Fundraising Ideas

[jes.the.gymnast]

hey guys i would love to hear about your

- favorite fundraising ideas

- any ideas which you think works well

and
- ones to stay away from

thanks

 

[gymcoach26]

The best thing we have done are "parents nights out". Its great for parents and kids! The kids have a fun time and parents get cheap babysitting. Depending on how long you want to have it either do open gym, pizza and a movie, arts and crafts etc.

Leotard resales often are successful. Ask for donations of gently used, clean leos. (You can just ask team, but getting all ages from preschool up is better because there's more sizes and more customers.) Resell the leos for a cheap price like $5.

If it's near the holidays, you can try gift wrapping.

Here's a funny carwash idea..
How About fundraising with a Topless Car Wash for your next fund raising event or fundraiser! It's not what it seems haha

some other simple ideas are can drives, recycling, 50-50 raffles

We've done carnivals and such in the past, which really weren't worth it because you have to put so much money in to get a good turn out.

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

We seem to do best with Parents Night Out.

 

[bookworm]

To avoid:

*Unless you run a meet with a ton of gymnasts (>800) that makes a ton of money, the effort for the entire thing just isn't worth the return.


Things that have worked:

*scrip program as an ongoing fundraiser
*leotard resales (100 % profit on this one!!)
* wreath and Christmas tree sales
* banner sales in the gym

Hope this helps...

 

[marie83]

We do a few fundraisers each year, some we have stopped doing because they only really worked once but...

Every Christmas we have a raffle with the first second and third prize being a hamper - The first prize is normally worth over £50. Every gymnast is asked to sell 5 books of tickets and donate a prize. This works really well and we've done it for as long as I can remember!

We also do a smarties coin collection throughout the year. 2 local supermarkets donate smarties to us and every gymnast who wants to take part takes a tube home, eats the smarties and then fills the empty tube with 20 pence pieces. When it is full, they return the full tubes and get another one in return. Each tube holds £12.60!

These are smarties btw and the tubes are just the right shape for 20ps!
There might be something similar you can do! Nestlé - SMARTIES - The Range

We also do bag packing at local supermarkets.

We used to make calendars depicting various groups of gymnasts from the club, but these weren't very successful - I think there was a certain number that you had to order and we couldn't shift them - however having said that they weren't the best quality ever!

We are also looking into doing sponsored events on every 12th week of term - something like a sponsored cartwheel-a-thon that every member of the club can take part in but we've not tried that yet so could be a disaster!

 

[mariposa]

We sold these candles last year and it was great. Everyone I sold to loved them. They are only $10 (well last year they were) and each gymnast got $5.00 for each sold.

Candle fundraisers      for fundraising organizations

 

[flippinlolly]

We are also looking into doing sponsored events on every 12th week of term - something like a sponsored cartwheel-a-thon that every member of the club can take part in but we've not tried that yet so could be a disaster!

The sponsored idea definitely works! We do it at our gym...cartwheel a thon or forward roll a thon for those who cant cartwheel. The person who does the most cartwheels in one minute gets a prize and same with forward rolls. The person who gets the most money also gets a prize. I think doing it every term may get a bit much though! People might not be as willing to sponsor them if its every term but if you do it once a year like we do you get a lot of money from it!!!

 

[nettyinpa]

Our gym just had a very successful auction last night. They've done this auction for 30 years and it proves to be their most successful fundraiser. In our gym, every team family has to raise a certain amount of money for the year (from Sept.-Aug.). Ours happens to be $2000. Rather than sell tons of stuff like gift wrap or pizzas, I focused on getting items for the auction. I received donations for 28 different things. The majority of the things were gift cards but I also got some artwork donated by local artists, some jewelry from local jewelers, a fresh cut Christmas tree, and carpet cleaning, all things that went into the 'silent auction'. The best thing I had donated to me was a 2-night stay at a bed-and-breakfast, down by the shore. It had a value of $350 so it was put up for live auction ~ it went for $400! The plus side of all this is that we get 100% fundraising credit. So, that $400 plus all the money I made for the other items will come out to close to $1000! It takes a good team to manage everything, you need some take-charge people and some good organization. It was so worth the effort, and it was a night out!

 

[pixie flips]

Pixie's gym doesn't do fundraisers so this doesn't pertain to gym specifically.

My boys both had fundraisers this year for their organizations and it was quite clear whose worked and whose didn't.

My youngest son was given magazines to sell. I think that was not thought out at all by those who made the final decision. He sold a total of 3. And he was crushed because he had to have sold 10 in order to go to the amusement park at the end of the school year with the middle school band.

My oldest son was given boxes of candy bars to sell at a dollar a piece. He sold several boxes. Most people have a dollar handy to trade for a candy bar. It's something that's cheap and gives immediate gratification. Who doesn't love candy or know someone they can give a bar to???

My oldest son had people seeking him out for a candy bar.

My youngest son had people running for cover. Bless his heart!

 

[bookworm]

I can't imagine having to fundraise $2000!! What exactly does that cover if it is mandatory..all meet fees, coaches' and team fees ?

 

[nettyinpa]

I can't imagine having to fundraise $2000!! What exactly does that cover if it is mandatory..all meet fees, coaches' and team fees ?

It does not go into a said account for each girl, like to pay for meets or leos. I believe the way they do it is use that to help pay the coaches salaries, meet fees for the coaches, and all the expenses for new equipment and general running of the gym. Plus, the total isn't actually $2,000 that goes to the gym. All the fundraisers they do make a 50% profit so whenever we sell a total of $2,000 worth of stuff, the gym actually only gets $1000 of that. Make sense?

 

[RCGgymratmom]

Our Ideas

Our gym has done a number of different things through the years. It definitely takes organization to do it.

One of our most successful fundraising activities was to raffle "The Best Seats in the House" at each meet we hosted. We had two really nice, comfy (compared to bleachers) chairs in a prime viewing location, included food from the snack bar (hot dogs, chips, coke - you get the idea), and we sold the raffle tickets at each session and just before the session began, we would draw for the winner.

Another one that was successful for us was selling pizza/cookie dough kits - everyone needs food and the price was reasonable. It seems like we did incentives like the gymnast got to put a percentage of the money toward training costs and the boosters got the other percentage when we did these.

Our booster organization also ran the snack bar and we split the profit with the gym. That was usually fairly lucrative.

Parent's Night Out is always good. People want their children to have fun and they like leaving them with people they know. We would do several at the holidays to maximize our gain. New Year's Eve is a very good night for PNO.

Our booster club purchased a new floor for the gym and the new vault table among other things with money earned from fundraisers.