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Post by Wingtman on Apr 9, 2024 8:15:00 GMT -6
Morning,
Taking over a program in a SMALLLLLL town. Seems so far like an amazing community, really supportive, want to win, kids want to win, Admin ready to do what it takes.
However, we are SMALL. Like no stoplights small. There's only about 5 businesses in town, next closest town (the one with the Walmart lol) is about 20 minutes away, biggest down (over 100k people) is an hour.
How would you fundraise here? There's really no big industry to hit up, and the ones we have are ALWAYS asked by everyone. Any ideas?
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Post by blb on Apr 9, 2024 8:58:13 GMT -6
Morning, Taking over a program in a SMALLLLLL town. Seems so far like an amazing community, really supportive, want to win, kids want to win, Admin ready to do what it takes. However, we are SMALL. Like no stoplights small. There's only about 5 businesses in town, next closest town (the one with the Walmart lol) is about 20 minutes away, biggest down (over 100k people) is an hour. How would you fundraise here? There's really no big industry to hit up, and the ones we have are ALWAYS asked by everyone. Any ideas? Lift-a-Thon. |
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Post by sweep26 on Apr 9, 2024 11:56:34 GMT -6
Work with your Administration and get a commitment from them regarding the dollars that they are willing to commit to helping you get your basic needs. At this point you now know how much money that you are going to have to fundraise.
Write up a short article introducing yourself to the community, along with your plan to develop their football program. In this article, include your Adminstrator's financial commitment, along with a prioritized list (and costs) of what you need in order to implement your plan...have it published in your local Newspaper.
Then you have to go out in the community and introduce yourself and ask for help. When you need help, you have to reach out to a variety of resources.
Open a "Go-fund Me" account; talk to the manager of the Walmart store in your neighboring community, they have grants available for school projects; Banks have always been a good resource for us over the years.
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Post by bulldogsdc on Apr 9, 2024 12:22:46 GMT -6
What do you need?
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Post by 60zgo on Apr 9, 2024 21:11:08 GMT -6
1. Best fundraiser in a small town is the Football Program. Sell some ad space to the local business but the dollars are in selling ad space to the kids. Mom and dad buy an ad, the aunt and uncle, Mee Maw and Pop Pop. Whatever. Football, cheer, dance, band, you name it. Sell individual ads to anyone and everyone.
2. Tell the community what you need. Just put it out there with the parents and ask them to spread the word. You will be surprised by the random donation from the random farmer or whomever. Especially if you are winning.
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coachtconkle
Freshmen Member
"Perfection is not attainable; but, if we chase perfection we can catch excellence" – V. Lombardi
Posts: 70 
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Post by coachtconkle on Apr 10, 2024 11:09:10 GMT -6
My best successes was selling pre-pay orders on Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. But those have become so expensive I do not know how it would work in 2024. I had a deal with the principal, I thought, that he would not approve any other school entity to sell them. He said it would not work for many reasons but he would let me try. He agreed not to let anyone else sell doughnuts. It worked, we made over $500 in profit, so we did it again and made almost $1000 in profit. The next thing I know every program in the school was selling them.
My other ideas that have worked:
* Fence Boards (4x4 ft and 4x8 ft) or fence banners - parents, churches, businesses near and somewhat near your locale *Car Wash *Selling cases of soft drinks and bottled water (we did Coca Cola products, but I know programs that have done it with Pepsico too)
*Spring Fling Day on a Friday all day in May, and co-plan with the PTA/PTO/PTSA set-up the day and split profits with them
*Host a Spring Training Football Jamboree (Jr High and Varsity)
*Host a Punt/Pass/Kick contest on a Saturday (small entry fee to compete) and have concessions open, and charge a small admission fee to spectators. Get a few Sponsors to defray cost of ribbons, certificates or trophies (your choice as to which)
*Who gets the gate revenue from home games?
*Who collects the parking revenue for home games?
*Who sells ads for the football game program and who sells the programs?
*Who runs the football concession stand(s) and gets the revenue? One school where I coached we charged the Band Boosters $1000 and they kept all revenue earned by them running the concessions for football games. Another school where I coached we charged FFA $500, and what was then FHA (now FCCLA or some such initials) $500 and they ran the 2 concession stands. There was 1 on the home side and 1 on the visitors' side and Each year they flip-flopped which entity ran which stand.
*Reserved Stadium seats for a fee and that could include a parking pass for near the stadium.
*One school I know of they use school buses to shuttle people to the stadium for free, from church and business parking lots - because every spot within a mile of the stadium is reserved parking for those who pay for a season permit.
*One school I know of (Football) charges a nice fee for tailgating spots near the stadium, and the FFA grills chicken and sells tailgating packages (slaw, soft drinks, fries, etc.) to the tailgaters on a pre-order and walk-up basis. Football gets a nice profit on this.
I hope some of these ideas are helpful, best of good fortune to you!
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Post by QBCoachDurham on Apr 10, 2024 13:47:24 GMT -6
I'm in a small town (3 stop lights). We do the following:
Spring: online donations fundraiser. This allows relatives that love outside of the community to contribute. We usually make $2500-$3000.
Summer: Dimes-or-Better fundraiser. We give each kid a water bottler. The local national guard unit donates them. The kids are asked to fill the bottle over the summer with dimes and quarters. They turn their bottles in on the first day of practice. We make between $2000-$2500
August: We sell cookie dough through Booster Fundraising. We usually make $4000-$6000
In-Game Sposorships: We offer sponsorship opportunities to local business in town and in surrounding towns. For $1500, they can sponsor their choice of TDs, first downs, kickoffs, redzone appearances, defensive stops, timeouts. Everytime that event occurs, the business's name is called by the announcer (that's another ACME Chemicals first down). They also get a banner in the stadium. We make $9000 every year.
Social Media Sponsors: We also offer social media sponsorships. Anyone can sponsor our Gameday posts, final score posts, and player of the week posts. Each one costs $500. We make $1500 every year.
We generally raise north of $20,000 with minimal effort in a very small community. The biggest headaches are getting all of the coins into the coin cointer at the local credit union and getting the cookie dough distributed.
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Post by coachdubyah on Apr 10, 2024 14:15:45 GMT -6
I agree with Lift A Thon. Easy to organize. Parents like it because all they have to do is help get sponsors and most people will donate. Parents also get to see their kids lift. We did squat OR Bench (only used this if they were going for a PR). Parents can take pics/video. Play music, kids get hyped, everyone gets to see the “culture” of your program.
There’s also no fees to pay when you sell crap!
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Post by coachwoodall on Apr 10, 2024 15:50:35 GMT -6
Definitely in small school setting you have to be creative. As coachtconkle listed try the shotgun effect to see what sticks. Also in small towns, don't always do the same thing every year-- mix it up to keep it fresh. Selling cookie dough might be a big hit this year, but when grandma realizes it is just an expensive version of what is at the grocery store she won't buy it next year. Also a big tie in is to offer what the community wants/likes/is vested in. I was part of a rural school that raffled a (small) truck and we made something like $11,000 over 30 years ago... but there was a local dealer that had a son in the program that sold us the truck at cost and every kids that had a vehicle.... it was a truck. Also in a different place have had success in raffling an ATV, and raffling a shot gun. Also don't miss out on the small things like meal deals. Same school my softball team made a killing selling a pot of hash one of the girls dad made. Everybody eats, and if you can be the local take place several times a year you can make money... you just have to understand the mechanics of food service. In the small school setting don't try to hit the home run, work the small things. Like like coachtconkle said, if the town shows up for the games, concessions are windfall. Even at the other sports games. If little kids show up, they are going to want something to eat/drink. Selling little things can go a long way -- lollipops, gum, pixie sticks.... things that can be bought a dollar or so go like crazy b/c mom/dad/grandma wants to get lil' Billy out of the way so they can watch the game. Same in the school building if admin will allow..... have players always have cheap snacks/candy around to sell. In the 210ish student HS I worked at for 6 years, there was always some student athlete/band member that was carrying around a bag/box of candy or lollipops. You never had to look far to get your sugar fix. Basically be the school snack machine. |
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coachtconkle
Freshmen Member
"Perfection is not attainable; but, if we chase perfection we can catch excellence" – V. Lombardi
Posts: 70
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Post by coachtconkle on Apr 11, 2024 11:10:33 GMT -6
Thinking this over a bit more during the last ~24 hours:
Everywhere I ever saw it done or did it, raffling off a shotgun or big game rifle ($5.00 per ticket bought or $10.00) in communities where hunting was BIG-TIME - of course that is no longer an option.....
BUT, I recently saw it done where an Outdoor Sports Store donated or sold to the Football Program a Gift Card worth $X-Hundred and a letter from the store owner indicating specifics about which rifle(s) or shotgun(s) could be chosen from with the Gift Card. Or, if the winner wanted to kick-in some of their own $$$ they could combine it with the gift card for a more expensive long-gun. I've seen these earn as much as $5,000.00 - tickets were sold in the community starting the week before the season started, sold them to home and visiting fans, etc. and winner was drawn at half-time of the last home game. Tickets had numbers and anyone buying a ticket kept their half of it and the Football Boosters' Club had the other half of the ticket with purchaser full name, phone number, address, and e-mail address.
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Post by hsrose on Apr 11, 2024 14:24:56 GMT -6
Send me an email and I’ll send you the fundraising document I put together from this board and my own experience. ~30 pages of ideas.
C.kester at Comcast dot net
Not a scam or anything, former coach, used to be active here, that always had to fundraiser
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Post by M4 on Apr 12, 2024 8:48:25 GMT -6
We run an annual microfundraiser called the 100 yard drive
The concept of it is: we ask for 100 people to make a 1 time donation of $XXX (your choice of amount).
We go for $50.00 which gets us $5k. $50.00 adds up but isn't so much that people balk at it.
We set up an online portal for people to donate via credit card or debit card and to track the donations. This is key. Worst case, use one of the free fundraising web sites. You need a link to send people too.
We advertise on our social media etc and ask our players to share the ad's to their personal socials as well.
The key to it is... We do a text-a-thon called the power hour. We bring all the players in to a meeting one day with their phones, we give them a script thru our team group chat that includes a link to the donation page and we ask them to text all the people in their contact list the script which is asking them to make the donation which really works,
We typically see $2 to $3k in donations within a week of the text a thon. We give the players prizes for who brings in the most (theres a place on the donation page to say who you're supporting on the team).
We just did it ourselves, we d told the guys copy and paste the script, text it to all your parents, granparents, aunts uncles, bosses etc anyone who you feel comfortable asking them to donate
Then we sat there and they sent the messaged and as responses started coming in we told them interact with the person but remember to ask for a donation and we tracked them in real time, we handed out some prizes in real time during the meeting like "next donation gets a tshirt" or "1st person to get 2 donations gets a hoodie" etc
its basically cold calling but the cold call is from someone they know and we get a good amount of donations
it worked great. we made $5k in a month
Do the text a thon. Keep the fundraiser open for late donations. Many will donate when they get the text but also many will donate a week, 2 weeks later etc.
Have a goal. Have something you are going to use the goal to buy, I feel it helps if people know the money is doing directly to buying new jerseys or guardian caps or etc.
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Post by chadavan on Apr 12, 2024 21:11:02 GMT -6
Morning, Taking over a program in a SMALLLLLL town. Seems so far like an amazing community, really supportive, want to win, kids want to win, Admin ready to do what it takes. However, we are SMALL. Like no stoplights small. There's only about 5 businesses in town, next closest town (the one with the Walmart lol) is about 20 minutes away, biggest down (over 100k people) is an hour. How would you fundraise here? There's really no big industry to hit up, and the ones we have are ALWAYS asked by everyone. Any ideas? We are putting together a program for our area. It involves running all the websites for the schools in the area - and getting businesses to sponsor the ENTIRE network of websites. In this particular market, it's 150+ websites. We give a portion of the proceeds to all the schools that participate... This does really well with the smaller schools. |
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Post by tigerscoachbuck on Apr 25, 2024 5:55:13 GMT -6
This past year we did a "Golden Ticket" raffle. 100 tickets valued at $200.00 a ticket were sold. 2 Tickets are selected as winners. Grand Prize gets 10K in cold hard cash. 2nd Place gets their 200 bucks back. The rest, $9,800.00, goes to the program. Before you say, oh no one will buy tickets for that much, you're wrong. You underestimate how many gamblers are out there, just look at the multitude of betting apps now in this country. Also, you will get a group to go in on one ticket as well. It was a home run for us and a new staple in fundraising.
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Post by coachwoodall on Apr 25, 2024 6:58:18 GMT -6
Another classic, at least down here, is the half-n-half raffle. Sell raffle tickets at each home game. Announce winner at half time. Half of the pot goes to the winner, the other half is kept by the team.
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Post by blb on Apr 25, 2024 7:06:16 GMT -6
Another classic, at least down here, is the half-n-half raffle. Sell raffle tickets at each home game. Announce winner at half time. Half of the pot goes to the winner, the other half is kept by the team. 50-50s are big "up here" too but usually are the province of all-sports Boosters' Clubs, not any one program. |
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coachtconkle
Freshmen Member
"Perfection is not attainable; but, if we chase perfection we can catch excellence" – V. Lombardi
Posts: 70
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Post by coachtconkle on May 13, 2024 10:03:03 GMT -6
One school where I worked (and I forgot to mention this one previously) was rural but had a major river and reservoir that served as the county line and the small town was adjacent. There were 3 major marinas and boat launches in the area (town limits) and the Football Program (and Boosters' Club) hosted Fall, Spring, and Summer Fishing Tournaments. Each was on a Saturday. They made pretty good money, even with the cash prizes that were awarded. Numerous formats and procedures for hosting one are on the Internet. I know many places specify that they are Bass Tournaments, but I do know of one tournament that has a Hybrid Bass category, a Large-mouth/Small-mouth Bass category, and a Crappie category for winners. And, of course there were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places awarded - as well as the single largest fish in each one. If such a tournament is hosted at the right time, Bream could be a category too,
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Post by freezeoption on May 13, 2024 17:21:48 GMT -6
I've been at that small of schools. T shirts use to be a good way. Gold cards are good. I've never had good luck with 50/50. Trash bags sell good. If you got someone willing to donate a gun, gun raffles go well. BBQ cook out night with some action usually go well. You got to be careful and not to milk the same people to much. I think if you do quality stuff though they will put in.
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Post by coachwoodall on May 13, 2024 18:29:29 GMT -6
I've been at that small of schools. T shirts use to be a good way. Gold cards are good. I've never had good luck with 50/50. Trash bags sell good. If you got someone willing to donate a gun, gun raffles go well. BBQ cook out night with some action usually go well. You got to be careful and not to milk the same people to much. I think if you do quality stuff though they will put in. Yes, sell/offer stuff people in these areas that they would buy anyway, just rotate through a string of things. Meal night: hash chicken stew BBQ pasta meal mix it up, everybody eats supper just don't make it the same thing each month Do a car wash twice a year, make it around the start of school and just before summer vacation. If you want to do 3 make in in the middle of winter.... nobody likes washing their car in the cold months. Again hunting/fishing is big if the locale supports it. Also think outside the box... what does the locale NOT have? -lawn service -moving service -pressure washing -junk hauling Also another thing was HUGE in a small town school I was at, though not tied to the school, was a town wide yard sale. This was a 2 mile swath of the typical yards sale junk that was draw of the entire county for a whole weekend. Now I'm not saying do all that, but maybe a yard sale with donations from the town ---- get rid of my junk --- at the school. |
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Post by tippecanoe41 on May 23, 2024 11:37:21 GMT -6
Morning, Taking over a program in a SMALLLLLL town. Seems so far like an amazing community, really supportive, want to win, kids want to win, Admin ready to do what it takes. However, we are SMALL. Like no stoplights small. There's only about 5 businesses in town, next closest town (the one with the Walmart lol) is about 20 minutes away, biggest down (over 100k people) is an hour. How would you fundraise here? There's really no big industry to hit up, and the ones we have are ALWAYS asked by everyone. Any ideas? Lift-a-Thon. This is pretty productive if you can get the kids to get after it and go get the pledges. |
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Post by tippecanoe41 on May 23, 2024 11:42:12 GMT -6
Sounds weird, but one thing we do is sell trash bags, and it makes good money. They are pretty good bags, different sizes and colors, and the kids get people to buy them. I am not sure the exact organization that we go through for this, but it always makes good money. People are gonna buy trash bags anyway, so why not buy them from kids they know and support the football team.
We also used to sell discount cards. Based on the year, there were some amazing deals on the card that would pay for the card with one or two tries so it was dumb not to buy the card. We haven't done it lately. Not sure why. But something to look into.
Also, we just this year organized an alumni party where all the folks who ever played, coached, equipment managed, cheerleaded, etc. for the program can get together and tell stories etc. There's going to be an auction, an entry fee for meal and drinks, etc.
Expecting it to do really well. I would guess in a small town you have a lot of former players around. Might be something to try.
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Post by irishdog on Jun 17, 2024 16:36:07 GMT -6
Must be a rural town. Which means country living. Farming? Ranching? Hold a community BBQ (whatever meat is the craze get it donated along with corn on the cob). Get community folks (townspeople, parents, etc. to provide various other eats - potato salad, beans, rolls, desserts, etc.). Sell tickets and invite EVERYONE. Get parents and players to help organize it, staff it, run it, and clean it up. Include various carnival type games and sell tickets to those as well.
OR, sponsor a booth of some kind at the community festival/county fair that will bring in some dinero.
OR, have the local cafe sponsor a team spirit night once each week during the season where they donate 10% of their total take that night if patrons show up in school spirit wear. Heck even those who don't wear any might donate a few bucks for the cause.
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