I love youth and high school sports, but I honestly hate the fundraising that goes along with them. Nevertheless, fundraising is a necessary step towards affording team uniforms, equipment, travel, and more. If you are seeking fundraising solutions, browse these 21 actionable ideas and learn how you can use FanAngel as a homebase to turbo-charge your team’s finances.
1. Personalize your ‘ask letter’ and crowdfunding.
This is the base level of crowdfunding: a personal ‘ask letter’ is often the fastest and easiest way to raise needed funds by reaching out directly to friends and family for their support. But the reality is that two factors work against simple donation pages:
- People are accustomed to ignoring life's noise, which is especially true with fundraising campaigns.
- When a campaign does catch their attention, people constantly fight the Bystander Effect (meaning they are less likely to help if they think others will handle it).
At FanAngel, we designed our platform specifically to battle these difficulties.
- We personalize pages for team fundraisers, making it easy to display each athlete's name, photo, and individual fundraising goal.
- We are your online store for all donations, tickets to events, ad space, and more. Your donors only need to access FanAngel to give, no matter the event; they can also donate directly if they are unable to participate in person.
- We encourage you to post your FanAngel page on social media to share information about current fundraisers and progress.
- We offer outreach consulting to help you be as specific as possible with your messaging, incentives, and team communication. Email FanAngel or use the online chat feature to reach our campaign coaches for advice.
Start a fundraiser with FanAngel
2. Host an ‘Applebee's Flapjacks’ or other restaurant event.
A restaurant fundraiser is great for high school teams who need to raise ~$3,000 with relative ease. If you are lucky enough to live in NY, NJ, GA or FL, then you may be close to a participating Applebee's to host a FlapJack Fundraiser. Here’s how it works:
- Find a restaurant that is closed for breakfast and ask if they would be willing to host and staff a pancake breakfast. (If your fundraiser is for a high school team, involve your athletes in hosting & staffing.)
- Pay the restaurant $5-6/ticket and sell tickets to the public at $12-15.
- Pre-sell a minimum of 100+ tickets online to make sure the event is worth hosting.
- Amplify the event with raffles, gear sales, and other fundraising opportunities.
If you live elsewhere, alternative restaurants typically share 15-20% of sales. (Chipotle does 50%!) GroupRaise can help you find participating restaurants in your area.
The success of restaurant events can vary wildly based on the marketing and profit-sharing scenarios. Be sure to use social media and email to get the word out, but expect that 90% of the attendees will come from the athlete's family & friend network.
See our more detailed comparison in our post about Restaurant Nights.
3. Sell banner space, program ads, and team schedule posters to local businesses
There's a good reason why stadiums sell naming rights, and jumbotrons are filled with sponsors. It works! The relationship between sports teams and business is tried and true; that goes all the way down to local sports and local businesses.
However, the year-in, year-out processes of selling ads can be a challenge. You might have parents carting kids all over town with sign-up fliers in hand, only to find the owner isn't in. Or, you have owners who get hit up constantly for ads who would prefer a succinct menu of all their options at the start of the school year or season.
Using online tools for ads and banners can greatly save time and energy for all involved:
- Use your FanAngel campaign to sell ads to local businesses.
- Include the URL or QR code for your FanAngel campaign page on your leave-behind flyer. This gives each business all of the information they need to support your team.
- Use Google Drive or Dropbox to transfer logos and banner mockups.
- As an added shoutout for corporate support, use social media to showcase their logo and the completed banner when it arrives.
- Your banner can include a custom offer such as: bring a photo of this banner to Pizza Planet and get two free drinks with your large pizza order.
For a more detailed discussion about local business connections, see Tips for Fence Banners and more.
4. ‘Shame’ the coach, athlete, or principal in a comedic contest.
There are several variations of this fundraiser. All of them revolve around a mildly uncomfortable (but funny) scenario that takes place when your fundraising goal is met. Some possibilities:
- Duct-tape a coach, principal or even athletes to a wall.
- Shave the head(s) of the coach, principal or even athletes.
- Equip the Coach: Start with a photo of the coach in a swimming suit. As donations come in, clothe the coach in the team uniform/equipment. The series of photos works as a Progress Thermometer.
Obviously, be careful when using athletes for this fundraiser – make sure the parents approve! Athletes can post their own videos on social media to promote the event.
5. Gift a flock of flamingos to a friend.
A small investment in a few pink birds can turn into a season-long fundraiser. Donors can pay $10-20 to have some plastic feathered friends appear on someone's lawn. Your organization can follow up with a chance to “Flock It Forward,” where donors pay to move the flock to another address. Include your FanAngel URL on your "You've Been Flocked" sign, so victims can quickly and easily Flock it Forward.
Creative twists keep the funds flying in, such as offering “insurance” to prevent the flock from landing at your address. Finally, social media posts of flocked yards build a fun sense of community.
6. Sell garbage bags, detergent, and soap.
With “you gotta buy it anyway” style fundraisers, raising $3,000+ for a team is very reasonable.
Online companies selling colorful garbage bags are quick ways to earn cash for your team; more resourceful boosters might opt for the Costco route. Either way, everyone needs these household items, so it's a win/win for teams and their donors.
Use your FanAngel page to pre-order supplies at Resource Solutions (or go to Costco). Check out Good Clean Fundraising for a supplier with great reviews.
7. Host a kids night out or movie night.
If you're a school, you likely have a gym and projector. Heck, you might even have a popcorn maker. Leveraging what you have is the best way to make money. High school team members could help host the actual event on a volunteer basis.
Every attendee is almost pure profit, so getting the word out is your key to success. Market using flyers, social media, signs, and email…and remember to include your FanAngel URL or QR code on all marketing materials so that tickets can be easily pre-purchased.
8. Host a Lift-A-Thon, Jog-A-Thon, or "Pick Up Trash"-a-Thon
Various "A-Thon" fundraisers are like putting crowdfunding on (dare I say) steroids. This variation can amplify your returns, BUT it requires a little more setup and management.
For sports teams, consider hosting this fundraiser as a pre-season kickstarter. A lift-a-thon has the added benefit of motivating athletes to share their progress on social media. Promoting your fundraiser is essential, so use every advantage you can get!
If your season has already started, you can use Wins, Points, Touchdowns as your "A-Thon" metric. In addition to fans, family, and friends, you can extend this idea to local businesses by asking them to donate using FanAngel, and then you agree to announce their donation during games: "With that touchdown, Pizza Planet just donated $50!"
9. Put on a community drive-thru barbecue.
The best thing about a drive-thru barbecue is that it doesn't feel like a donation. As a result, you encounter a lot less friction when selling and buying tickets. On the other hand, the work and cost can eat into your profits.
Consider these best practices when organizing your drive-thru meal event:
- Get as much of the food donated as possible.
- Give credit to sponsors as much as possible (to-go bags, signs, social media, etc.). The more the sponsor (whoever donated the food) sees this as advertising, the more likely they will help again.
- Have the athletes do as much work as possible. Donors will be inspired by the cause if the athletes are taking ownership of their own fundraising.
- If a restaurant is providing the food, take a quick video of the athletes at the restaurant promoting the fundraiser and thanking the business.
10. Sell temporary tattoos.
Showing school spirit through temporary tattoos is easy, inexpensive, and fun! Buying 1,000 tattoos for less than $200 makes this a pretty profitable option.
- Consider using a crowdfunding reward to get a list of pre-orders.
- Sell pre-orders by the dozen for $10+. Include a free tattoo as part of Season Ticket sales or some other value add.
- Set up a tattoo stand at a game or school event and sell at $2-3 per tattoo.
Check out temporarytattoos.com for more details on ordering.
11. Play teacher vs. student sports.
A student vs. staff game is great for building local community support. Sell tickets for entry, include barbecue or pizza slices, hold raffles, partner with a local restaurant to host an after party and share the profits – these events offer plenty of opportunities to extend the fundraising. This is also a great time to combine other fundraisers on this list, like shaving a coach's head and selling tattoos. Be sure to promote the event on social media with a teaser video starring staff and students!
12. Host a meal & auction event.
Events like a spaghetti, barbeque, or crab feed can be amazing opportunities to build community support, while also raising lots of needed cash. However, when done right, they are a lot of work. When these grow into cherished annual events, they build excitement and momentum in your community. The planning can likewise stretch over a longer span of time.
- Find an inexpensive community center to rent so that you can serve alcohol. Alternatively, use a unique destination where you can charge a premium ticket price.
- Auctions are typical at these events and are usually a large portion of the revenue, but are again added work. Collect email addresses from typical auction item donors so you can be more efficient each year.
- Make sure to vet and verify all vacation rewards offered for auction. Timeshare vacations can often backfire.
13. Gear! Make it unique.
Spiritwear can be awesome if you know it will sell. Too many schools and booster clubs end up with tons of unsold items. This is where online designing and pre-order can really help.
Consider creating an online t-shirt contest on 99designs.com and get students to vote on the winning designs. It's a minimum $299 investment, but the quality of design can be excellent.
- Pre-orders should make up 80%+ of the total sales. A sense of urgency is important to promote prompt sales.
- Don't get the cheapest t-shirt material. High quality material will cut into your profit, but it's best for long-term success, because fans will wear them more and want to buy them again in the future.
- For team uniforms/gear, check out squadlocker.com fundraising.
14. Rent an athlete or team.
A form of indentured servitude? Maybe. But the lessons learned from "earning your way" can be worth it. After all, why do we support youth sports? Isn't it to teach goal setting, hard work, and achievement?
For this fundraiser, use an auction at a hosted event (like #12) or an online auction campaign to get the most out of these "rentals.” Alternatively, reach out to your local fraternal or charity organization (Shiners, Rotary Club, etc.); they often are running events, like golf tournaments, where a split of profits or flat fee can be an easy win for a team of volunteers.
Promote the rental with social media; video the athletes being corny, flexing muscles, saying show strong and hard-working they are.
15. Sell Christmas trees.
Trees, wreaths, and poinsettias can become a yearly staple for a selected team or band. Typical school fundraisers like this are "you get what you get" style – trees and plants come pre-wrapped and aren’t chosen selectively. Your team can charge extra for delivery and recruit parents with trucks to make the rounds. People will continue to buy long after their kids have graduated.
- If this event extends beyond a day, arrange for trees and plants to be secured overnight.
- Sell hot chocolate and cider at the event.
16. Host a car Wash
This old-school fundraiser still works. Post on social media, promote via email and any school websites, and take prepayments on FanAngel. Simple!
17. Jersey Sponsorships
Appropriate for most youth and adult leagues, jerseys are great ways for companies to show support. Keeping an email list of former donors keeps the process streamlined for year-over-year ask.
- Use Dropbox or Google Drive to transfer files.
- Tell your athletes to wear their jerseys outside of game day. If sponsors know their names are worn all over town, they are more apt to continue to support the cause.
- Don't use the cheapest t-shirt material. The higher quality shirts will get worn MORE, which means the sponsors will be seen more.
18. Host a poker or casino night.
Vegas, baby! This is a great fundraiser that can be fun, annual, and very profitable. With the right marketing and prizes, these events can draw crowds that are well outside your normal fan community. Make sure to check your state law for specifics regarding allowed prizes.
Follow your state law, but here are a few potential ideas:
- You may want to hire a third-party company that can help run the games and bring supplies like chips, tables, and chairs.
- Include "re-buys" and "add-ons." These are great money-makers.
- Include prizes like a Vegas trip or buy-ins to big poker tournaments.
- Run additional cash games with separate prizes for those that are knocked out of the tournament early.
19. Bathe some dogs.
A dreaded chore is always better when someone else does it! That's why a dog wash can bring in big bucks. With a few hoses, tubs, some shampoo, and some team players, you are on your way. Another option is to partner with a local pet store that has a washing station.
- Use an online scheduler to make appointments.
- Take photos and share on social media.
- Hold a cutest wet dog contest with online voting. You could even charge $5 to enter!
20. Host a shoe drive.
While shoe drives are not necessarily big money makers, you can make a few bucks and feel good knowing that your old shoes are helping those in developing countries instead of sitting in a landfill.
Check out funds2orgs.com for more information. They can hand-hold you through the whole process.
21. Golf Tournament
Professional athletes and teams run annual golf tournaments as their main charity initiatives -- why not youth and high school programs? Contact your local course to organize a date and time. Do it early as courses often need a long lead time.
(Do you have a killer idea that's not on this list? Email us at info@fanangel.com and we'll add it!)
FanAngel is the homebase for all of these 21 fundraising ideas and more. As you market your various fundraisers through flyers, social media, and email, keep your donors coming back to your landing page at FanAngel, time and time again.
- FanAngel is the one website where all payments happen, no matter what fundraiser you are running. Pre-ordering tickets or goods, making donations, buying ads, purchasing team gear – it all happens on your FanAngel campaign site.
- All personal & team social media posts, flyers, and signage should link back to the FanAngel campaign page for donations. Include the URL, QR code, and the FanAngel mailing address for family and friends who are hesitant about using credit cards online.
- The order history for event tickets purchased through FanAngel can be used as Will-Call tickets, instead of managing paper tickets; it also provides an accurate head count of those attending the event.
Questions about how FanAngel can integrate your fundraising with our platform? Chat with us now!
