How to Promote Fundraising for Youth Sports? Keys to Marketing and Optimizing Youth Sports Fundraising

Here are a few helpful tips to market, promote, and optimize your youth sports fundraising process.

Youth sports fundraising is a crucial part of every season on our annual calendar. While individual fundraising events are crucial, we also understand how important marketing, promoting and optimizing our fundraising strategies is to the program’s overall success. 

No matter the situation, sports organizers are fully aware of the raising costs of youth sports and stay highly focused on battling that financial impact wherever possible. We may be raising funds to cut down registration costs, for travel, equipment, or setting up scholarships, but the list of reasons to fundraise is endless. 

Here are a few keys to promote your next fundraising event and general advice on marketing and optimizing youth sports fundraising. 

Sports Fundraising Ideas

• Sell merchandise for your organization, online or in person!
• Take advantage of your online presence (advertising, sponsorships, etc.) 
• Events!
  • Pancake Breakfast
  • Sponsored 5K
  • Car Wash
  • Spaghetti Dinner
• Create a contest for your families such as step challenges, parent’s tournament, or others!
• Sell food at your events!
• Raffle off prizes or other merchandise
• Ask for donations during registration
• Get sponsored! 

How to Promote Youth Sports Fundraising 

Creating unique, fun, and easy ways to fundraise money is just half of the equation. It’s important to market, promote, and optimize each of your sports fundraising events and ideas. Here are a few ways to best promote your next youth sports fundraiser.

Take advantage of your youth sports website

A lot of youth sports websites are easily customizable. Take advantage of this! Create space, preferably somewhere that will catch the most eyes (like your homepage) to promote your next event. Include any relevant details, a catchy title for the event, and a graphic or creative image to support the cause.

Social media, email and platform communications

Use all of your tools to communicate with your preferred audience. Each fundraising event should be thoughtfully communicated via social media platforms, your email lists, or even alerts and messages via your tech stack.

Flyers, banners, creatives

Don’t forget this fun part of marketing fundraising ideas! Use a little bit of your budget to create different flyers, banners, or other social media graphics to help sell your upcoming fundraiser.

Include your “why”

It’s much easier to capture the attention of potential fundraising partners and supporters when they know what they’re supporting. Let your audience know what the fundraiser is trying to accomplish. New uniforms and equipment? A scholarship fund? Travel costs for the upcoming tournament?

Create different themes based on seasonality

Use seasonality to your advantage! One way is by leveraging the different seasons for different themes in your fundraising efforts. The summer months may be focused on new equipment or travel to a postseason tournament. The winter season can focus on registration costs. Also use themes in the ideas themselves. Car washes or sponsored 5K events are better in the warmer months. A contest or holiday-themed event is best in December!

Use your tech stack

Your league management platform should be the best partner for fundraising events. Choose a program management platform that supports all of your fundraising initiatives. This includes the ability to collect donations during registration, sell merchandise for your clubs, use your website to promote events, and participate in resources like TeamSnap Sponsorship, which connects organizations like yours with regional and national brands as sponsors… at no additional cost!

Additional Resource