Fundraising is a vital aspect of any club’s journey, without it, clubs would not survive. Therefore, it’s critical that fundraising is done as efficiently as possible. Here’s how to improve your club’s fundraisers.
Planning Fundraising Goals
While it can be tempting to begin fundraising as soon as possible, too many clubs jump straight into it without proper planning.
To fundraise effectively, you have to consider the club’s position.
- How is the club tracking financially?
- What needs improvement at the club?
- Is there club infrastructure that needs repair or upgrades?
- Do we need new equipment?
- Are our membership fees appropriate?
These questions and more will inform your fundraising goals. Objectives are important to have as they keep your club on track, and break fundraising into more achievable blocks, preventing overstressing.
When creating club goals, always make them specific and realistic.
If your objectives are too lofty, people will lose trust or feel unaware of what you are raising for. Additionally, if they are unrealistic or too difficult, it can hurt donor’s motivation to contribute money.
For example: Raising $1,000 to buy new shirts is more achievable than raising $10,000 to improve the club.
The latter goal feels endless while the former can be achieved and replaced by a new goal, producing a sense of progress and success within the club’s community.
Delegating Fundraising Work
Depending on the size of your club and the number of willing volunteers you have, you want to do as many fundraising events as you comfortably can.
However, crowdfunding can be incredibly time heavy and manpower intensive. Additionally, its often tasked upon too few people.
When organising charity campaigns, it is incredibly beneficial to delegate multiple people across different fundraising streams to ensure each receives full attention, and to prevent people from becoming overburdened.
Through this, each fundraising method is being optimised to its fullest extent, while club members can still focus on their club roles.
Choosing Fundraisers
Choosing what club donations to do can be a tricky process and often depends on the membership base of your club, as members may be likely to contribute to some fundraisers more than others.
When deciding, first reflect on what has worked well for the club in the past and what has been less successful.
Additionally, it’s important to fundraise in a cost-effective manner. Some contributions may be appealing, but if they are too time intensive and expensive than the benefits may not be enough.
Furthermore, the skills of your volunteers are also worth considering. Some of your members may have special talents which you can leverage. For example, naturally extroverted and charismatic members could make for great trivia night hosts.
Traditional Fundraisers
There are a range of traditional fundraisers that your club can implement to help boost funds in a way that is familiar and approachable to your membership base.
Here are some examples:
- Trivia Night
- Sausage Sizzle
- Auction
- Raffle
- Movie Night
Online Fundraising
In today’s world, technology has generated more ways than ever to fundraise.
A valuable option for your club could be an online donation page. These pages can be added to your cub’s website, allowing members from a wider community to donate in a familiar and trustworthy place.
Donation pages are a great option for clubs as they can be relatively simple to set up and do not require too much work afterwards. However, it’s important to ensure the page stays up to date and works, you do not want to miss out on possible funds.
If your club does not feel comfortable creating a donation page or does not have its own website, you could consider opting into the Australian Sport Foundation’s (ASF) fundraising platform.
The ASF allows clubs across the nation to post a donation page to the ASF website to receive funds for club projects.
Funds donated through the ASF platform are tax-deductible, thus making donations a more attractive option to potential benefactors.
Membership Fees
The most effective way to increase the coffers of any club is to increase membership fees, as it targets everyone involved in the club. However, it can be a double-edged sword.
If your club increases fees too much, you can upset or even drive away members. Remember to always treat membership fees carefully, and as an option of last resort.
Conclusion
Club finances are an often-stressful dread hanging over the heads of club boards and members, however, fundraising does not have to be daunting.
Through planning and delegating the work, fundraising can be made a far simpler process. Additionally, fundraising events can be an enjoyable time for all involved, generating lifelong friendships and memories.
