Fundraising Ideas For Your Club

With the start of a new year, sports clubs all over the country are making their plans and budgets for the busy year ahead. Sports clubs often have various expenses such as jerseys, gym equipment, facility maintenance and upgrades, travel costs, coaching staff salaries, and more.

For this reason, fundraising is crucial to any club as it plays a fundamental role in supporting the overall sustainability and success of the club! So, we decided to look at the various fundraising events a club can host to raise these valuable funds!

Table Quizzes

One of the most popular ways to raise funds for any club is through a table quiz as it provides a social and entertainment value to its participants. The inclusivity and social aspect of table quizzes can attract a wide range of participants, maximizing attendance and may also even benefit the club bar. Funds are raised through teams (usually made up of 4-6 people) paying an entry fee.

The benefit of this form of event is the low overhead costs that are involved. Primary expenses may include the printing of quiz material and small prizes for the winning teams. Prizes can even be donated by local businesses or sponsors further reducing expenses.

Be sure to be creative and not just use questions that can be easily accessed through the internet. Keep some questions localised and relevant to the club to keep a strong community aspect.

Finally, remember to promote the quiz well in advance through social media, websites and leaflets, to ensure you have as many tables participating as possible.

Table Quiz

Donated Cans and Plastic Bottles

A trend that clubs have started to embrace is recycling schemes. These schemes provide clubs and the local community with an excellent opportunity to recycle plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

Some recycling companies have schemes where they will pay clubs for every full bag of bottles and cans they collect from your clubhouse. It’s a great way for the whole community to get involved in raising money for the club while it also encourages children to think green. It can be convenient for parents to simply drop up their empty cans or bottles when they are dropping their children off at training or attending a home game.

The best way to promote this scheme is through your club’s social media channels and websites, mainly after holiday periods!

We want your plastic

Raffles

Raffles involve selling tickets to the public for a chance to win prizes, and the proceeds from the ticket sales go back to the club.

The benefit of raffles is that it is usually a low cost per entry which attracts a broad audience. This makes it a versatile fundraising option for sports clubs.

To encourage ticket sales, sports clubs can offer attractive incentives to do with local businesses or the sports club itself. Some GAA raffles have even offered a house as its first prize, but we wouldn’t expect you to go that far!

Make sure to promote your club raffle through social media, local businesses, and even ask all teams within your club to sell tickets as they will most likely be the beneficiaries of the donations.

Win a House Raffle

Combined Fundraiser

Not the most traditional form of fundraising but there are examples where it has worked very well for both clubs involved.

A perfect example of this type of fundraising is when Raheny GAA and Clontarf GAA, both of Dublin, collaborated and ran an extremely successful fundraiser called “Go The Distance”. Both clubs competed to see which club could cover the most distance in one day.

On the 23rd of May 2020, Raheny and Clontarf GAA club members, walked or ran as many miles as they could and ended up raising over €100,000 for St. Francis Hospice!

The two clubs promoted the campaign through posters, social media and promotional videos featuring high-profile players to drive awareness. The whole event was covered on social media and showcased club members who took part, how much was raised, and most importantly which club was ahead in the competition. The results were better than either club expected, far outdoing their initial goal of €10,000!

Go the distance

Supermarket Bag Packing

This involves club members assisting customers in packing their groceries in exchange for donations, in a local supermarket.

The benefits of this form of fundraising are the low setup cost involved while also allowing sports club members to engage directly with the local community and potential supporters. Club members can hand out leaflets with information on how to donate or they can simply have a bucket at the end of the till where customers can donate cash. It also provides an opportunity to share information about club activities and upcoming events.

The important thing to remember with this type of fundraising is organising a time of day in the supermarket when it is likely to be busy as this may lead to higher donations. It is also important that all members are wearing their club gear as it makes it easier for customers to establish who they are donating to.

Club Lotto

As we have said in our previous blogs, the club lotto has become a significant source of income for sports clubs in recent years.

To encourage participation, it is important to ensure that the jackpot is high as this will increase the participation levels. Importantly, when jackpots are won and return to the starting or lower jackpot, we tend to see a lot of people drop off. To protect against this, it is essential to get your players on recurring payments, so they are in every week irrespective of the jackpot amount.

Important to note is that you must obtain a license and renew it every two years when setting up a club lotto. Clubs have had their lotto shut down in the past by letting their license expire.

Finally, make sure to promote your lotto through social media and include important details such as the jackpot, prizes, and what day and time it takes place!

To learn more on how to set up your club lotto, read our blog post.

Club Lotto

Sponsored Activities

Sponsored activities such as club walks, runs or cycles can be effective and enjoyable in raising funds for sports clubs.

These events are a more inclusive style of fundraising as they include people of all ages thus building a strong sense of community and promoting physical activity.

Participants can pay entry to the walk or even source sponsors for themselves to complete the activity and after, donate the proceeds to the club.

Once again it is important to promote the event through social media, leaflets and local newspapers.

Finally, create an easy-to-use online registration system where participants can sign up for the event.

Fun Walk

Special Participation Events

Participation activities that are similar to TV programmes like The Cube, Strictly Come Dancing, Stars In Their Eyes, or even white-collar boxing can also be popular fundraisers for clubs.

These events tend to be fun, sociable and entertaining with high attendance rates coming out to see participants doing something outside of their comfort zones.

Important to note with this fundraiser is that it might have high input costs due to paying for venues and other 3rd parties bringing the whole event together.

The key is to promote the night as much as possible and recruit a good MC who will make the night entertaining for all.

Strictly Come Dancing

So, we hope you found our list helpful and we wish you the best of luck with your club fundraising activities for 2024. If you have any other fundraising ideas, be sure to let us know!