent magic marker.
Locate a small stream or river that you can send the ducks down for a race. At the “finish line” there will need to be a net as the finish line to collect the ducks. The first duck that touches the net is the winner. Have a small prize ready for the owner of the winning duck.
Teachers vs. Team Tug-Of-War
Another crowd pleasure, and a bit unconventional as far as team fundraisers go, and it usually doesn’t cost anything assuming your school has or has access to a tug of war rope (or even just a really big rope). Next, find some teachers willing to give it a go and pit them against your team (try to keep the odds even here – pitting a football coach + gym teacher against a small team of grade 5 soccer students is going to hurt no matter how many soccer drills those kids do).
Sell raffle tickets so people can bet on the winning team, and the winning team then runs a raffle by pulling tickets out of a hat.
This is not only fun, but it’s always a good show!
Bonus Fundraising Ideas!
We couldn’t choose only 10, we want you to be well equipped with AWESOME ideas for this year and down the road.
Customized Elite Socks
Elite socks are really, really popular among young athletes. Although they’re on the more expensive side, the price tag is worth the quality of the brand – and past fundraisers using Elite have ended up being super successful for teams of all kinds. Options to personalize the socks include colors, logo, and text!
You can purchase socks for $8.99/per pair and sell for $16.99 per pair. It takes 3-4 weeks to get the socks after an order is placed, 3-4 weeks to sell 250 pairs, and you can earn up to $2000 in those 3-4 weeks
Design your socks here.
Rent-An-Athlete Or Rent-A-Student
The best part about this fundraiser is that there is a 100% profit! Your organization can offer to “rent your students” to families to do mow their lawns, do yard work, walk their dogs, help clean out their garage, or any other jobs they might need done. This is typically done in increments of 30 minutes. It’s pretty cut and dry and a great money maker! It’s also a fun opportunity to bring the community together for a fun event.
What this costs, and how long it takes, is up to you what you pay out to set up the event for families to “rent.” Of course, you could always just spread the word and have virtually no cost for this idea and just have sign-up sheets!
This type of fundraiser allows you to earn 100% profit. Check here for a quick how-to for hosting your own.
Try a Read-a-Thon
Read-a-Thon fundraisers are awesome to run because they can happen year-round, require little in the ways of supplies/preparation, and can be built to include a huge chunk of students. Not only is this an “easier” fundraiser to run, but it is open to all grade levels and helps students improve their reading and writing skills (always a good thing).
If you want top keep things physical (but like the idea of running an “A Thon”), try a walk-a-thon fundraiser – very similar, but walking instead of reading!
Host a Silent Auction
Silent auctions make for great fundraisers because you can get really creative with the items/services you include the auction. Thanks to smartphones and apps, it’s easier than ever to host a silent auction. Silent auction apps like BidBeacon make setting up and managing auctions easy and intuitive. In most cases, the app will handle user registration, bid management, and payments, too!
If you like the idea but are unsure of how to get started, check out this list of list of silent auction item ideas as well as this post about what silent auction mistakes you should avoid.
Discount Cards
These cards include discounts to both national and local restaurants and retailers that can be used repetitively for one year. You can secure up to 15 businesses that community members can benefit from. Often times this fundraiser is one that a school or team will do every year because people love the cards and look for the students to sell them annually!
Discount cards are typically sold at $15 or $20 per card and you can expect to earn 50-93% profit! We recommend running this at the start of the school year and consider selling them for the typical for 3-4 weeks.
Learn more about the card details here.
Entertainment Books
These books are wonderful – and like the discount cards – community members will want to purchase one every year. They are loaded with local coupons and save us a ton of money. There is no upfront cost or out of pocket expense and shipping is free. You pay the company after they’ve been paid so it is literally $0 to get started.
Like the discount cards, start selling at the start of the school year for 3-4 weeks. Your school or team can earn up to 40% profit!
Learn more about fundraising with Entertainment here.
Trash Bags
Although these are not the most exciting products, they are great sellers because everyone uses trash bags! The overall price point is really low which is a great selling point as well. These are perfect per team or even as a school sports fundraiser as well. It takes 2-4 weeks to get the bags with the fundraiser recommendation that you have it lasts 2 weeks.
The potential to meet whatever goal you’re trying to achieve, for example, $3000, for new band equipment, is wide open since everyone needs trash bags and we all love supporting a good cause.
A few companies that do the trash bag fundraisers are Bags for Bucks, Frontier Bag, and Resource Fundraising.
So many fun ideas and I had to laugh because last year I somehow had 8 tubs of cookie dough after it was all over!! LOL Pinned!!
WiperTags are a new patent pending product great for school fund raising. They are customizable and attach directly to rear wipers. Much better than window decals and car magnets. Check out http://www.WiperTags.com
Love this, thanks!
These are great, but have you heard of the new website SwopBoard.com? You can buy and sell your things and a portion of those sales goes back to your school. Seems like much less time spent organizing campaigns and more time cleaning house AND getting the dollars for our school.
we are trying to find fundraisers for our elementary school of things that hasnt been done before in our area it seems that the schools sell the same things over and over again do you guys have new ideals we are pre-k through 6 grades with no kinds of sports at our schools so that makes it bad for the sports part of it can you help us out thank you so very much
Daisy,
Our school does a carnival for the elementary school. They sell tickets for games (done in the classrooms), each class does a themed basket for a silent auction that night, and there is a cake walk. Just a suggestion! 🙂
WiperTags are brand new. Just launched this summer. They are customizable badges that attach to your rear wipers that can be just about any shape – baseball bat, lacrosse sticks, soccer legs. Very cool and creative. They are also interchangeable for other designs – like holidays, sports, brands, etc. They’re also great for fund raising. Usually buy for $10, sell for $15 ($19 with decal).
Thank you for including Tattoo Sales in your post – there are a lot of great ideas here!
If you’re looking for some additional fundraising ideas, I suggest checking out BoosterShot (http://www.goboostershot.com/). They have a unique set of fundraising products that our community loves to support. Our HS Football program have used them for the last couple years, and we always raise over $7K with their products. They are very hands-on and work hard to ensure we meet our fundraising goals.
Andy, THANKS for the suggestion!!! 🙂
Great ideas. To add to your list, Yankee Candle does a great fundraiser every spring and fall. Very easy to run, and the catalogs are scratch and sniff. I believe the percentage that you keep is 40%.
Have you thought of selling something everyone uses! Laundry Detergent and Softeners. Check it our at http://www.detergentfordollars.com It’s an easy sell.
While we do get quite a few fundraising requests, I wanted to mention that most manufacturers have minimum quantities around 100 pairs so you will need to budget this wisely to have enough money to buy the socks and get a comfortable return on investment.
We tried WiperTags for our baseball travel team and the parents and kids loved them. We traveled all over North Carolina and Moms from other teams kept asking us where we got them. We liked having something different instead of magnets. When the season was over, we detached them and my son hung on his bedroom door. They were also fun to work with and got us our order quickly.
We used WiperTags.com also for our high school band in Indiana and raised around $400. We sold different designs to the band, football team, soccer team and the rest of the school. I always get Moms from other schools asking where we got them, although I’d like to keep it a secret 🙂
Many parents told us they didn’t want to put decals or magnets on their cars because they are difficult to get off or cause damage to their paint. They also wanted something different so we’re trying an online fundraiser with WiperTags. We also didn’t have money upfront to pre-purchase in hopes they would sell. They made several designs to choose from for our school athletics teams and cheer. So far so good.
How did your fundraiser turn out online?
Sorry – just saw this. The first week we did it wasn’t that great because parents had never heard of or seem them. But once they started seeing on cars and we started selling face to face they took off. They’re better quality and more durable than they look. They also have really thick decals that can be removed and reapplied. Love them!
Make sure your school’s families know about Labels 2 Learn, an online label redemption program. You enter your own codes on the website from the products and services you buy. No scissors, no saving, no sorting! Give a shout out in your school newsletter or on your website! Find products near you at https://www.labels2learn.com/shopping_list.php.
Hi all, just want to add http://www.ForTheSchools.com which pays your school or organization cash back when you shop online at over 1,000 stores (Walmart, Target, Groupon, etc.)
Thanks for sharing! I just heard about this from my neighbor and she loves it!
Would you like to set up a online Fundraiser with Jewelry In Candles and get ten percent of the orders made. you can get it during the duration of the online fundraiser or at the end of the event. An event page can be set up on facebook. Please email me for more information [email protected]
Hi! Thanks for all of the great ideas! I was looking at the rent an athlete…have you seen thsi done and how did they do it? Flat rate>? Different rate for different job? What age? Did they use a form? I would like to propose to use for our lacrosse league but need a little more info.
Hi
Great ideas 😀
I’ve also seen recently crowdfunding for sports. See a good story with Ese Omene in track and field who raised enough to go to the PanAm games in Toronto.
Would love to hear comments on Yoshi-Bella, a jewelry and accessories company that can produce customize medallions for your sports team or event. With a small minimum number (100) have your logo or event made on a medallion that can be snapped onto a necklace, keychain, bracelet, shoelace, etc. Large selection of stock items in different sports themes, colours and styles. Wear a necklace at the afternoon game with the team logo, change into a glamorous blingy piece to go out in the evening. For team orders over $500 40% of sales returned to team. Could put the socket for the medallions on backpacks, purses, sports bags, etc.
Let me know your thoughts! Caroline, [email protected]
Thanks for sharing this opportunity with our readers! It sounds like a great fundraiser! 🙂
Great article! Would love to have Hip Chix Fundraisers mentioned next time! It is perfect for sports teams especially Cheerleading and Dance! 🙂 Hip Chix is an online jewelry fundraiser where we work with women’s charities and sports teams to raise money in a fun, unique way. Hip Chix harnesses the power of social media, email and the internet in general to help your charity/cause raise money! Your group will receive a minimum of 40% from each order and can receive as much as 50%! http://www.hipchixfundraisers.com
Some great ideas. I especially liked the duct taped fundraiser. I too would love to have Connexion World Travel Fundraisers mentioned in one of your articles. It’s a great way for sports teams or for that matter schools and PTOs to raise money. Everybody travels for business – vacations, and they are big ticket items too. With just one reservation from each family earning your fundraiser up to 5% per reservation. The potential is huge! http://www.connexionworldtravel.com/fundraiser/
Hi all! Great ideas. Here is another one for you. Fundraising Midwest, has a fundraiser that is free to do, done online (so no cash to collect or product to distribute), works nationwide (allowing out of town family to participate), and the funds are residual month after month. It is an online member-savings program for the families that saves them money while supporting their group. Contact me for more information [email protected]
These are such cute ideas! Another great way for teams and athletes to fundraise is through crowdfunding platforms. Sites like makeachamp.com help athletes and teams create fundraising campaigns and encourages them to offer rewards in return for contributions. I think that the ideas you wrote about could be awesome rewards!
Here’s a good example of a team campaign: http://makeachamp.com/dawsoncollegewomensbasketball?cmp_id=10594
When I looked at the website there were not any athletes from the USA. Why is that?
Hi Danielle,
I’m sorry, I only saw your reply now! There are many athletes from the USA using MAKEACHAMP. The link above was only an example of one Canadian team. If you go to https://makeachamp.com/athletes and filter by country (and select United States), you’ll see a list of American athletes.
To see the most successful campaigns within those, simply click the “most funded” or “most popular” tab at the top of the page.
5 years ago in South Carolina I got tired of my then 1st grader having to sell frozen out of state cookie dough. I started a South Carolina product filled fundraiser. We give 40% of money raised to the school and give small local businesses a way to get involved and to gain new customers. I named the company LocalHappiness.net. We hope to replicate it in other states franchise style. We do custom socks and 3 D printed school mascots as ornaments, magnets and paper weights.
Look for a Jocksale in your town. Clean out your garage while raising funds for your team.
Some great fundraising ideas here! We have created a fundraising mobile app program for organizations (schools, sports teams, bands, non-profits). Metro Mobile Marketing builds a custom mobile app for the organization (no cost!) which is a great communication tool for your audience, and then sells mobile coupons to local businesses that are interested in sponsoring your program. No sales or administration by parents or staff and guaranteed revenue for each sale. We would love to help exceed your fundraising goals.
Thanks…and good luck with your fundraising efforts.
can i get more info please
I WOULD LOVE SOME MORE INFORMATION PLEASE! VERY CURIOUS HOW THIS WORKS! THANK YOU
Great ideas. Im writing an article about this and I have found a few good extra ideas!
Thanks for sharing
When I was in middle school, we taped teachers to the wall, and I thought it would be a great thing to do with the kids I work with. It’s fun (for the kids), though almost terrifying (I stood on a chair the whole time). You have to be careful, even if you’re not keeping people up there for a while. Here’s a website about how to do it right/safely.
http://www.advancedsafetyhealth.com/newsletter-blog/2010/05/27/duct-tape-fundraiser-activity-safety-concerns/?Itemid=107
Neva, thanks for sharing the safety info!! 🙂
Your web site is correct….everybody uses trash bags, BUT 70% of the trash bags purchased are DRAWASTRING TRASH BAGS! They can help you out @ http://WWW.GPACBAGS.COM
How about a no sell option? Our hs band and athletics dept just paired up with the local Lincoln dealer and did a Sign and Drive event. No sales pitch, no pressure to buy. Just a couple of test drives and a short survey per person and in a few hours your team/school can walk away with success. We needed 200 drivers to earn $8000 in 5 hours. And Lincoln set up everything.
Megan, that sounds like my kind of fundraiser!! Thanks for the suggestion!
Megan, are there any more details to it? Specifically, where is the money coming from? My husband is a manager at a Dodge dealership and this is something I could definitely have him pitch to his bosses. But I’d want to make sure I have all the details for them.
We wrote about the Drive 4UR School in this post about Fall Fundraising…you can grab more info there!
http://www.sportsmomsurvivalguide.com/fall-fundraiser-ideas/
Could you tell me more about how the school went about doing the Sign and Drive event.
We wrote about the Drive 4UR School in this post about Fall Fundraising…you can grab more info HERE!
So sick of car magnets. They scratched the paint on my car and always fall off. And I’ve got adhesive on my windows from old vinyl decals. Looking for something different for our school and was considering trying WiperTags. Looks like you can attach to a wiper or bumper. The designs in their gallery look neat – https://wipertags.com/gallery.html.
I ran into the same issue with my 8 and 6 year olds soccer teams! So I created a website that is specifically for kids to fundraise for the things that are important to them without being side by side with more tragic campaigns! Anything from raising money to buy a chicken coop to Team fundraisers. Similar to other fundraising sites but requires a parent email and coaches are able to collect all the fundraising or each team member can set it up individually. Sometimes family and friends just want to support a local kid via email so this makes it easy and lets the child be in control with parental supervision! LaunchME2.com is a great supplement to any fundraisers you are already doing or standing alone! Check it out for your little one the next time they need to fundraise! Great site and information! I will be sharing! Thanks!
Tupperware offers a great fundraising program. They give 40% back to the organization. Plus its free to do no out of pocket fees. Not to mention the fact that everyone knows Tupperware and it has a lifetime warranty. Go to http://www.iwanttw.com to find out more.
Have you heard of TFUND? It’s a crowfunding site where you can design & sell t-shirts at no cost to you, and keep any profits you make. It’s easy to get up and running. Check out http://www.tfund.com for more information!
Ha! I wouldn’t have thought about socks, but my kids love them too! Great fundraising ideas. Thanks!
I grew tired of selling frozen dough for my daughters volleyball club. I started a fundraising company with a western flair selling Cowboy gourmet food products. 3 Salsa mixes, Texas Chili Fixin’s, Colorado Chipotle Cornbread, Campfire 6 Bean Soup and more. We give a great profit and ship anywhere in the lower 48. Check us out!
http://www.outlawsalsa.com
I’m really intrigued by the custom socks, but there is absolutely no cotton in them. I believe they are acrylic and polyester? Not really good for sweating in….any one have info on how they really wear?
Holiday themes always seem to do best when it comes to fundraising, as they accrue many more members of the community. Everyone celebrates holidays so they’ll be interested in your merch whether or not they have a personal investment in your cause. Christmas fundraisers always do best because families always want Christmas decorations to help enjoy the holiday season, so they work for those wanting to buy for themselves, or others. A great Christmas fundraiser idea is selling fresh holiday evergreens – wreaths, garlands, etc. – our school works with http://www.willametteevergreen.com/christmas-wreath-fundraisers and we always have success!
Loving the ideas! Fundraising should be fun! Out of these ideas, which one is your favorite?? Please comment below.
Thanks for these ideas! I like the socks and temporary tattoos the best.