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35+ Best Booster Club Fundraising Ideas to Raise More

35+ Best Booster Club Fundraising Ideas to Raise More

Booster club fundraising is a popular way to gain much-needed funds for school clubs and sports teams. Booster clubs are volunteer-led organizations that support and raise money for school clubs, music and theater groups, and sports teams. These clubs are typically run by the parents of the students involved in the school group and are often nonprofit organizations. Read on to discover the best booster club fundraising ideas.

Start Here for the Best Fundraising Ideas for School Booster Clubs

One of the primary goals of a booster club is to provide the funding needed to cover costs associated with extracurricular school activities and programs. Your friends, family, and school community will be your go-to donors and supporters for your fundraising campaigns. What do they like to do? What type of event or sales campaigns are they most likely to support?

Here are some of the best booster club fundraisers to get your group started.

The #1 Booster Club Fundraiser: Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Events

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas with peer to peer

Peer-to-peer fundraising has become the go-to school fundraising plan. That’s because it works! Peer-to-peer events raise money for booster clubs while bringing people together to support the cause.

Host a p2p crowdfunding campaign such as a 5K walk or fun run at the school track. A walk-a-thon or run fundraiser provides a great opportunity to raise money. Each participant and team works hard to bring in donations. This is exciting for participants as they create a personal fundraising page where they set goals, upload images, and share their stories. Try adding a theme such as a Color Run to up the fun and raise more.

Football, Basketball, and Baseball Crowdfunding

Baseball Fundraising boosters

These sports teams can easily fundraise via their preferred sport – kick-a-thons, hoop-a-thons, and hit-a-thons. Encourage healthy competition to motivate participants and teams to raise more donations by providing incentives and prizes for the best performers.

Make it easy for your sports team by providing a powerful peer-to-peer fundraising tool to easily customize their fundraising page and collect donations. Our P2P software for booster club fundraising includes a prize management system where participants get prize widgets when they reach predefined fundraising levels. Offer prizes for the top individual and team fundraisers, and your fundraising will soar. Your community sponsors can assist with prizes, too. For example, partner with a local sporting goods store that can donate new equipment for the team that collects the most donations.

Community Serve-a-thons

A unique and meaningful booster club fundraising idea for marching bands, cheerleading squads, and other groups to consider is a serve-a-thon. In a serve-a-thon, participants commit to a service project at the school or in the local community. Serve-a-thons not only help to raise money for your booster club but also make a positive impact on the community. Club fundraisers raise money by reaching out to family and friends and asking for pledges and donations to support the service project. Supporters donate online to participant and team fundraising pages.

Serve-a-thons work for fundraising

Booster Club Fundraising Golf Marathons

Golf Marathon Fundraising for booster clubs

With a Golf Marathon or golf-a-thon format, your golfers commit to raising donations to participate in your booster club fundraising golf tournament. They register on your golf tournament website and then contact friends, colleagues, and family members to solicit donations for your booster club fundraising campaign. This is a great event for the golf team as well as parent supporters of the booster club.

More Great Booster Club Fundraising Ideas

Here are some more tried and proven ideas for booster club fundraising campaigns. Remember to consider the costs and resources of running a special event to ensure the potential proceeds are worth the effort.

Host a Special Event

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas

While community participation can be rewarding, going down this path often requires more logistical planning. Special events for booster clubs often center around food – BBQ tailgates, pancake breakfast fundraisers, spaghetti dinners, and more. You will likely need to have some cash on hand for an effort like this.

Paint Night

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: paint night

Painting nights offer a chance for your art-inspired students and parents to shine. With this event, participants sit in front of a canvas and paint together while one of your art teachers supervises. These events are increasing in popularity and can even be held in wine bars or with wine for adult-only events.

Movie Night

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: movie night

A movie night is an excellent consideration for an easier booster club event. Sell tickets to the show and advertise in advance at all sports events. You can even get creative and allow people to set up camp with fold-out chairs and blankets on the football field and come through the rows with concessions.

Comedy Show

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: comedy show

Gather up some teachers, parents, community members, and student comedians to host a comedy show night, which can take place in the school auditorium. Asking a professional comedian to donate their time is another option, as giving of their talent for school fundraising may be right up their alley.

BBQ Tailgate Events

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: BBQ

If you’ve got some grill masters in your booster club, take it to the next level and have them do their due diligence behind the grill at a tailgate/BBQ fundraiser. Although this will involve considerable effort (consider the amount of meat, chips, and drinks you must have to handle the hungry crowd before a football game), it can be quite profitable.

School Carnivals

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: school carnival

One of the more complex booster club fundraising events to host, a school carnival has many aspects that can be integrated for a fun family night out. You’ll need to organize fair stalls, rides, a bouncy castle, food, and more for a successful carnival. Popular games can be engineered with some ingenuity (such as milk bottles and basket tosses).

Scavenger Hunts

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: Scavenger hunt

A scavenger hunt is something that many organizations do around the spring or summer holidays, so why not make it into something bigger for the students, teachers, and parents to participate in? Funds can be raised through registration fees and upgrades to improve hunting advantages.

Spirit Night at a Local Business

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: spirit night

Reach out to your town’s favorite hang-out spots or restaurants to host a spirit night, where a percentage of proceeds for the evening are donated to the school. Booster club fundraising happens when your community has fun and shares stories of the day.

Host a Booster Club Tournament or Competition

Sporting events and tournaments can be fun booster club fundraising ideas. They generally raise money successfully (after all, you know your audience is sports fans for sports boosters).

Golf Tournaments

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: golf tournaments

Golf tournaments are popular fundraisers for many sports groups. Some organizations go with mini-golf so that the whole family can play. Proceeds can be amplified by getting golf tournament sponsors on board and hosting a post-event celebration luncheon. All of this is easily managed with our donor-friendly golf tournament software.

Dance Competition

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: dance competition

Why wait for prom? Dance-a-thons are a great idea to raise money for the booster club and get some exercise. If there are dance schools or notable instructors in the area, you can upgrade this fundraising event to “Dancing with the Community Stars,” increasing event proceeds to $10,000 or more.

Bocci Tournaments

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: bocci tournament

A bocci tournament is a great idea for booster club fundraising, bringing in net proceeds that may surprise you. If your school can offer the space for the tournament and you can figure out ways to rent the bocci balls, you’ll be coming in with minimal costs. Event ticketing software allows you to register players, promote sponsors, and take the tournament to a higher level of professionalism.

Basketball Tournaments

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: basketball

Basketball tournaments can be fun and familiar fundraising events to host that can be done with just three or more team members. They can be single or double elimination to manage the time. You can get a helping hand from your school’s basketball coaches with the tournament logistics and referee assistance.

Battle of the Bands

Booster Club Fundraising Ideas: battle of bands

Gather students, teachers, and parents to perform oldies but goodies or bring a bit of competition to the stage and have a Battle of the Bands. Donations come from ticket and refreshment sales. The fun of this makes it one of the best school fundraisers.

Booster Club Fundraising Sales

Fundraiser Sale Items for Booster Club Fundraising

Many booster clubs sell items to raise funds. This school fundraising idea provides a great teaching opportunity for students to learn about business, marketing, and selling, gain confidence, and reach goals. Just be sure to choose products based on the interests of your target audience. Here are some ideas:

  • The go-to choice for booster club fundraising is typically sweets of all kinds – candy bars, chocolates, frozen cookie dough, and lollipops. These fundraisers work especially well around the holidays.
  • Selling gift cards for restaurants or dinner/movie combos can be a great choice for a booster club fundraiser.
  • Show your team spirit with custom merchandise sales – hoodies, t-shirts, baseball caps, and more.
  • In rural and suburban areas that tend to have space for gardens have options to purchase planting kits, bulbs, or seeds.
  • Magazine subscription sales.
  • Candles or home decorations.

Profit shares for this type of fundraising can range from 30% to as high as 90%.

Unique Sales and Service Fundraising

Instead of relying on affiliate companies and pre-made goods, Booster Clubs can sell handmade and unique items. These types of booster club sales typically include bake sales, garage sales, or arts and crafts sales. Organizations can also sell services, including ideas such as a car wash, gift-wrapping service, lawn work, or snow shoveling. Since these types of goods and services come primarily from donations, the costs are low, and profits are high.

unique sales

Duct Tape Your Coach to the Wall

Something fun and easy to do for some small proceeds or in conjunction with a school crowdfunding event is to charge a small fee to duct tape a coach, teacher, or principal to the wall. Someone who is a student favorite will bring in the most donations. Simply charge for the strips of duct tape ($1 to $2). Let kids stick them on, and hilarity is bound to ensue.

Car Wash

Car Washes work for booster clubs

The good old car wash is a frequently visited fundraising idea. On a nice summer day, you can even consider adding another idea, like a BBQ or fresh lemonade stand, to satisfy patrons’ appetites during their wait.

Yard Work

Students and booster club supporters can sign up for yard services such as lawn mowing, raking leaves, or shoveling snow. These services can be pretty expensive and require only a strong work ethic.

Booster Club Membership Drives

A great option for booster club fundraising is a monthly membership campaign. Your group can establish an online donation website where supporters can easily make a safe and secure online donation and select to make it recur monthly. To promote this type of booster club fundraiser, simply send email blasts with a direct link to your fundraising website, and be sure to post a fundraising widget on your school’s home page. You’ll also want to share on social media, partner sites, and blogs. Encourage booster club members to post on their social networks and create viral campaigns. Consider offering a prize for the best video appeal – a great way to spread awareness and drive traffic to your website.

DoJiggy Booster Club Fundraising ideas

Give the Booster Club a Boost with Fundraising Auctions and Raffles

There are lots of ways to increase your revenue during fundraising events. One proven method is fundraising raffles and charity auctions. Raffles can take different forms, but 50/50 raffles are always popular with booster clubs. Promote these fundraising campaigns during high school sports and music events. DoJiggy can help with easy-to-implement raffle fundraising websites.

Considerations for Booster Club Fundraising Efforts

Booster Club Fundraising Resources

Booster Clubs must carefully and honestly access their resources when deciding on the best fundraising ideas for their club. Busy parents generally run booster clubs, and time is of the essence. How big is your booster club, and how much can supporters contribute to planning and executing fundraising campaigns? Are you looking for an easy fundraising idea, or do you have the resources for a more complex campaign? While hosting a black-tie gala may sound lucrative, an online raffle may be more in line with what your organization can accomplish well.

Remember that this is a teaching opportunity for students. Booster club fundraising can be an empowering experience for participants. The club is a part of a bigger picture, serving the needs of students and the administration, teachers, the athletic director, and coaches behind the scenes. Meeting with the administration and coaches, advisers, or teachers of the teams or clubs you are fundraising for is always a good idea to get an idea of their needs.

Booster Club fundraising planning

Plan the Booster Calendar

Once you know your fundraising needs and resources, start planning the calendar for the school fundraising year. What fundraising initiatives will your Booster Club run, and when will they happen? It is best not to overwhelm your school and community with too many fundraisers. Instead, plan just two or three fundraisers a year. With strong, focused planning and promotional efforts, your booster club can successfully reach its goals.

Booster Club Sports and Groups

Booster Club Fundraising for Swimming & Diving teams

Swimming & Diving

Track & Field

Track & Field

Cheerleading

Cheerleading

Marching Bands

Marching Bands

Football

Football

Basketball

Basketball

Field Hockey

Field Hockey

Ice Hockey

Ice Hockey

Music Groups

Music Groups

Volleyball

Volleyball

Softball

Softball

Baseball

Baseball

Tennis

Tennis

Lacrosse

Lacrosse

Soccer

Soccer

Cross Country

Cross Country

Gymnastics

Gymnastics

Wrestling

Wrestling

Crew

Crew

Booster Club Fundraising for Water Polo

Water Polo

Looking for Virtual Booster Club Fundraising Ideas?

Many Booster clubs have taken fundraising online and are enjoying the benefits of virtual fundraising. We’ve compiled this list of the best virtual fundraising ideas for schools and booster clubs.

Virtual Walkathons and Fun Runs

Virtual Walkathons and Fun Runs

Virtual walkathons are great fundraisers for schools that can raise a lot of money with few upfront costs. With parental involvement, these are fun and easy to organize.

Virtual Happy Hours and Performances

Virtual Happy Hours and Performances

Get your livestream ready! Virtual performances work great for booster club fundraising and can be used to highlight school music groups, marching bands, and choirs.

Online Product Sales with P2P Pages

Online Product Sales with P2P Pages

Virtual merchandise sales are a no-brainer for no/low contact fundraising. Our simple stores make it so easy, your club can get set up and selling in no time.

Fundraising Raffles

Fundraising Raffles

Online raffles are the perfect way to raise money for many booster clubs. We offer the ability to incorporate peer to peer fundraising in raffles, where students sell tickets via a personal fundraising page. Our raffle software can even randomly select and notify winners. Just find a prize and go!

Virtual Bikeathons

Virtual Bikeathons

Much like virtual walkathons, bikeathon fundraisers can be run virtually with just a few tweaks. Biking is a great socially distant sport, so some kids may even bike together. Students create a fundraising page and commit to biking in support of the club.

Virtual Reading Challenges

Virtual Reading Challenges

Readathons are a great way to keep kids busy during COVID and raise money for the Boosters at the same time. All you need to do is setup the Athon website where students can track the number of books or pages read. Donors make contributions based on the reading results and top fundraisers are highlighted.

Charity Auctions

Charity Auctions

All you need are some great auction items and our software. Simply create your fundraising auction website and add unlimited auction categories and items. Set the time for online bidding to start and begin advertising your auction. Bids are made online and via text to bid.

Food Delivery Campaigns

Food Delivery Campaigns

Since many people are staying in to promote social distancing, why not sell groceries or other items online and deliver them right to your supporters? Create and sell online food packages with a theme – for example Italian Night or Mexican Night. Get booster members and supporters to volunteer and deliver the packages.

Virtual Watch Parties

Virtual Watch Parties

Select an educational movie or documentary to share with students. Supporters can register on your website to watch the movie and buy popcorn or other movie treats. You can launch the watch party with a live stream presentation, letting parents and kids know what to look for and discuss after the film. Generally, users watch the movie on their own streaming device.

Utilizing a Fundraising Website for Easy Booster Club Fundraising

While traditional booster club fundraising methods involve door-to-door sales and cash collecting, fundraising websites make planning and collecting funds much easier. For ticketed shows or events, an events website does the job of online ticket sales. If you’re selling services or goods, a fundraising store provides ease of payment and the data you need.

Our crowdfunding software is designed for booster and sports team fundraising of all types – basketball, football, cheerleading, swimming, track and field, volleyball, softball, baseball, and more. Booster clubs and their supporters collect donations for their clubs with our flexible peer-to-peer platform capable of working with flat-rate donations or per unit of effort pledges (i.e., per mile walked). You’ll be able to easily configure your booster club fundraising website creatively to meet your club’s specific needs, and your participants will learn and have fun as they personalize their fundraising pages.

Booster club fundraising events vary from club to club, and customizing the fundraiser for your booster club specifically is important.

Utilizing Booster Club Fundraising Websites
  • Administrators choose the type and date of the fundraising campaign, as well as a time period for accepting donations leading up to the event
  • Create your booster club fundraising website with us!
  • Import your students or ask them to register online with our easy registration page to create their personal fundraising pages
  • Students and fundraisers send out links to their pages (via email and Social Media) and get supporters who donate or pledge in support of their efforts
  • Fundraising progress is tracked throughout the fundraising event with our booster club fundraising software
  • Leaderboards are posted with top fundraisers and teams as motivating factor for booster club and community members
  • Administrators wrap up the event and add off-line donations made via checks

We Can Help Make Your Booster Club Fundraising Campaigns a Success!


Lisa Bennett

About Lisa Bennett

Lisa is the Sales Director at DoJiggy. She joined DoJiggy in 2006 and loves her job. Prior to working with DoJiggy, she worked at several non-profits and managed special event fundraising.

See other posts from Lisa Bennett

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