High School Fundraising Ideas/help

[EWalsh1029]

Okay, so I am the former JV coach, now I am going to be the Varsity coach for the winter season. We have decided to have two separate bank accounts for each season (I think this is the smart way to keep things organized). The problem is, this is the first time we are doing this, so starting this winter season our bank account will be $0. I was wondering if any of you knew of any great fundraising ideas, whether is be selling things, or getting kids involved, events, ANYTHING would be greatly appreciated! I am looking to sort of "re-vamp" this season and would love any help I could get! We really want to be able to hire our choreographer to give us a new routine/new music, but as you all know that does not run cheap!

Here are some things we usually do:
-Fudge Sales (not until Feb.)
-Invitational (not until Feb.)

I was thinking of:
- Selling baked goods or something at games?
- Holiday Grams at school
- Moms Night Out/Moms get some shopping done (lol)

Any other ideas? The past few seasons the old Varsity coach has mainly relied on the invitational and has over spent what we have so our present account has dwindled (not enough $ to pay the invoices we have :banghead so I am more than ready to start fresh with this new winter account, but I want to be able to have it grow nice and steadily !

 

[quitthedrama]

The ideas you have are good ones! Here are some others:
school vacation cheerleading camp - do 2 days and you can charge $25/day or $40 for both days. The elementary/middle schools should let you give them flyers to send home to the parents, plus you can normally advertise in your local paper's community calendar for no charge.
Contact your local stores - many will do fundraisers for non-profit organizations where a % of sales will go to your organization
Boot drive - ask your local mall or even your town if you can hold a boot drive on a Saturday. You will probably have to get permits from the town but this is a good time of year to do it with many people in the giving spirit! Or local business often allow you to "can" in front of their stores.
Good luck!

 

[Little Coach]

Definitely a kiddie camp. Its a great way to get younger kids excited for high school! We also did a fundraiser with chipotle which raised good money, along with selling cheer shirts for the school. We made it mandatory for each girl to sell 3. It includes hoodies, t-shirts and long sleeve.

 

[AScheer]

I feel like fundraising is my middle name! It's a never ending constant for us and is exhausting. Below are our best fundraisers that we have found that work for us. Make sure you check with your AD and bookkeeper about rules. I know for us we aren't allowed to do raffles (state law) or any type of moms day out (insurance reasons.) There's all sorts of rules we discover along the way!

1. Homecoming Dance
2. Selling Pizza Kits (pizzakits.com) We set a minimum of $200 that they have to sell.
3. Youth Cheer Clinic - basically free money!
4. Homecoming Program book - also basically free money!
5. BBQ Dinner/Spaghetti Dinner before a huge rival game
6. Concession stand
7. Sponsorship Letter Drive - sending letters to friends family and businesses asking for donations.
8. Carwashes
9. Selling school shirts
10. Collecting change
11. Hosting a 5K

We try our best to not sell stuff. Girls hate it, I hate keeping track of orders, and profit isn't usually that great. Once you sell more than 1 - 3 things in a season people start complaining. Good luck with your fresh start!

 

[EWalsh1029]

Oooh I love the 5k idea! I'm training for a half marathon so I am so going to talk to my AD about this!

 

[GForce]

We always did a father daughter dance. Different theme each year. The first was formal, then Hawaiian, then western, then formal again? and then this past year i believe they did a costume theme (it was around Halloween this year). The girls and their dads come, and they get their picture taken with a background (like how most schools do for prom and other dances). It was a lot of fun! We sold these roses too, that generated a lot of money. There was light snacks and drinks available.
We also did a kiddie clinic and a competition. With those major fundraisers, all team members were able to cover the cost of UCA nationals, apparel and other competitions. It was very rare for some one to not have fundraised enough. Most of the team we over fundraised, which is perfectly fine.

 

[CheerGlammie]

We're doing cheer-grams.....its hilarious. We go up to people and cheer a message from their friends.

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[cheermomforever]

We just had a showcase and auctioned off "services" from our I5 team.

2 hour man power for garage, basement or yard cleaning
A smart honor student....offered tutoring
A great photographer.......family portrait or cheer comp pics
Make-up and hair done at comp
Babysitting
Video collage by a talented techno smart guy
Get away vacation with team member at her summer house
Stunting classes and privates by team members who coaches

They all volunteered their time to raise $
It was a great one that raised 1000's

 

[MHSCheercoach]

Our best fundraiser this year was raffling off tickets to a STL cards game. They were awesome tickets and we charged $2 a ticket or 6 tickets for $10. We made over $1000 and we are a super small town.

 

[Olivia Gelard]

Our team has had to pay for a lot of things ourselves (warm ups, campwear, etc.), so we've come up with some really useful fundraisers!

-Flower Handout: In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, we have the team run a table in the lobby where people can buy flowers for their friends/crushes/whatever, and write notes to them. Then on February 12th or 13th, we buy pink carnations (cheaper than roses) from a florist in town (make sure you call them in advance first though, because a lot of the time, we end up selling hundreds and need to make sure they have enough), and have a few girls assemble the flowers by attaching the notes and then organizing the flowers by period. On Valentine's Day, the girls hand flowers out during their frees, and we make a lot of money! We charge $2 per flower, or $5 for three flowers. To keep the costs down, our florist was so nice to give us a lower rate since we were buying in bulk.

-Sponsorship Fundraiser: This one makes thousands of dollars. Our coach made sponsorship forms, and then we had the girls go around town and get businesses to sponsor the team, usually about $50 per business. We set a minimum of three sponsors per girl, and then the other captains and I designed a t-shirt with all of our sponsors' names on the back. We then wore the shirts to the Breast Cancer charity walk we do each year, and also to warm-ups at competitions and things like that. It's nice, because the businesses get their names out, and we get a ton of money! (Tip: Businesses like hair and nail salons are always happy to help out, but our girls have often gotten bigger donations from places you wouldn't expect, like tile stores and lumber yards-a lot of these businesses love to get publicity in any way they can!)

 

[CarrieP]

If you are still looking for ideas - I have been doing some fundraising through my vinyl decal business ( wall stickers). I have created different ones for schools and cheer gyms and I also have several cute cheer quotes. They are easy to sell and always a hit! Let me know if you have any questions. If you want to see some samples - I am on Facebook at CheerDesignStudio.
Good luck!

 

[smontie]

I feel like fundraising is my middle name! It's a never ending constant for us and is exhausting. Below are our best fundraisers that we have found that work for us. Make sure you check with your AD and bookkeeper about rules. I know for us we aren't allowed to do raffles (state law) or any type of moms day out (insurance reasons.) There's all sorts of rules we discover along the way!

1. Homecoming Dance
2. Selling Pizza Kits (pizzakits.com) We set a minimum of $200 that they have to sell.
3. Youth Cheer Clinic - basically free money!
4. Homecoming Program book - also basically free money!
5. BBQ Dinner/Spaghetti Dinner before a huge rival game
6. Concession stand
7. Sponsorship Letter Drive - sending letters to friends family and businesses asking for donations.
8. Carwashes
9. Selling school shirts
10. Collecting change
11. Hosting a 5K

We try our best to not sell stuff. Girls hate it, I hate keeping track of orders, and profit isn't usually that great. Once you sell more than 1 - 3 things in a season people start complaining. Good luck with your fresh start!

Do you have a sample of what your youth cheer clinic did for a schedule? How many days did you run it? How much did you charge?

 

[cmghas3]

I'm not sure if this would work, but one thing that our Athletic Booster Club does quite frequently is this...

A local restaurant such as Texas Roadhouse will hold a "night" where they donate 10% of their sales between 4-8 to us. It's a win/win for both because they pass fliers out at school and this generates extra business to the restaurant. All of the Varsity team greets customers there also!

We been asked by other local businesses to do this also. These restaurants generate a ton of extra sales in those days. They have reported that they see about a 30-35% increase on those days. Burger King and McDonalds also have done it and report higher increases! Especially if your principal or coach will volunteer to help "serve".




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[AScheer]

Do you have a sample of what your youth cheer clinic did for a schedule? How many days did you run it? How much did you charge?

Sure. We actually run two different types. I'll pm you details and can email you forms if you want.

 

[smontie]

Sure. We actually run two different types. I'll pm you details and can email you forms if you want.

That would be great, Thank you!

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