We all know how difficult it is to raise much needed funds for clubs, especially in the current climate. Why not try one of the 3 proven fundraising ideas below to raise some money for your local club.
FUNDRAISING IDEA NUMBER 1
A Night At The Races
Been there, done that, tell me something new. As the saying goes “if its not broken, don’t fix it”. A night at the races fundraising event is a tried and tested method for clubs raising funds over the years.
A race night is a fantastic way to raise money for your club and can prove to be a very profitable one. Its also a very fun night and combines two of the most enjoyable social activities – a day at the races with a night out with friends and club members
As part of the event, video footage of horse or greyhound races is played. Beforehand your club members can pick a runner from those listed in the programme, this can be based on their favorite name, number or just a random pick.
Don’t worry if this sounds like more work than you can handle as there are a host of dedicated companies available to assist you run your race night event. Below are just a few, you will find a lot more if you google the term ‘race night fundraiser’
Alternatively, its simple enough to co-ordinate yourself. There are plentiful suppliers out there who will sell you a race night starter pack to help you get it up and running. Here are just a few
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Many of your club members will enjoy the baking part and many more will enjoy the eating part !!
Bake / Cake sales are a traditional means of raising funds for clubs, they can be great moneymakers because there is little or no actual capital required. All of the baked goods are usually donated. The 'bakers’ take pride in their work and get satisfaction from people purchasing the produce of their hard work. Its also a social event where people enjoy mingling and catching-up for a bit of chin wagging over a cup of tea and a scone, so its not only a good fundraising idea but a community event also.
FUNDRAISING IDEA NUMBER 3
Last Man / Woman Standing competition
A popular fundraising idea for sports clubs. Commonly called Last Man Standing, Killers or Survivor Pool, its a simple fundraising competition that can be run against most sporting events. The idea being that each week your competition entrants chose a team to win from a list of sporting event fixtures. If their chosen team wins they progress to the next round, however if they don’t win they are knocked out of the competition. The Last Man or Women standing is the winner. So its a combination of knowledge, strategy and good luck. Most importantly its fun and the winner gets a prize.
The Premier League and the GAA National Football League are popular sporting events that clubs usually run this competition for, however it can be run against most sporting events including your local leagues.
Historically these competitions were run offline using spreadsheets and involved a fair amount of administration effort from a club member, but now its possible to run these fundraisers online using websites such as
In previous blogs we have mentioned
a fair few ideas for fundraising, from bun sales to vandalising the neighbour’s
lawn!
If you are looking for something
different to do as a fundraiser or simply add something to enhance your
fundraiser, a new craze has “popped up” -
inflatable events! (see what I did there)
These inflatable venues range from
pubs to casinos to hot tubs to games depending on what you are after.
Whether you are wanting to run a
casino night with a twist or simply provide an outside bar to accompany your
fundraiser, these inflatables definitely add something different and should
rouse some curiosity from locals.
There are also inflatable games
that can be used for club fun days such as obstacle courses for the kids or
gladiator and sweeper games that the big kids tend to enjoy as well.
If your club are interested in
inflating their fundraising and need some help, PopUpPub.com are Ireland’s
first dedicated inflatable event venue specialist.
The images you see are all from PopUpPub.com, If your club would like to add something to their fundraising you can get in touch with the guys at:
The majority of fundraising is done the traditional way, staying local and getting support from the local community. This model is proven and will probably always remain the main source of raising funds for clubs. However with the ever increasing power of the internet and with more and more of us going online via mobile devices, another channel of fundraising is featuring more with clubs. Online Fundraising. Clubs are already making use of the internet to promote fundraising events, sell tickets and much more. The latest offering in the online fundraising world is CrowdFunding.
It’s been reported that the global crowdfunding market will reach up to 20 Billion pounds in 2015. So the figures are pretty impressive and should be something that clubs consider if they are not already.
Crowdfunding is the process of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people and using internet as the vehicle to do this. The idea is young, but it’s rapidly growing in popularity. In basic terms the process is:
1. Create a project you would like funding for. Add details of why you require the funding
2. Then forward the details on to as many people as possible to gain as much exposure as possible
3. People within and outside your local community then get behind the project and support it by donating online
There are a number of popular crowdfunding sites available to help your club with its fundraising project. Sites like Crowdfunding.com, KickStarter.com, IndieGogo.com, CrowdRaise.com and there are new ones coming on the scene all the time.
An example crowdfunding campaign can be seen by clicking on the link below. Northern Ireland Cross Community Angling. The project aim is to construct Northern Ireland’s first fully inclusive Fishery, with 27 disabled accessible and child safe fishing platforms.
Since most people have now moved online to some degree, with Social Media in particular, fundraising and sponsoring has started to go online as well. From the popular yet traditional cake sale or ticket sale, fundraising options are now taking advantage of the online world through programs such as social sponsoring, a modern means of raising additional funds for your club. An example platform that supports this new way of fundraising is SocialCheckpoint.org, an online social fundraising platform that helps you raise funds with every online purchase made through them
How can the club benefit from social sponsoring?
The club will benefit by getting commission on every purchase that one of its members makes though this channel. So they will have an additional revenue channel coming in with very little effort. How does it work? How does social sponsoring work? Well, it’s pretty simple. You create an account for your club. Once created, you will get a personalised link for your club that you can share with your club members via email or the usual social media channels. Invite them to shop online from a list of connected partners such as Booking.com, iTunes, Adidas, EBay, Groupon and others via your club link. Simple as that. A percentage of every purchase your members make will be donated to club. The great thing about it is that the price of the purchase is exactly the same, no added commissions or expenses, nothing. As technology becomes a bigger part of everyone’s lives, it also offers opportunities to focus on better, faster and simpler ways of fundraising for your club. Who would have known years back that through a simple online purchase of goods people can also be indirectly support their club? This is what Social Sponsoring is all about. Welcome to the new age of fundraising: social sponsoring!
Between now and March we see a lot of sports clubs rolling
out their big production fundraisers in an effort to provide a much needed cash
boost.
We all love a good gameshow on TV and we all like to think
that we would be much better than any of the contestants we criticize every
week. They’re nowhere near as funny, smart, good-looking or athletic as
ourselves…..No? Just me?
For this reason it makes perfect sense for clubs to
adopt
the platforms from our favourite shows and recreate them locally. Everybody
knows the general idea of what the contestants will be doing, all the armchair
experts have the opportunity to put their name forward and everybody wants to
see how the event will be recreated…or how the embarrassments will be
recreated!
A Few of the more successful examples:
· - Strictly Come Dancing
· - Take Me Out
· - Deal Or No Deal
· - White Collar Boxing
· - The Cube
· - A Night At The Races
· - Hypnotist Show
If your club is thinking about organising such a fundraiser
for the coming months and need some assistance Corey Music Promotions are a
company which help set up these fundraisers for clubs.
If your club is in need of some assistance you can contact
Joe on:
We can all agree that holding an event is a fast and
effective way to raise funds.
It’s fair to say that sometimes we need something fresh to
attract donations other than a cake sale, so here are a few outside the box
ideas to have a think about. Walk a mile in High Heels
Each year the Sojourner Family Peace Centre invite men to
walk a mile in high heels to raise money for and awareness of domestic violence
programmes.
This idea could be adapted and tampered with by any club to
create a fun day out for everyone and raise much needed funds for the club.
Who doesn’t want to see the team hard man waddling a mile in
high heels? Or even full drag….there’s an idea! Prank Fundraiser
This is one of my personal favorites!
All you need is a flock of cheap plastic pink flamingos,
garden gnomes or even a toilet spray painted gold.
First you find your target, approach a few people to
“pre-order” attacks on victims of their choice.
They pay you to clutter someone’s yard with pink flamingos
etc. You then strike in the dead of night leaving an explanation note as to
what has happened, and more importantly why.
The victim then pays you to remove the clutter from their
yard and if they want, which I’m sure they will, to target someone else.
This is a great, harmless way to get everyone involved in
fundraising for your club. Get the kids involved in the cluttering/decluttering
and get some videos of people’s reaction to the carnage in their yard for
social media. Slave Auction
Round up a few budding volunteers willing to do some
ironing, cooking, car washing, lawn mowing or whatever other boring tasks you
can think of and raffle them off to the highest bidder.
These fundraisers usually work better when you have a few
personalities involved in the auction so if you can get the players involved
along with one or two local personalities it should garner a lot more interest
from people.
There you have it, now you can raise money and annoy
people…the dream!
“It’s about time I sorted this.” So you sit down, you
open your spreadsheet and you type in the first name from the top of your list,
suddenly the list seems to have grown, “Surely there’s an easier way!”
There is! KlubFunder.com provides an online platform for clubs to use that
enables you to run a Last Man Standing competition with minimal fuss, oh and
it’s FREE. All you really have to do is create the competition and invite your players. This means that all those hours usually spent filling in and
updating spreadsheets, chasing the usual stragglers for that runaway tenner or
sending endless reminders can now be spent promoting your fundraiser. (We help
with that too!) Klubfunder provide the facility for entrants to pay online
as well as sending out reminders to entrants who are prone to picking exactly 1
minute before the deadline (usually the same pains who you are constantly
chasing for the tenner!). Now, that’s how we make your life easier but it’s not all
about you! By running your Last Man Standing online you open the
competition up to an endless audience, simple registration means anyone who
wants to join in just has to log on and sign up – more entrants = more money
raised! All money is collected by your club so you keep it all.
The downside is you don’t get to add an extra 100 friends on
Facebook to keep them updated…we know deep down you loved that part of it all.
We also have our Rugby World Cup Score Predictor ready to go, why not check it out and get fundraising!
I don’t have to tell you that pretty much everybody you know
is on social media nowadays, you probably know what half of them had for dinner
last night. #JamieRamsey LOL But just how do you make the most of your online presence
when it comes to fundraising?
Pick Your Medium If your club doesn’t have a Facebook and/or Twitter – GET THEM!
There is most definitely still a place for approaching people or “Door
knocking” especially in sports clubs. However, if your club is not actively
promoting fundraisers online, you’re losing out. Tailor Your Content Don’t fall into the trap of posting the exact same content
across your social media accounts. They all have different offerings and should
therefore be used in different ways. For example, on Twitter your homepage is one long list of
short messages (no longer than 140 characters to be exact, but hey who’s
counting!) which are quite boring to look at. So, if you want your tweet to be noticed you should design a
poster for your fundraiser, that way your tweet will stand out from the crowd
and the key information will be clear for everyone to see. You can then use the text on your tweet to pester people
(which I’m sure you’re very skilled at) for Retweets so your post will reach a bigger audience
and generate a bit of buzz for your fundraiser. Your Facebook posts can contain more text details but should
be filled with photos and videos to encourage people to take notice of what you
are doing and engage. Facebook is a great tool in encouraging interaction with people, try
to engage the people you are targeting so they start to feel like they
are part of something and their opinion is valid. You may get some great
fundraising ideas from people. If your club are hosting an event,
take short and silly (people get bored easily) promo videos to get
people’s attention – bloopers are great. Have a steady
stream of content to keep the event on peoples mind. If you are planning on having a large amount of visual
content it may be worth creating an Instagram account to share your pictures
and videos, you can then post the better ones on Facebook and Twitter. As it’s generally a volunteer giving their time to run the
social media accounts for clubs it may be the smart move to focus their
attention on Facebook and/or Twitter. It will be more
beneficial to you if one social media channel is being maximized, than if three
are all over the place. It is up to the
person volunteering their time as to how much they can take on, while everyone
can help with the content. If you have any fundraisers you would like us to help
promote, get in touch through Facebook or Twitter or send us an e-mail at hello@klubfunder.com
