Ready to kick off your football fundraising? Finding the perfect fundraiser for your football team takes a little creativity – and some powerful tools. In this article, we'll walk you through 15 exciting ways to raise money for your football team. We'll also show you some tools that can help you raise more for a fundraising touchdown!
Team sports have a lot of value. They help with learning new skills and coordination, developing social skills, learning to work with others and support them, and boosting self-confidence in kids.
Unfortunately, the biggest barrier to children competing in sports is the cost. According to the Aspen Insititute, the average family spends a whopping $883 a year on youth sports. For some families, that is completely out of reach.
Fundraising increases the opportunity for sports inclusivity, and it’s important that your football team invests time into fundraising to ensure every child who would like to participate has the opportunity to do so.
We’ll share 15 creative football fundraisers you can test out to raise more for your team this season. Read on!
Who says football can’t make a social impact?
Football season is a special time for a lot of the U.S., but it doesn’t have to be just about the sport! Football teams, both professional and college, often have philanthropic goals of their own. These football fundraisers raise money for causes both local and national – and beyond!
In 1973, the Miami Dolphins football team capped a perfect season with their Super Bowl win against Washington. Along with this historic occurrence, the team also pledged to make a social impact, partnering with United Way. To this day, this corporate-nonprofit partnership still exists. Similarly, the NFL Foundation funds over 45 grants to support youth sports teams. Beyond this, they also give grants to support the charitable goals of their players, who use their fame to raise money for a variety of important causes.
As you can see, football, philanthropy, and fundraising go hand in hand!
If you’re looking for the perfect fundraising platform for your football team, Donorbox offers robust, easy-to-use fundraising features to help teams of all sizes raise more for their players. With customizable, multi-step donation forms, peer-to-peer and crowdfunding functionality, seamless on-site giving with the Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app, and way more, raising the funds you need has never been simpler.
Check out how this alumni association uses Donorbox to raise money to support a football team. We love how clear they are about what your donation will support!
Among all fundraising opportunities for football teams, there is one method that is tried and true: product sales! There are various product sales football teams have used as fundraisers for many years.
Here are some football fundraisers to try out:
As quirky as it sounds, team-branded flip-flops are often a huge hit when it comes to football fundraising!
What does that mean? It means you are eliminating the upfront cost and the risk of losing money because you are taking orders before you ever purchase the materials! You can work with companies like 4Imprint to design your flip-flops.
Especially for those in hotter climates, this a fun, simple, low-cost product sale that can have up to 70% profit for your football team.
Are there any big events coming up in your community?
Reach out to local venues, event organizers, and the community connections you have, and see if your football team can run parking for an event. Ask if you can split the parking profits or collect a percentage of the profits to put toward your football fundraising goal.
Getting your team involved in the community in some way can add value, teach other important skills, and help collect additional donations. If people in the community know why the team is at an event, it may make them more likely to offer up additional donations.
This football fundraising idea is tried and true. With scratch-off tickets, your donors don’t know how much they are going to contribute. That’s part of the fun!
Typically, donors will scratch off a circle of their choice and give the amount shown there – typically between 50 cents to 3 dollars. Sometimes they will receive a coupon book as a thanks for their donation.
These are easy and fun, and you can sell them at games or other events! ABC Fundraising or Just Fundraising are both great places to design and order your scratch-off tickets!
Pro tip: Use the Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app to collect in-person, cashless donations for your football team. Donors can give using a card, smartphone, or smartwatch. All you need to do is build a Live™ campaign on your Donorbox account, download the app to your tablet, and connect your card reader. Learn more here!
Another opportunity to include team branding in your product sales, t-shirts are a bit more customizable and therefore more enticing. With options like “Grandma of a Wildcat,” “Dad of a Dolphin,” or “Sister of a Tiger,” branded football team tees are a fun option for consistent gamegoers and loyal fans to show off their team spirit!
Custom Ink or Bonfire are great online options for designing and selling your t-shirts!
Check out how this school used Donorbox to collect donations for t-shirts. This is a great way to keep track of orders and allow people to pay for their t-shirts from the comfort of their homes!
Pro tip: If there is a local business that does screen printing or embroidery, work with them to create fun designs for your team tees! They could sell them in stores and give you a percentage of sales.
Though you may not get as much money, this might be a more accessible way for people in your community to buy the shirts, and you’re supporting a local business.
Who doesn’t love saving money? This football fundraiser can deliver some sweet savings to your supporters.
These take a bit of coordinating, but when done well, the profit margin can range from 50% to 100%!
Coordinating with local businesses about discounts they are willing to offer to fans. Then, create a booklet with these coupons using tools like Easy Fundraising Cards.
You can sell these at games or online on your Donorbox donation page.
This product sale is for your loyal fans, so make sure to let all the grandparents, fathers, mothers, and other family members of your team know.
At the beginning of football season, create a signup for people to join the Winner’s Pledge. Each week your football team wins, those who sign up must donate a set amount of money.
Must Read: 12 Booster Club Fundraising Ideas That Actually Work
Who doesn’t love original art? This creative football fundraising idea can help you raise more and show off a different side of your players!
Though your athletes are honing their sporting skills, perhaps they are talented in other ways. Use these additional skills and have your athletes create art to sell online or in person to raise money.
You can market the art auction on social media, your school’s website, and flyers around your community.
Are you worried that this will take up too much of your athlete’s time? Use art class projects or already existent art that is lying around collecting dust.
With a wide variety of people coming to support your team, game time is prime time to advocate for fundraising.
At your next football game, a few of your team members should announce Rent an Athlete at halftime and have a signup sheet ready to go at the concession stand.
For a set price, athletes from your team will do odd jobs for people in need of assistance.
This is an opportunity to both raise money and help people in the community by letting your team spend a few weekends mowing lawns, painting fences, cleaning up yards, and doing other busy work that needs doing!
Pro tip: Text-to-give is a great way to collect donations during your next football game. Donorbox Text-to-Give has two plan options and makes it easy for your donors to give using their smartphones. All they have to do is text a campaign ID or custom keyword to a number, where they’ll receive a link to your online donation form. They can give quickly, with our 4x faster checkout – and then repeat their donation again and again via text. Learn more here!
Sometimes the best way to generate fundraising momentum for your football team is with an engaging fundraising event!
Tailgates are regular events that are guaranteed to have great attendance.
This presents a wonderful opportunity for your football team to set up and sell additional snacks or hold contests for fans and should include prizes of some sort, such as team merch or free tickets.
For a price, fans can enter these contests. Contests may include the opportunity to participate in a halftime race, seeing who can sing the fight song all the way through without stuttering or wagering on who has attended the most games so far that year.
Recruit well-known, influential people in the community to compete in a flag football tournament.
These influential individuals can then crowdfund, asking fans, colleagues, and family to buy tickets to this special flag football event, with all proceeds being donated to the team.
Parents can referee, and teams can host the event on school premises.
A raffle is a great way to raise more for your football team. Have community members donate items to be raffled off, or host a 50/50 raffle where you and the winner split the revenue. If you need inspiration, check out these 15 unique raffle ticket prize ideas.
Donorbox Events makes selling raffle tickets a breeze. Create unlimited ticket tiers with limits on ticket amounts and sales deadlines. Plus, use promo codes to strategically boost ticket sales by offering discounts.
EVAC sold raffle tickets on their Donorbox Events page. They offered two raffle packages to raise money to cover the costs of their next season!
Hosting a charity run is an engaging way to raise money, especially for a football team! Create a fun theme and encourage friends and family of your team members to sign up. They can purchase tickets or raise funds by getting pledges from their network.
Organizing a charity run can yield a large amount of money, but make sure to plan far enough in advance to make it profitable!
Pro tip: Donorbox Peer-to-Peer can help you raise more for your charity run. Ask the participants to collect pledges from their family and friends. They can create their own fundraising pages that connect to your parent campaign on Donorbox, so any funds they raise automatically flow to your account! Learn more here.
This idea gets everyone at your school involved and is a very popular football fundraiser. At games, on social media, or on your school website, collect money to challenge your football coach.
Set a fundraising goal, and tell people that, if you reach that goal, your football coach must do whatever task the team has chosen.
That could mean the coach has to shave their head, wear a costume around the school for a day, or do a weather forecast for your local news channel one evening. Get creative, and make it fun for students and parents alike to contribute!
Spirit nights are when you coordinate with a local business and ask them to dedicate one evening to your team and donate a percentage of their profits made that evening to your team. Then you ask your supporters to show their team spirit by shopping or eating at that local business!
Many businesses are invested in the potential of student-athletes. Therefore, they host spirit nights year-round for football teams and other groups. Reach out to businesses that regularly participate in spirit nights, or form a new partnership with a local business that might allocate a higher percentage to your team than chain businesses might.
This is a popular fundraiser, though, so make sure to call local businesses early in the year and coordinate a spirit night!
This fundraising idea is a great practical joke for people in your community.
Your football team needs to buy 20 to 30 plastic flamingos and paint them their school colors. Then, set up a signup sheet that people can fill out anonymously. The signup sheet must include the address or office number of the individual being flocked. For a price, people can sign up to flock to their neighbors, co-workers, friends, or family.
In the wee hours of the morning, members of your team will visit the home or office of the individual being “flocked” and put the flamingos in their yard or office with a sign that says, “You’ve been flocked!” The team must then come back and collect the flamingos after several hours so the process can repeat.
This obviously takes some coordination and would be a great opportunity for parents or siblings to volunteer, as well.
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The expense of participating in football shouldn’t exclude anyone. That’s where fundraising comes in to make this fun team sport more accessible to all. We hope these football fundraising ideas inspire you to get out and raise more!
Donorbox has a variety of tools your team can use to boost fundraising! Whether you’re selling products, hosting fun events, or simply collecting donations during your next game, there’s a Donorbox solution that can work for you. Learn more about our features and sign up today!
For other ideas on sports fundraising, read more on our blog! Subscribe to our newsletter for fundraising tips delivered to your inbox every month.
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Megan Koontz