Every sports club will tell you how short of funds they are. They would all like to have a wealthy benefactor, to spend freely on improving the profile and success of the club and teams. Sadly the wealthy guys are few and far between but, i am sure you have many skills and fundraising ideas that remain untapped, within your club. When it comes to fundraising, most people go 'oh no not again'. It always seems to fall on the already, overworked few. These members are reluctant to step forward to take on an important part of the future for most clubs. With funding, from sports governing bodies, greatly reduced and a lack of spending on sponsorship from local businesses, now is the best time to embrace new fundraising ideas. With only 2 or 3 club members, a huge amount of money could be raised. First though, it is important to understand the reasons for raising money for the club. It could be a number of things:-
To pay for coaching
To improve the clubhouse
To improve/upgrade or buy new Coaching equipment or Cricket Balls
To help fund a tour.
Now you have the reason to fund raise, it is easier to get other members to support your efforts. Now, you have to come up with fun ideas that make fundraising simple, FUN and most importantly, not a chore. Our local Rugby club, Abingdon RFC, took advantage of 2 initiatives run by the RFU. 1 was to sell raffle tickets to your members and receive a percentage of ticket sales, for the club. The great thing about this was, the printing of tickets and organising of prizes was already arranged. Our percentage, i believe, was 75% of ticket sales. We managed to raise, in excess of £1200, in a matter of weeks. The 2nd initiative, was the cash back scheme, for tickets sold, to watch the Premiership Final at Twickenham. The more tickets you sell the bigger the percentage returned. I organised a coach and sold tickets for the game, filled out the application form. A few weeks after the event, a cheque arrived for nearly £500. Not bad, eh. The important thing about these two events was that a huge amount of work had been done by the governing body. Why not check out the governing body of your chosen sport, to see if they are as forward thinking as the RFU. Our local cricket club, Abingdon Vale CC, have raised around £200, in the last couple of years running a fantasy cricket league. This is using players from the club rather than joining a fantasy league, that uses professional teams. The fun part is you can be a major contributor, if you play cricket aswell, for someone else to win the top prize. This builds a of banter within the club. Next season, i intend to set up a new competition. As we have a big Junior section and 5 Adult sides so, we have quite a lot of people to tap into. The idea is to guess the aggregate runs scored, from all 5 adult sides, throughout the season. £2 per guess or 3 guesses for £5. The junior section, should also be able to hazard a guess, as we will publish the totals over the last few years, this will enable all entries to have an educated guess. Cash prizes or vouchers from a cricket shop will be offered as rewards. This is a fundraiser that could apply to many clubs, of many different sports. We also, ran a trip to watch Surrey CCC in a 20/20 game. We filled a coach and had a great day. The best part was the 40% group discount, which is a great start to the u15's tour fund next season. We had fun and also raised some funds, that is what it is all about. Now is a good time to focus on what your club need to raise funds for. Set up a working party to explore the types of events possible, then get on and raise some money. You never know you might just enjoy it.
