If you’re a parent, you probably want to support your child in their extracurricular interests, but school budgets for these programs are unfortunately not always as high as we might want them to be. At almost any school, public or private, you will hear someone expressing concerns about lack of money. This means that it often falls to parents and students to pick up the slack if they don’t want their favorite programs to get cut.

While you might be a little less than excited to go door to door with your child selling candy bars, if your child’s sports team is running a fundraiser, you may feel obligated to participate. If you, like many parents, aren’t thrilled about this kind of incentive program (as these kinds of school fundraising programs usually only mean about 30-50% of proceeds for schools and students), suggest one of the following alternatives for your child’s team:

Organize an Event

Fundraisers tend to work better when you focus on the friends, family, and neighbors of the students. As it is, most people give to these fundraisers not because they want a $5 candy bar, but because they want to support the students. So rather than go door to door trying to sell things to strangers, organize an event targeted at your immediate community. Ideas might include:

• Movie Night: Select one or two movies and plan a community movie night. Choose a good outdoor location, like the school football field, where you will be able to project the movie and seat a fair number of people. Invite them to bring picnic blankets and folding chairs. You should choose one movie that is family friendly, like a Disney movie, and one that might be more interesting to teenagers and parents. A classic teen movie like Breakfast Club might do well. Play the family friendly one first so that families with young kids can attend and still be home before the kids’ bed times. Sell tickets, snacks, and drinks to raise funds, but don’t forget to get permission to use the film before proceeding.
• Book Sale: Get all of your team mates’ families to look through old books and then hold an informal book sale. See if you can get permission from a local business to hold your sale in their parking lot or use the school parking lot. You could also do bake sales, yard sales, car washes, or cook-offs. Make sure your kids wear their team uniforms for these events!

Sell Team Merchandise

Make or order your own team merchandise that you can sell to other students or people in the community. People are more likely to want to buy and actually use items like these as they provide a good way to support their neighborhood teams.

• T-Shirts, hats, flags, foam fingers, bleacher seats, and car magnets: Items like these are great because fans can actually purchase and use them at games to show team spirit.
• Plates, mugs, cups, and travel mugs: These are especially popular with family members of the athletes.

Just Ask!

Most of the time, people participate in and give to fundraising events because they want to support their neighbors and friends. Come up with ways to approach friends, family members, and community members to convince them of the importance of supporting local neighborhood teams.

• Find community sponsors: Ask local businesses to sponsor your team, to purchase advertising space at your event venues, or to donate items to raffle off. Many local businesses will appreciate the good PR that comes from sponsoring local teams and students.
• Rent an Athlete: Some sports teams have had good luck with offering their time to do things like mow lawns, clean gutters, move firewood, etc.
• Invite individual sponsors: Invite neighbors and friends to donate money to sponsor your child in their athletic event. For example, ask for a pledge of $5 for every lap they can complete around the track.