Posts tagged Baseball

You can have the best youth baseball league in theory, but unless you can translate this theory into practice, then all your efforts have been wasted. Once you have your winter or pre-season youth league meeting, designate the coaches and have the league administration in place, you need to set up a fundraising committee.

If you are the league director, the obligation of funding your youth baseball league falls squarely upon your shoulders. Once you have set up a fundraising committee, figure out your expenses and your income for the upcoming campaign. Once you have done that, you will know how much money you need for the upcoming season.

Here are some simple youth baseball fundraising ideas that can help your league have a successful campaign:

Team Sponsors – This is the best and most efficient of the youth baseball fundraising ideas to get the bulk of your expenditures paid for. Have the fundraising committee canvas the town and seek out businesses that would like to sponsor one of the teams by donating the funds for the team uniforms for the players. Invite the sponsor to have input into the design of the uniforms, and have a brief get-together between the sponsors and their respective players and their families. They probably know each other already if they live in a small town. Remind sponsors that your organization is a non-profit entity and, as such, their donation is tax deductible.

Raffle – A league raffle is another one of the youth baseball fundraising ideas that should be put in place at the time you hold your winter meeting. Have your fundraising committee check out printers in town, and see if any of them are willing to defray all or part of the cost of printing up raffle books as a charitable donation. Then your fundraising committee must seek good donations for prizes. These donations must have sufficient value so that people will be willing to take a chance on the raffle. The donations could include a weekend at a resort, a tool box, money, or a combination of prizes. Allow your committee to be inventive, and you’ll be surprised what they might come back with.

Fundraising Scratch Card – This is currently one of the more popular youth baseball fundraising ideas, and it is simple to organize. There are companies that furnish fundraising scratch cards that contain discounts from major manufacturers. The card contains 50 dots. The person you are seeking the donation from rubs two of the dots on the card. These will indicate money totals, such as $1 or $10. This is their donation amount for the card. Usually, your profit margin will be 70%.

Develop an Internet Presence – People donate money and time to a youth baseball league because they appreciate the experience and its effects on kids, families and the community as a whole. To aid your baseball fundraising efforts, the more you can share those memories and involved everyone in those experiences better. A baseball team and league website where everyone can upload and share photos, communicate schedules and engage in discussions, parent coordination and the like is an extremely valuable way to both engage sponsors and make those involved more able to coordinate fundraising and donate. You can build one for free at some sites like Weplay.

There are many tried and true methods to raise funds for youth leagues, but don’t be afraid to think out-of-the-box for your youth baseball fundraising ideas. Remember to appeal to people’s emotional connection to sports and to kids so that we all remember that this is time and money well spent. Looking back at our own lives, we all know that it is.