Fundraising Provides Money For Programs, A Way To Bring Your Team Together

By: Doug Hofmeister, Former Head Coach, Forest Grove High School, Forest Grove, Ore.

We use the proceeds from fund-raisers to pay for scholarships for players, equipment and apparel, summer basketball fees for players, pay for extra coaches, extras for the program not covered by the school budget and we donate money to support all of our competitive teams from grades 4-8.

Fund-raisers easily are broken down into two major categories: quick, one- or two-day fund-raisers that make decent money without too much work; and more intensive fund-raisers that directly help your program.

We have five shorter fund-raisers throughout the year to build our basketball program’s income.

1. Shoot-A-Thon. Players go into the community and get pledges for each free throw they make out of a 100. We have a scheduled night for the free throws and have rewards for the different amounts players raise. For example, every player who raises $25 receives a team T-shirt and players who raise $70 receive a team hooded sweatshirt. Also, we give cash prizes to the five highest amounts raised, provided those players raise more than $125. The top player earns $50 and we go down by increments of $10 through the fifth overall fund-raiser. In our most recent Shoot-A-Thon, the players all received free gear and we raised an extra $1,000.

 2. Texas Hold ’Em Tourney. Find someone who runs the tournament (for free) and spread the word you need a free facility for a night. Get parents, coaches and players to get donations for prizes. The team keeps all entry fees. We have made $1,500 in one night.

3. Summer Tournament. Host a summer high school tournament. Don’t charge too much for entry fees but plan to make your money off admission during the tourney. It takes a lot of parent and coach volunteers but it is an easy $1,500-2,000.

4. Winter Tournament. Same as the summer tournament only in the winter.

5. Meet-The-Vikings Night. We (the Vikings) host a night as a season preview for all of our boys and girls basketball teams. This is a fund-raiser where we have the freshmen parents take charge of getting the food and preparing it. The freshmen boys and girls act as servers. All players pre-sell five tickets ($5 per ticket). The teams scrimmage (with officials) after the supper. This gets a lot of people to the scrimmage and makes about $1,200 per team.

More Intense Fund-Raisers

We do a few things that make more money but do require a lot more work, effort and commitment. However, these fund-raisers help make our basketball program much stronger and more cohesive from grades 4-12.

1. Winter Recreational League. This league is for players in grades 4-8. Typically, there are two practices a week and games are played on Saturday running about 10 weeks. In this league the parents coach and our high school players referee. We pay players $10 per game so it gives them a little cash and also provides them an opportunity to spend some time in a referee’s shoes. Depending on how much you charge each participant, expect to make about $2,500 and develop a lot of basketball players.

2. Spring Recreational League. High school players coach and referee in this league under direction from the coaching staff. A typical night included a half hour of fundamentals and a game for all players. We charged $50 per player and made $3,500 after expenses. A bonus is that throughout the spring season you get to watch players develop and show tremendous improvement. We have taken players from this league and formed competitive teams to play in another spring league in a nearby town.

3. Basketball Camp. Hosting two weeks of basketball camp offers a chance to make decent money for your program and for your coaches.