How to raise club funds
How to raise club funds?
I've personally been involved in various groups. Whether it was martial arts clubs, football teams or student projects back at uni. The commonality with all these groups and the question that always came up was. How to raise club funds? It's a pain really everyone wants to do the best for their group but getting the cash to do it is difficult. From my experience, though there are a few tried and tested ways that always seem to work. They're not out there, wild new ideas but that's not to say you can't put your own twist on them.
Now if you read any the stuff on our site, well then you know we like things in threes. So in keeping with our style here are our three best ways on how to raise club funds.
A sponsored something...
That's right a sponsored something or other. Now, most will have heard of this or participated. A sponsored walk, a sponsored hill climb, a sponsored kickathon (for the martial artists). All are pretty much of the same premise. You pick an activity that is deemed to be challenging and you ask people to sponsor you to achieve it. This generally works well with kids groups. All the kids get their respective families and friends to sponsor them and soon the funds mount up.
A fund raising event...
The most common fund raising events I have encountered and participated in a race night or bake sale. Now I am not a legal eagle and don't know all the laws etc. These are just ideas I am sharing to help you.
A race night is a sort of, well, like a night at the races usually held in a hall that sells alcohol. People place bets on the televised horse races with a cut of all bets going to the club and rest paid out to the lucky winners. It's best to get a professional in to run it for you as it takes a wee bit work to do yourself. However, they are a lot of fun.
Bake sales are like a coffee morning, usually held at work. You get a load of cake usually made by friends and family. Although given allergy concerns etc sometimes these days it's easier to buy them. Anyway loads of cake and coffee and tea everyone either buys or donates for their cuppa and piece of cake and you keep the funds. Both these ways of raising club funds also usually have raffles run in conjunction to add to the pot.
Selling merchandise...
Now, this is one not everyone thinks of. The reason why is traditional to sell merchandise would mean buying in large quantities and therefore running the risk of not selling them and actually being out of pocket. However, these days it is possible to make a deal with manufacturers of merchandise for smaller quantities. This is something we have helped several clubs with. You can sell T shirts, bottles, mugs, bags etc. All these items can be produced individually by the right supplier.
So how to sell merchandise in this way. Well, let's take a martial arts club and a t-shirt as an example as this is something I have personally been involved in. You work with the supplier on a design for a T shirt. Says a silhouette of a martial artist doing a high kick and some writing "some catchy cool martial arts phrase". You agree a price per item say £10 per T-shirt and then you can sell it for £15 per T-shirt. First things first you buy your own and start wearing it. Soon all the students will want one. You take the orders and sizes get your supplier to produce them and then you distribute. By sharing all over social media and highlighting your cause, then you'll boost your sales as other supporters, parents, grandparent etc will buy them as well.
Sounds good right. Well, wait till you hear this bit. Some suppliers will even host the whole selling service as well. They will create a page on their website where people wanting to buy your T-shirts can go and order direct for the price you stipulate. They will produce the T-shirts and ship them to your customers. Then at the end of the month send you the money you have made on them. Using the example above £5 on every T-shirt sold. So really you don't need to do anything other than point people toward the website where they can buy them. Now that really is money for nothing.
So quick recap
Do a sponsored something - some effort on your part and you need to go asking for money
Hold an event - loads of work involved on your part but potential to make decent funds
Sell merchandise - design a range of products and sell to your current group and wider supporters. Not much work required other than spreading the word of your product.
Hope these ideas have got you thinking about how to raise club funds. If want to chat get in touch. Likewise, if you want to discuss how we can help with your merchandise sales then just drop me a line using the contact page.