13 Easy Softball Fundraising Ideas For Quick Money

Fundraising is a great way to pay for various team costs that will come your way. Let’s be honest, running a softball team isn’t cheap, especially if you want to provide great experiences for the team.

Enter, fundraising! With many different options, you can rather quickly accumulate needed funds for the team trip, tournament, new equipment, transportations, and you name it. As a bonus, everyone participating will have a great time, new networks will be formed, and perhaps new friends.

But how to host fundraising? This can be overwhelming, especially as a first-timer, but it isn’t hard if you have great ideas for raising money. In exchange, you need to provide something for the buyers.

Let’s see our list of the best softball fundraising ideas without further delay!

Softball Fundraising Ideas

1. Have a Donation Table

Let’s start with the basics. Including a simple donation table at your, every event will certainly raise some funds. It’s a straightforward way to ask for donations, and people are often glad to chip in on kids’ teams. However, it isn’t as simple as it sounds, and if you take a couple of extra steps, you can turn it into a major fund stream.

Often, the donation tables are hosted by a team member’s parents, so be sure to ask them, and you will get volunteers. Then, you need to train them with the donors’ questions about the team and where the donations will go.

To increase the number of donations you get, you should offer incentives that want people to donate even more. Donation incentives might include:

• Offer team merchandise – Providing brand merchandise when someone donates is a great way to increase the donor and donation amounts. For example, if someone donates $10, you could give out a team pin, $20 could be a keychain, €50 would award a t-shirt, and so on.
• Recognize donors – Everyone wants to be recognized for the great things they do. Thanking the donors by name on relative team channels such as the website and social media channels shows appreciation and will make the donors feel better about contributing.
• Host a VIP draw among donors – Hosting a VIP lottery/draw between donors that have donated above a certain sum, such as €50 or €100, is a great way to gain more donations. This makes the donors feel exclusive! You could raffle a new bat, new cleats, gift card, or a free amount of team membership time for the winner.
• Having donor tiers – The team will most likely host many events, so having a donor tier will further make the donors feel exclusive, which is always something people want. You should provide something worth the donations for each tier, yet you should be well on the profit side of things. This could be a certain discount percentage or free things such as including a part on your website saying ”gold tier donors” and including the names there.

2. Sell Discount Cards

Discount cards us a great way to get the close ones from the team members to donate.

The way it works is that the discount cards are purchased by the buyers provided by you and are used to gain discounts from local businesses such as restaurants, markets, and experience offerers.

Think about it. Wouldn’t you buy a discount card from a team so that you could get discounts on various things in your life? I know I would.

The best way to do this is to use a company to do it for you, and there is no better than ABC Fundraising. They will sell the discount cards for your team with an incredible 93% profit margin, set up an online store where team supporters can purchase these discount cards, and suggest local retailers and restaurants you could team up with.

3. Host a Raffle

If you want to raise funds excitingly, hosting a raffle is what you need. Raffles is one of the most participated fundraising methods as there is a prize to be won that is usually awesome. As you are hosting a softball raffle, be sure to include an item that will get people excited, such as equipment, a new bat that will gain people’s envy or a gift card of some sort.

To host a raffle, you need to think about how many tickets are available and how much each one costs. Also, do you allow one person to buy more than one ticket for fairness, or do you want to give out raffle tickets in exchange for something other than money, such as volunteering on a donation table or helping the team in another way.

I like to see in a raffle that there is more than one prize. This makes more people join, further increasing the funds raised.

4. Have a Bake Sale

A traditional yet effective way to gain funds is to have a bake sale. Bake sales are cheap to host; they will reap reputation for the team and get team members and their parents well participating.

You can host a bake sale in various places, such as the neighborhood school or a community center. Another great place and time to host a bake sale is a town festival, parades, and other citywide events.

To get most of the fundraising, be sure to be aware of the most known food allergies and restrictions such as veganism, gluten-free, and nut-free allergies. Also, you should accept both cash and credit card to leave no buyer out of the occasion.

Last but not least, make your brownies, cupcakes, cookies, cakes, pies, or whatever you want to sell with a softball theme. For example, you could make cakes that are long and narrow like a softball bat, use a yellow frosting to cookies or cupcakes to make them look like softballs, and any other softball-related decorations will seal the deal!

5. Provide Team Merchandise

Selling team merchandise is a great way to raise funds and spread the word about your softball team.

Start by selling items with your team logo on them on gameday. These can include things such as

• T-shirts & Hoodies
• Water Bottles
• Backpacks
• Keychains
• Caps & Beanies
• Other branded equipment

The most important thing is that the items are visually appealing, so people want to use them. Nobody wants to buy unattractive items, even for a good cause.

To further gain donors and make people excited, you could involve your team members and their families in design. Then, select a couple of the best designs on the products and give credit to the designer.

This will make people more interested in joining the designing process and want to buy items with a personal story behind them!

6. Sell Gourmet Snacks Directly

This is one of my favorites! Providing gourmet snacks such as cookies, coffee, team, or beef jerky for the team members to sell for their families, friends, and other people is a great way to gain funds with small effort, increase the team spirit, and host a friendly contest.

The best way to do this is to make a contest out of it and provide prizes for the three best-selling team members with a great prize for the first one.

When I was a boy scout, we got as many cookie boxes as we could sell, and we went from door to door selling them and spreading the word to our families. It was really fun! And the best part for the troops or the team in softball’s instance is that they got thousands of dollars in raised funds.

7. Gain a Local Sponsor

One of the most powerful ways to gain funds and recognition for your softball team is to work with locals such as restaurants, stores, and other businesses?

Start by reaching out to your local businesses and present opportunity to work together. You can say that by paying a certain fee or purchasing the team’s jerseys, you can add their business logos on the shirts to be visible to hundreds if not thousands of people. You will have the best chance with not-so-known brands such as new restaurants or pubs located on the side of the town.

Another way to do this is to propose that you do something for the local business if they advertise your game on their social platforms, make flyers inside their shop or restaurant, and anything between.

You can get creative, and only the sky is the limit with the different sponsor opportunities you could come up with. Remember that the benefit and incentive need to be mutually beneficial and incentive enough to work.

8. Provide Advertisements for Locals

Switching things around, you can provide advertisements for local businesses at a price. This is a great way to raise funds, and you will form new networks and bridges that are always good for future opportunities.

So your softball team has a field where the games are held, right? Well, there are many areas that you could use for advertisement in the form of a banner.

Reach out to the local businesses you think would want to have an advertisement banner during gameday. Set up a price from the advertisement and work together to create the banner that you can set up in a great position.

My recommended company for custom banners is BannerBuzz. They have many different options, great discounts, and fast shipping so that you can do this with ease.

9. Sell Refreshments on Gameday

Selling refreshments on a gameday means guaranteed funds with minimal effort! For example, you could bulk order Gatorade from Amazon, place them on ice or a cooler, and sell them with profit on gameday. The same principle holds bottled water, snacks, food, and other refreshments.

To generate even more funds, you do this near or within the donation stand so the refreshments buyers might donate and the donors might buy refreshments.

Do this every game day and see gathered funds roll in!

10. Host a Yard Sale

A yard sale is another oldie but goldie in terms of fundraising. As there are nine softball positions, there are at least nine people on a softball team. Meaning, you can make a great yard sale with those numbers!

As everyone will be bringing out the items they don’t need, you as a team and individuals need to decide on the percentage that will go toward the fundraising and what you will keep for yourself. Of course, everything can be sold towards the fundraising, which would increase the benefits you get out of the yard sale.

For people to come and know about your yard sale, be sure to hand out flyers, work with your sponsors, announce it on the team website and social media accounts, email people, and so on so you can sell something!

11. Team Carwash Fundraiser

I like this fundraising idea because it is fun, people can get cars washed at a reasonable price, and the team will gain the funds needed for their cause. It’s a win-win situation! What’s a more iconic fundraising method than a carwash?

To do a successful softball team carwash, you need to find a great place for it. This can be in front of one of your team sponsors or other places that will ring any bells in your area. If you plan to do this in your sponsor’s area, be sure to ask and work things out before showing up!

In addition, it’s good to plan this a bit early as you should advertise this and any other fundraising tactic on the team’s key informing platforms.

A carwash is a cheap way to collect funds for the team as all you need is some hot water, rags, car wash liquid, and a breeze spirit!

12. Home Run Derby

Hosting a home run derby of your own is a great way to collect good amounts of funds while making things very interesting and fun for team members and their families.

This works by having your team members ask their parents or family members to sponsor them with a certain amount of money for each home run they make. This can be anything, but it’s best to ask reasonable amounts, not hundreds of dollars.

This can be a specific amount of each home run made or a leveled one that increases the more home runs one makes.

To make this worthwhile for the team members and the raised funds to the team, offer a prize for the best or the best batters that made the most home runs during the derby.

13. Hold an Event

Last but not least, you can host an event that collects funds for the team. There are events already listed on this list, but there are so many others, including;

• Have softball lessons for the children
• Host a softball match for the parents of the team members (Very fun)
• Hold an auction
• Have a local dance
• Host a multi sport event (Batting contest, dodgeball, throwing contest)

As in other fundraising events, there need to be incentives for the participants to multiply the attendees. So be sure to offer amazing prizes for the winners! Only your imagination is the limit here.