Make the most of your fundraising
Success Is A Blog Away
If you are like most of our customers who are in charge of running their youth sports organizations, you may have noticed that it is becoming more and more difficult to get people to do anything.
It may be even harder to get participation in your league or organization fundraiser.
This trend is disturbing and ultmately affects your bottom line.
Back in 2001 when we started Fundrazor, we noticed an average of over 50% participation in the league fundraisers.
Now days, the average participation is about 20%-30%.
With the economy the way it is, you simply can’t afford to get average results with your fundraising.
Take a look at the next paragraph.
Did you know?
Leagues or organizations that do not have a defined plan for participation are missing out on a lot of great things, mainly the loss of income.
By creating expectations for your fundraiser or making it obligatory, you can easily get over 90% participation.
Just imagine increasing your profit from $5000 to over $15,000 by making a few changes. The only downside is that you will have to spend more time counting the additional money raised.
Nevertheless, setting some expectations is not such a bad idea, and it can bring in significant benefits for your organization.
👍🏽 Helpful Tip:
In your parents defense, they have seen 2-3 fundraisers from the elementary school or middle before it’s your league’s turn for it’s fundraiser.
Take this time to educate them with your league’s financials.
Make a simple graph illustrating the expenditures and the money generated from registrations fees.
By sharing the league’s goals with parents, you can help them understand how our upcoming fundraiser can make a real difference this season.
With their support, we can achieve our objectives and provide even more benefits for their child.
Creating expectations is the best thing for a fundraiser
By creating expectations for your fundraiser, you not only create a recipe for success but also create lifelong character traits for your players:
- Ensuring the success of the fundraiser: Requiring mandatory participation can ensure that everyone on the team is contributing to the fundraiser, increasing the chances of reaching the fundraising goals. This can help the league secure the necessary funds for uniforms, equipment, field improvements, and other costs associated with the season.
- Fostering a sense of teamwork: Requiring mandatory participation can create a sense of unity and teamwork among the players. When everyone is working together towards a common goal, it can help build camaraderie and a sense of belonging within the league.
- Teaching responsibility and accountability: By requiring mandatory participation, players can learn the importance of being responsible and accountable for their commitments. They will have to take ownership of their fundraising responsibilities and follow through on their commitments.
- Building character and work ethic: Fundraising can be hard work, and by requiring mandatory participation, players can learn the value of hard work, perseverance, and determination. These are important life skills that can serve them well beyond the baseball or football field.
- Ensuring fairness: Requiring mandatory participation can ensure that everyone is contributing equally to the fundraiser. This can help avoid any resentment or conflict among team members who feel that they are shouldering a disproportionate amount of the workload.
👍🏽 Helpful Tip:
A quicker way for the parents and players in your organization to reach your expectations is by utilizing social media.
You could encourage them to share your organization fundraiser on their Facebook account and you could do this as early as signups or registrations.
The power of social media is limitless and most parent’s can reach their expectations in just one day.
How to increase expectations
The best way to set expectations is to have goals.
Have a goal for the league and then, have a goal for the teams and finally a goal for each person/player in the league.
Lastly and most importantly, you have to lead by example. The individual goal for the player is now your goal.
We know that hurts but it’s so effective and definitely put into place by successful leagues.
👍🏽 Helpful Tip:
Take some time before signups to create an easy to read graph with your league’s financials.
Illustrate the money that registrations fee bring in and compare with the costs of operations for the season. It may even amaze you how much money you may need to raise.
People generally want to help but it’s hard for them to justify another fundraiser when your local school has probably done a few already.
The simplest way to increase fundraising participation
When you add a clause to your online or in-person registration form, you automatically set the expectations for your fundraiser.
The clause clearly states that by registering your child to play in our sports organization, you are agreeing to participate in the organization’s fundraiser.
This means that your child will be required to sell a predetermined amount.
You can also post this on your organization’s facebook page:
“Hey everyone! We just wanted to share some information about our upcoming fundraiser. To make sure everyone is on the same page, we’ve added a clause to our registration form. By registering your child to play in our sports organization, you’re agreeing to participate in the fundraiser. Don’t worry, we’ll make it fun and easy for your child to sell a predetermined amount. Thanks for your support, we really appreciate it!”
👍🏽 Helpful Tip:
Any time you have the opportunity to show the “fruits” of your fundraiser, it is highly encouraged.
For instance, if your fundraiser for the season is to purchase new helmets or equipment, be very transparent and share how much in dollars you raised and how many new helmets you were able to purchase because of your successful fundraiser.
Even brag about it. You deserve to.
