It is very important to think about fundraising to help your team attend Global Finals if you are not getting support from a school system or elsewhere. Some ideas: car washes, talking to businesses, asking local restaurants to donate some of their proceeds to your team on a certain day.
Some Internet resources:
From Cre8Iowa, A Dozen Ways to Fund a Team
From Planet Green, Raise Funds while Saving the Environment
Duct Tape A Teacher – Students at an elementary school fundraiser in Downers Grove, Illinois duct taped a kindergarten teacher to the wall to raise money for Thanksgiving gift baskets for needy families. Colorful duct tape strips were $1 each or a donation of $5 was good for six strips. The kids raised $450 for gift cards to go with the donated items in the gift baskets created by each class.
Haunted House
The great thing about a haunted house is that it’s all about the atmosphere and it’s usually dark, so with the right setting and some creative use of props, you’ve got a fun and scary fundraiser at the same time.
Car emergency kits
The best one our baseball team did was selling car emergency kits. We sold ad spaces to various business like Insurance Agents, Car dealers, Auto Parts stores, Towing companies, Car Washes etc. The revenue from the ad spaces paid for the kits.
Think about it, do you have flares, first aid kit, jumper cables etc. in your car? Many people bought multiple kits! They sold like hotcakes!
One of the local Ford dealerships placed a bulk order to use as giveaways whenever the sold a car. They could have got them from the same company, because buying them from us they were able to use them a write off.
Pink Plastic Flamingo Flock
The premise of the fund raiser was actually brilliantly simple. A quantity of Pink Flamingos was used as the center piece of this effort. The “flock” would be placed in the yard or in front of a business of the target. The target was then “obligated” to advertise the fund raising strategy to any and all who happened by the location during the period. I put the “obligated” in parenthesis because no one wanted to look cheap or petty, by jerking these pink birds from their lawn. As a matter of fact it was actually a good advertising opportunity as it drew visual attention to places that might on average not get so many looks.
The “flock” would roam across the area on a prescribed schedule, so whoever got the honor of hosting knew how long they had to accommodate the pink plastic lawn ornaments, thus giving them a reasonable comfort with the process. For those enjoying the increased benefit of the extra attention this time probably seemed short. On the other hand if you were secretly annoyed the interval probably felt way too long.
The profit from the process came in two ways, from people paying to “flock” someone and from those wanting to pay “insurance” to make sure they were not surprised by the pink poultry.
Obviously secrecy was the key to the best execution of the “flocking” process. I mean if you know something is coming what is the fun in that? It was vital that those involved with placing the “flock” did not communicate this fact with those outside the organization seeking to benefit the most from this fundraising strategy.
Usually the “flock” was placed with the benefit of darkness. Using this method, the “flock keepers” were less exposed to the likelihood of being discovered. Also, everyone awoke to the surprise of pink feathered friends adorning their patch of grass.
This is a pretty easy fundraising idea, requiring very little in the way of materials, guaranteeing you a high profit. You need to think about what could be the best and cheap fundraising ideas as you don’t want a lot of cash going into the idea. Once the “flock” of flamingoes was bought the initial cost of the project was over. The profit came in people paying to place the flamingoes as well as those wanting to purchase the insurance.
Of course it would probably be necessary to purchase extra flamingos as I am sure placing them and removing them after their “rest period” on someone’s lawn probably contributed to some amount of wear and tear. Still the profit potential should outweigh any initial outlay of cash.