How to Run a Baseball Hit-a-thon (with Free Websites)

Hit-a-thon fundraisers are an excellent way for softball and baseball teams to raise money. Based on peer-to-peer fundraising, each hit-a-thon participant raises funds by asking friends and family to donate to the team.

Many softball and baseball teams have successfully used our free crowdfunding websites for hit-a-thon fundraisers. We can make your event a success!

Now, let’s begin our easy guide on how to successfully host a hit-a-thon fundraiser.

Here’s What We’ll Cover

What Is a Baseball Hit-a-thon?
Planning Goals for a Hit-a-thon Fundraiser
Secure Hit-a-thon Logistics
Plan the Hit-a-thon Marketing Collateral
Use Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software for the Hit-a-thon
Motivate Your Team to Participate and Raise Money
Reach Out to Potential Sponsors
Hosting the Hit-a-thon
Wrap-up Fundraising and Send Thank Yous
Our Hit-a-thon Platform Features

What Is a Baseball Hit-a-thon?

A hit-a-thon is a peer-to-peer campaign in which participants commit to hitting a group of balls and collecting donations for a cause. Donations can be flat or based on the participant’s performance. Pledges are collected after the hit-a-thon when the best hits have been recorded or as donations collected before the event.

While hit-a-thons are generally hosted by baseball or softball teams, any sport, club, organization, or school group can adopt this fundraising idea.

Planning Goals for a Hit-a-thon Fundraiser

As with all fundraising events, setting a fundraising goal for your hit-a-thon is crucial. Decide how much you want to raise. Then, review the costs associated with hosting a hit-a-thon fundraiser. One of the best things about hosting a hit-a-thon fundraiser is that the costs are minimal. Still, expenses will likely be incurred and may include the following:

Financial Goals for a Baseball Hit-a-thon Fundraiser

T-shirts and participation awards
Prizes for the top fundraisers and best hitters
Food and drinks for the participants
A crowdfunding website to take online donations
Printed marketing materials (i.e., pledge sheets or posters)

After determining the top-line fundraising goal, establish the registration fee (if applicable) and the minimum fundraising goal for each participant to reach the overall goal. For example, if the fundraising goal is $20,000 with 150 participants, each participant should aim to raise a minimum of $133. Communicating reasonable goals increases the chance of participants achieving these goals.

Secure Hit-a-thon Logistics

It’s time to determine the logistics – where and when will the event be held? Here are some items to consider.

Venue: Contact the baseball fields where your team plays to secure the event’s location, date, and time. Inquire about a rain date, as well.
Vendors: Find trustworthy and reasonably priced vendors for the accessories needed for the event, such as T-shirts, baseball caps, or other items.
Game Equipment: If your team lacks baseball bats and balls, discuss who will supply them for the hit-a-thon.
Prizes: Prize ideas can include awards for the longest hit and the highest funds raised in each age group. If your hit-a-thon is a league event, be sure that teams compete against each other for the most money raised. Consider other fun prizes to attract players and increase the camaraderie of the game. Kids love prizes and will work hard to win even a small prize, such as a silicone wristband.
Volunteers: Determine the volunteers needed for the hit-a-thon, including those to register hitters and distribute t-shirts, provide refreshments, set up and break down tables, record hitting distances, or perform other necessary tasks. Parents are generally the first volunteers for hit-a-thons.

Plan the Hit-a-thon Marketing Collateral

Once the logistical details are finalized, plan the marketing collateral. This includes flyers, posters, and digital banners for social media (i.e., Facebook and Instagram). Flyers and posters should include the time and location of the hit-a-thon fundraiser, registration information, and information about your organization and cause.

Promote the hit-a-thon on social media. Plan a social media calendar that includes stories about the participants, achievements from past fundraising efforts, sponsor highlights, and other informative posts.

Print Marketing Material with DoJiggy

Use Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software for the Hit-a-thon

One of the most critical steps in hosting a successful event is finding fundraising software that can handle your crowdsourcing needs. Our donor-friendly platform allows participants to fundraise by sharing their fundraising page through email or social media. Donors can make donations and pledges per foot (or meter) and track their favorite participant’s progress toward reaching their fundraising goal. Use the software for free when optional tips from your donors cover the fees.

Fundraising software for baseball and softball fundraising ideas

Start Fundraising

Motivate Your Team to Participate and Raise Money

The success of your hit-a-thon lies in your participants’ ability to raise money. Therefore, motivating the team is key.

To start, make it easy for your participants. Most people are busy and will want to streamline their fundraising efforts as much as possible. Ensure that the registration process is straightforward, and your software can be used to collect t-shirt sizes and any other relevant accessory details. Then, provide batters with peer-to-peer fundraising tools; don’t ask them to create everything from scratch.

Motivate Your Team to Participate and Raise Money in the Baseball Hit-A-Thon

Be sure to clearly communicate your cause to participants and donors. It’s not just for the Little League, but why are you raising money? This isn’t just an obligation; it’s essential. Monetary funds may be needed for field renovations and improvements, field and team equipment, team uniforms and travel expenses, or other team operating expenses such as lighting and umpires for games.

Finally, don’t forget to incentivize fundraisers with prizes and awards for their hard work. Prizes should be available for the top individual and team fundraisers.

Reach Out to Potential Sponsors

A critical planning step that will help maximize the baseball or softball hit-a-thon fundraising goal is to seek businesses and organizations to sponsor the event. Whether offering refreshments or snacks for the hit-a-thon, printing services, prizes, or other in-kind or monetary donations, anything that helps decrease the hit-a-thon costs helps your team reach its goal.

Remember that companies expect to receive benefits from sponsorship. What can you offer them in return for free pizza for your batters? You can promote them on your website, in emails, with physical banners and flyers. This face-to-face discussion is an excellent opportunity to find community and local business sponsors for your team.

Baseball and Softball Team Sponsors

One of the most lucrative revenue streams for baseball fundraising is securing team sponsors. Players, coaches, and parents can help identify and contact local businesses to ask for donations. Before requesting donations, the team may want to establish various sponsorship levels and outline the benefits sponsors will receive at each level.

A basic sponsorship requires a smaller donation (i.e., $100 – $250). At this level, sponsors receive benefits such as a link from the team website and their logo displayed on the team banner. Offering larger sponsor levels, such as the Title Team Sponsor, can generate significantly larger donations ($1,000 or more). This sponsorship level will receive enhanced benefits, including their logo on team jerseys, a featured advertisement on the team website, and recognition on team plaques and trophies. If the title sponsor is a local restaurant, offer to host team parties at their location. This is a great benefit as you’ll bring customers in and introduce parents and community members to their restaurant.

Hosting the Hit-a-thon

On the day of the event, each participant heads to the field to bat at home plate. Based on the age of the participants and the number of participants playing, each player typically receives three to seven hits. Many Little League teams use a tee to ensure that the length of the hit is the most important factor in the hit-a-thon (rather than the pitch). The longest ball hit is recorded as the best hit for that player.

Older teams can host a Home Run Derby, similar to the major leagues. This is where the top four players in the first round (or the top player in each division) compete to see who can hit the ball the furthest overall. A Home Run Derby also provides an opportunity to build excitement, promote the event to spectators, and sell refreshments.

The event coordinator should keep the pace of the event going so that there is no backlog of participants. Participants should be divided by arrival time to begin registration for their respective time slot. After their hits, participants should be given a copy of their scores. With manual pledges, players will need to reach out to their supporters if the donations are based on units of effort (such as feet hit). Per unit of effort pledges are automatically charged on our platform.

Wrap-up Fundraising and Send Thank Yous

To follow up on the baseball hit-a-thon fundraiser, contact the participants to remind them of the final date for collecting cash donations and to give any helpful tips to finish strong.

Your hit-a-thon planning team must finish strong as well. Send thank-you messages to the participants, volunteers, donors, sponsors, and other parties that have contributed to the event’s success. Let them know how much money was raised and how it will be used. Highlight your top fundraisers and top hitters. Since the hit-a-thon fundraiser occurs in staggered time slots, you may need to contact the event winners to distribute their prizes and promote the winners and event successes through team newsletters or emails.

Evaluating the event’s success is another great idea that will help you grow the hit-a-thon fundraiser from year to year. This is best done within a week of the event to keep all of the details fresh in mind.