As the director or administrator of a high school sports team, you know how beneficial sports are to students. They provide them a chance to develop essential skills that come in handy both in their studies and later in life—learning responsibility, time management, perseverance, teamwork, collaboration, etc. Additionally, physical activity helps improve their cognitive abilities and keep fit, which is crucial for their health and overall development. On the same note, high school sports provide an excellent foundation for those who desire to pursue a career in sports.
However, running a sports program can be challenging, especially if you do not have a regular source of external funds to supplement the school’s allocated budget.
Uniforms, equipment, travel costs to tournaments, etc., are crucial team expenses that require finances, and in most cases, the school’s budget barely covers the costs. Receiving funding for a solution like CoachMePlus can be an expense you might not even consider as a coach, so it’s time to get creative! This leaves the athletic director/administrator and coaches at crossroads, choosing which sports programs to fund with limited resources.
In this article, we give you some fundraising ideas that you should consider to get your athletic programs a much-needed financial boost. These include:
- Support From Booster Clubs
- Phone Bank With Alumni
- Trivia Tournament
- Game-Day Fundraisers
- 50/50 Raffles
- Game Day Reserved Parking and Car Wash
- Coach Stunts for Pay
- Signing Up for Blast Fundraising or Snap! Raise
- Add a Fundraising Link to Your Website & Social
- Business Sponsorships
- Restaurant Partnerships
Support From Booster Club
Booster clubs come in handy when it comes to supplementing school budgets for sports programs. Athletic booster clubs are generally made from a group of parents or community members who work to fund activities beyond the school allotted budget. They assist, promote, and support athletic programs (or other clubs). When a group of parents and community members join together to support several sports clubs it makes game day fundraisers much easier to staff since the students in different sports can staff fund raisers while the other athletes are participating in games.
In addition to volunteering time, they can contribute money to finance team activities. Your school may decide to have a single booster club for better and convenient management, or you may have individual clubs for each sport and enjoy the higher parental commitment synonymous with multiple clubs. For instance, you could have the clubs raise money for specific expenditures. At the same time, the parents can help you run some of the fundraising events discussed below.
Game-Day Fundraisers
Game-day fundraisers are another exciting way to raise money for your sports program while engaging the community. For instance, you could sell merchandise, snacks, and beverage on a sporting day and channel the profits to the clubs’ kitty. You can easily pull this with the help of staff members, students, or even parents.
50/50 Raffles to Fund a High School Sports Team
50/50 raffles are another exciting way to raise funds during the event. To run a 50/50 raffle competition, you simply sell tickets to the attendees. Once you draw the winning ticket, you split the money collected from selling the money 50/50 between the winner and the sports program’s kitty.
Food Truck Partnership
On the same note, you could organize with local restaurants to set up a food truck during the sporting event. The partnership could involve splitting the proceeds from the food sold during the event in exchange for the exposure.
Sports Day Car Wash or Reserved Parking
If your sporting events attract many people, you could designate a reserved parking area on the sports day and charge a fee for the spots. At the same time, you could have volunteers wash cars for attendees for pay and channel the collections to the program kitty.
Coach Stunts for Pay
This is another fun activity that you could set up to raise funds from students and faculty. During the game spectators can cast a vote for $1 for something (what color gatorade to dump on the coach at the end of the game, how many push ups they have to do, etc.) At the end of the game whichever stunt gets the most votes the coach must perform! Or, you could have a coach do one push up/lap/jump for $1 each. If 25 people pay, they have to do 25 laps!
Getting Direct Financial Support
Phone Bank With Alumni
Certainly, dozens of athletes have passed through your high school’s sports program. You can reach out to these past athletes and ask for financial support. Better still, you could have an annual event where the alumni come together and dine in support of the team. In addition to providing them an opportunity to reconnect, you get to receive donations to fund your activities.
Signing Up for Blast Fundraising or Snap! Raise
With online platforms dedicated to athlete fundraising, you can easily set up a channel to receive recurring donations from team supporters. For instance, Blast Fundraising allows you to create a team app/website, and team members can invite their family and friends who might want to donate by providing their contact details (phone and email).
Once they receive the invite, all they need to do is click the link, choose the team member they want to support, and make the donation via their card. The app also allows you to keep the donors updated with the team’s progress by posting videos, scores, and recaps.
Snap! Raise also works almost the same way to fund a high school sports team. You set up your account and start fundraising in a snap.
Add a Fundraising Link to Your Website & Social
If you have an optimized website that receives substantial traffic, you can take advantage of the increased viewership to seek donations. The best way to achieve this is to embed a donation form at a conspicuous spot on the site.
You can even build a landing page with a donation form and channel supporters to the page using social media or email by sharing the page link and inviting them to follow and donate.
Business Sponsorships
Business sponsorship is a common practice in the sporting world. For centuries, business people and corporate organizations have been at the center of sporting activities, where they sponsor the teams, mainly for marketing reasons. You can approach local businesses, athletes’ parents, or even large corporations (if possible) for sponsorship. This is an excellent way of involving the community while benefiting mutually.
Though finding willing sponsors and signing the agreements might be pretty involving, the move is beneficial as the additional funds allow you to fund several sports teams for competitions. And since the opportunity gives the businesses a marketing platform, finding willing partners might not be much of a challenge.
Restaurant Partnerships
Is there a popular restaurant in your locality that would be willing to partner with you? You can approach them and request them to allow you to host a fundraiser and give you a percentage out of the profits for the exposure provided.
To encourage community participation during the fundraiser, you could have prize giveaways, e.g., trivia contests. You may also look into popularizing the event on social media and other local community channels.
Inspired to Fund Your High School Sports Team?
This list is by no means exhaustive. There are loads of exciting ideas to fundraise for your sports program. But these are a handful of tips to get you busy during the next few seasons. Some are easy to start, like setting up a Snap! Raise account, while others require bringing other stakeholders on board to pull a successful event. Nonetheless, what counts is the end goal – raising funds to keep your sports programs running smoothly.
But perhaps the most crucial thing in all this is to have your teams pull their A-game in every sporting activity they engage in, as this encourages supporters to make donations to help them further their goals.
At CoachMePlus, we are here to help your teams (coaches and athletes) prepare for competitions through a data-driven experience. With more than 250 teams and over 12k athletes counting us for their training, you can be certain you’re joining a winning platform.
Interested in learning how the solution works? Reach us for a demo.
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