Practical Ideas on how to raise funds for your Club or organisation

If external funding is not available, then there are many ways in which your club can raise some cash.

Below are some useful ideas and links to generate income through fundraising

http://www.livingsport.co.uk/club-development/fundraising-ideas/

Easy Fund Raising

A new and innovative way your club can raise funds through its members is to sign up for Easy Fundraising. Easy Fundraising provides a FREE fundraising service where funds can be raised for the club by your club members every time they shop online.

Choose from over 2000 of the UK’s best-known retailers including many popular names such as Amazon, Next, Argos, John Lewis and HMV, and when you shop using the links on the site up to 15% from every purchase made is donated to the club. It doesn’t cost a penny extra to shop and raise funds for your cause using our site, and as many retailers now give extra discounts when you buy online, you can even save money This could provide an ongoing source of funding for the club.

Find out more and how to register at: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/

Selling advertising space – This could be boards around a pitch, beermats at your bar, space on your shirts/warm-up kit, other equipment. Small firms can get good publicity and create valuable goodwill by sponsoring a local team, event or good cause. Sell your club, and the benefits that come from sponsoring your team, including the number of members and teams you run, as well as events or functions. Tell potential sponsors about any crowds you may get, as well as newspaper mentions or any other media, all of which is good exposure for the business. Sponsorship can also be a much cheaper way of getting the company name known, as marketing campaigns are often much more expensive.

Sponsored Challenges – Fun walks, doughnut eating competition, 12hour sponsor – thon, great to raise money and heighten the profile of your club. Get a newspaper to mention event beforehand, and ask a reporter to come down to cover it. Open the event up to the public, as well as ensuring that current members engage in the challenge. You could also try and get local businesses that may relate to the event in someway involved. For example, the local bakery may supply doughnuts for an eating competition in return for a mention at the event or in the newspaper coverage.

If you own your facilities, think about hiring it out if it is suitable – Why not offer a service for children’s or adult birthday parties, Gymnastic party, Football Skills party. Utilise your coaches and facilities and maybe get some new members from it. You could also use your facilities for fundraising evenings, as well as external courses, events or workshops.

Quiz nights – These can get your local community involved. If promoted correctly, this can be a great way to attract possible new members, engage with the local community and at the same time make some money for your club. This could tie in with other ideas, such as using your own facilities, and the idea of raffles or auctions. Think about your target audience when designing the quiz, and create a community feel to attract as many non club members as possible.

Recycling: mobile, clothes, ink cartridges and more – Ask around club members for any unwanted possessions they may have in their house. Many people will have lots of goods they do not use or want, but have not got the time or simply have not got round to recycling. Ask someone from the club to be in charge of collecting and selling the equipment, with all the funds raised going to the club. Members may also see it as a chance to have a clear out without having to sell the equipment themselves. Also open it up to the general public, by having a box where people can drop off unwanted goods to be recycled by the club. If the club or members have things that cannot be recycled, why not set up an Ebay account and sell what isn’t needed anymore, raising funds for the club. There are many websites that recycle used goods, a simple Google search will provide plenty of suitable websites.

Car Boot sales, hosting or taking part – If you have a big enough field, why not host your own car boot sale. By charging each seller for their space on the field, you are making money from your own facilities. If it is not feasible for you to host a car boot sale, why not go down to your local one and setup a stool there? Get members involved by asking them to do shifts on the stool, as well as contributing things to sell on the day. If you can, why not combine the two ideas together and setup a stool at your own event?

Bag Packing at supermarkets – Get kitted up, be helpful and raise money and awareness. Once you have organised it with the supermarkets, get into your sports clubs kit and start helping people with packing their shopping bags. A great way to engage with people from the local community as well as increasing awareness of your club whilst making money, this is a very cost effective and popular fund raising tool, especially with junior/youth teams.

Supermarket schemes – For example Waitrose Community Matters, where 3 good causes are chosen a month to receive donations via a green token placed in a box as they exit the store, or check out online. The more green tokens in the box, the more money your club receives. This is a very simple way to raise some money, and is in place at Waitrose shops all over the country. For example, Peterborough Town Sports Club had a box in Waitrose for a month, and raised £200 for their club. There are other similar schemes in other supermarkets, such as Nisa-Today’s and Costcutter Supermarkets grant scheme.

Selling additional merchandise – Ties, car stickers, beer glasses, mugs create for gifts. Players will often purchase merchandise in order to ensure that they feel part of the team. They also will be more willing to part with their cash if the money is going towards something that they care or are passionate about. They can also make an easy and convenient gift for people associated with the club. Furthermore, this could be a good way to advertise your club, for example car stickers displaying the clubs name could be seen by numerous people every day.

Host Exhibition matches – There are many exhibition sides that play games against club sides, with one of the most famous being the “Lashings.” The Lashings play both cricket and football against a variety of teams for free, and boast star studded line ups in both sports. The Lashings and other exhibition sides attract followers wherever they travel in the world, and playing them or hosting an exhibition game can be a great way to raise the profile of your club and make some money. Local cricket club Alconbury CC used to host the Lashings each year, and attracted some of the games greats to their ground, as well as large crowds and new sponsors.

Other ideas include:

• Programme advertisements or player sponsorships
• Search Engines on home page, set up a search engine link and generate income by people using it to find what they are looking for on the www. Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. All you need to sign up with the network. The network will then show adverts, either text or images, relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
• Depending upon your environment and organisation, offer corporate taster days, think about how your sport provides leadership skills, confidence boosting, goal setting, problem solving, team building and much more. Or link it as a benefit to companies sponsoring you.
• Open a tuck shop, do a bake sale, do breakfasts for parents while they wait.
• Hold raffles or auctions with prizes donated by local businesses – great publicity for them and £££’s for the club
• Car Washes
• Get glamorous for an evening and hold a ball for members, sponsors and invite the local press to cover it. Offer great prices but make sure the club gets a cut!
• Have a clear section on your club stating your purpose and how companies can adopt your club for a year.