• Sofia James
  • Fundraising Ideas for Women School Athletic Directors
Fundraising Ideas for Women School Athletic Directors
Contributor
Written by
Sofia James
October 2016
Contributor
Written by
Sofia James
October 2016
Money makes the world spin. This is no less true with athletics on both the educational and professional levels. At the end of the day people need to get paid, equipment needs to be purchased, facilities need maintenance, and more. Your school can only supply you with so much and the games can only earn so much before you need to raise funds of your own to keep things going. Fundraising can be difficult as it requires patience, a bit of strategy, and some minor knowledge in conducting business. Ultimately, you need to convince others to give you money, and while donations work, they aren’t as reliable as selling a product or service. Selling a product is a simple, but effective and reliable means of making income. While it does take some capital to get off the ground, people will almost always need or want something and said people are almost always willing to pay for it. With the right amount of effort and strategy, you can very easily make a profit. ● Just about everyone loves candy. Especially candy that is cheap. Purchasing from a manufacturer and getting athletes and employees to sell them at a low, reasonable cost will surely attract both children and adults. ● Cookie Dough sales are much like the latter idea, except you’re selling jars of cookie dough instead of candy. This is great for parents who are willing to bake cookies or even teach their kids how to. All it requires is a bit of effort on the part of your students and staff. ● Selling exclusive products not only ensures that your items will have more worth, but gives students, and their families additional incentive to purchase since they’re memorable items. Apparel like t-shirts, jersey’s, letterman jackets, custom flags, and more are great because they’re memorable and functional. ● Exclusive graphics like stickers, posters, et cetera, are great for giving some style and allowing students and family to show pride in their teams and players. While not as functional as apparel, they are cheaper to make and produce. You may need a graphic designer or photographer to help make it work. However, cooperating with students in the school, who may already be learning how to do such things, may get you free work and them an opportunity for hands-on experience. Selling a service allows you to utilize your athletic team or volunteers to produce an income through their expertise or physique. Although you may have to spend some money on supplies, it won’t nearly be as much as you would need for selling a product and it will produce more income per purchase (more money for more work essentially). While this won’t be very good for targeting younger consumers (unless it’s small and fun like applying temporary tattoos), it will be more applicable to older consumers who may not have the physique or time a younger athlete will have. ● Car washes are a classic athletic exercise. Just about every able-bodied person can wash a car. Granted, while a normal individual can do themselves, a group of students can get it done faster and be more efficient at it. It’s an easy couple of bucks for honest labor. ● A skills clinic is when your athletes and coaches choose to teach people outside of the organization how to improve their skills and get better at the sport. This is more oriented towards children (such as those not old enough to join the team yet), it is paid for by their parents and often it’s the parents that will arrange a meeting at the skills clinic. It’s a great way to interact with potential future athletes, have some fun, and earn some extra, well needed cash. ● If you’re well connected with senior citizens or individuals that aren’t very physically able, then offering a heavy lifting service may work for you. In exchange for some cash, you can bring in your athletes and any volunteers to help move things or handle anything that requires a good amount of strength or endurance. You can arrange cooperative efforts with local businesses. You’ll be surprised how many local and franchise businesses will be willing to work with athletic teams to fundraise money. These efforts, although they may not procure a lot of money, don’t require a lot of money or effort on your part. ● A sports night out is a cooperative effort with a local restaurant or other available venue, where the team brings in friends, family, and fans to the restaurant during a night, and a percentage of the proceeds made from the event go to you. All it requires is a bit of communication and advertising, but you can take it a step further and make it a more major event, with everyone in uniform and the team flag waving over an event booth. ● Sponsorships and advertising is a great way of adding in an additional monetary resource. Essentially, you’re approaching a corporation or company, and exchanging advertising space (like adding signs to a perimeter fence) for a regular monetary income. While it can vary, and you may not receive a lot at any one particular instance, it is a source of regular income that only requires that you do what you’ve already been doing and attract as much attention to your games as possible.

Let's be friends

The Women Behind She Writes

519 articles
12 articles

Featured Members (7)

123 articles
392 articles
54 articles
60 articles

Featured Groups (7)

Trending Articles

Comments
No comments yet