I'm looking for suggestions on fundraisers that have worked well for your sports teams, as well as sponsorship suggestions for a competitive dance team. Thanks!
ETA: Agree with B on giving a family an option to cash out. Our cheer team had a minimum of 20 boxes of cookie dough to sell. Who wants that????... NOT ME. I LOVED having the option to just write them a check for my portion $150 and not go sell the junk..
Original:
Write a check campaign.
Silent auction
Restaurant nights for percentages of profits.
What ever you do - try to have a way for people to be able to write a check directly to the cause.
If you are requiring the kids to have to sell something - let the family have a cash out option - because some people have no one to sell to.
I know many people who don't want to buy anything - but giving directly means you get %100 of the donation and not 25 cents or less of it.
The PTA did this at our school and it was the only way they were going to get any money out of me.
The easiest thing is a pizza night at an area restaurant. Our local Papa Gino's and Pizzeria Uno do it, where all purchases on a specific day generate 20% toward the organization. It's easy to spread the word via emails and Facebook, and a lot of people in town will choose that night to get a family meal out. It costs them nothing more than it would on any other day, and the restaurant gets a lot of increased traffic, so it's a win/win. If you can get the deal to apply to take-out as well as dine-in, that's a plus. If the restaurant has a liquor license and will include alcoholic beverages in the deal, better still.
Our schools often do sundae nights in conjunction with a silent or shoebox auction. It becomes a full social night and spirit-building event, and local merchants will often donate things that can be auctioned. Hairdressers & nail salons often donate services, the nursery donates an in-season product (mums in the fall, veggie plants in the spring), the large department stores (Target, etc.) have a community dollars budget and may give gift cards or toys, museums may donate memberships or day passes, etc. Parents who can provide a product or service are good too - necessary services like 3 free lawnmowings or a free gutter cleaning bring in bucks from homeowners who need that anyway and would be happy to bid for a bargain for your group. For a shoebox auction, you want things that appeal visually to kids, so themed packages (you pack in cellophane yourself) work well: Lego package, family movie DVD package, and so on. This may be harder to do if your group isn't large - you need a bunch of people to coordinate solicitations and track donations and ensure that thank yous go out. You can also do a virtual auction and not require people to come out on a specific night.
It's absolutely vital that you indicate where the money is going. People get hit up all the time for this organization and that, and if your group is small and only open to a select group of kids, it may be harder to get people to pitch in to only help, say, 30 kids. But if it's a big dance academy and the members come from many towns, you can also spread out more and get more donations/participation.
I’m planning a Designer Bag Bingo Event. We are requiring every family to sell a minimum of 4 tickets as well as donate an item to the raffle baskets. Other Designer Bag Bingo events in our area have brought in well over $10,000. We are hoping to do the same.😊
Restaurant nights are popular here. Chipotle has one of the best percentage-back deals for organizations.
For baseball, we straight up ask local businesses to sponsor the team. Then we print a banner that we take to every game and hang on the fence/dugout (depending on the setup) that has our team logo and says thank you to our sponsors with all the sponsor names listed. I don't know enough about dance to know if there is a similar way to advertise for and thank sponsors.
The restaurant night is a great idea I know a lot of the schools in my area do them for different things. I don't have any idea about how much the bring in. I am running into the same problem with my son and trying to find ways to raise money for him. I know his gym has sold Yankee candles. But I am not sure how we got plugged into that. That was a great fund raiser because most everyone loves candles and I think we got 50% of the profit if I remember correctly. Another group I am a part of sold Worlds Finest Chocolate one year. That was a big hit because most people like chocolate and it's instant gratification unlike ordering something and having to wait on it. When it heats up you might be able to do a car wash or a garage sale where everyone brings stuff to sell and all the money goes to the team. You might see about starting a booster club and see if you can get non profit status. I don't know what that all entails to start up. We are a part of one and we work at the Texas Motor Speedway (sometimes in concessions and sometimes greeters) and Rough Riders baseball games doing concessions. They pay the money to the booster club and they get a tax write-off of some sort (I think) and we get the money toward his completion fund.
It's not always as easy as Julie g said if you can't afford it rethink your child's activity. My son does competition gymnastics and when he started we had no clue it would cost what it does we also had no clue how far he would go with it. He stated at 8 years old and now is 15 and an Elite gymnast. His fees are going up as he has to go to more things and travel more. But in no way would we pull him out. We just have to get creative with finances.
I went to one of those paint and sip nights. I think the % you get back varies. But it was fun and there was a great turnout. I believe the team I was there for made at least $1000. just from that. They also had raffle baskets and a 50/50 so they made even more.
I have nothing productive to say. All I can say is that I am sick of friends asking me to fund their children's activities with fundraisers.
We homeschool. I have very high property tax. I support their children by paying my tax. When and if they would like to put money in my Japan fund (my oldest wants to go to Japan), then I will be happy to buy or pay for Z to support their children. Otherwise, rethink your kids activity if you cannot afford it.
Local restaurant nights, silent auctions, raffles, selling concessions at events, selling spirit wear (hats, t shirts, poms, etc.) asking parents directly for donations.
This is how we raise money for school and club sports, gymnastics and arts events/competitions.
