Top Team Fundraising Ideas that Work
Team fundraising offers a powerful way for groups, including athletic teams, schools and PTOS, community nonprofits, and corporate teams, to unite behind a cause and raise meaningful support. By combining individual efforts, peer-to-peer outreach, and digital fundraising tools, your team can amplify reach, engage new donors, and multiply collective impact. With the right fundraising strategy and the free DoJiggy fundraising platform, even a small group can generate substantial revenue for its programs or mission initiatives.
Benefits of Team Fundraising
While some individuals can be quite successful in collecting donations independently, group fundraising campaigns offer numerous benefits. Benefits of team fundraising include:
- Having a support system to encourage the success of each member.
- Instilling motivation through competition, incentives, and awards.
- Encouraging teamwork, collaboration, and communication.
- Access to a larger network of potential donors.
- Providing parents with an opportunity to teach children about the value of giving back.
- Having more fun by working with a group rather than alone.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising for Teams and Groups
Peer-to-peer is a
powerful fundraising method that leverages supporters to fundraise on behalf of your organization or cause. It’s also known as P2P fundraising or crowdfunding. The power of a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign lies in your group’s fundraising abilities. By tapping into their social network of friends and family, your organization can reach a much larger audience, therefore spreading greater awareness of your cause and raising significantly more than
traditional fundraising campaigns. That’s why peer-to-peer events make for the best group and team fundraisers.
Team and Group Fundraising Ideas
P2P campaigns are well-suited for active events and competitions that promote community. These events work well because new supporters and donors can become excited about supporting the group participating in the event and learn more about your cause.
Group fundraising also allows community members to contribute to a meaningful cause that supports growth within their local community. Here are some examples of the best group and team fundraising activities.
Best Team Fundraising Idea: Walkathons and Fun Runs
Walkathon fundraising events are consistently popular among groups. Not only do they have great potential to raise large amounts of money for your cause, but these types of events also support health and wellness, encourage teamwork, and provide an excellent opportunity to bring your community together to celebrate a great cause. They also provide a format where almost everyone can participate. Reach out to local businesses for walk-a-thon sponsorships and corporate donations. Create a fun post-event party that includes food, beverages, entertainment, prizes, and more.
We have the tools you’ll need to organize a successful walkathon event.
Best Team Fundraising Idea #2: Bike-a-thons and Spin-a-thons
Bike-a-thon fundraisers are another great community and group fundraising option. Routes can be set up for both serious riders and families. If you want to plan a winter event, consider a spin-a-thon instead of a traditional bike-a-thon. The nice thing about a spin-a-thon is that all of your participants are in the same location throughout the event. This allows you to earn even more money by including an online silent auction fundraiser. Contact local restaurants, hotels, and retail shops to request donations. You may also want to contact professional sports teams to obtain season tickets or autographed memorabilia. Set up an auction table or tent on the day of the event for event attendees to view and bid on items.
Best Team Fundraising Idea #3: Alternative P2P Events
If
walks and rides aren’t your group’s style, think outside the box and create a peer-to-peer variation. A key aspect of a peer-to-peer fundraiser is that your entire group is involved and can get behind the cause. This is most effective when your
chosen fundraising event aligns with the mission of your nonprofit or group. Swim teams often run swim-a-thon fundraisers, and baseball teams can use hit-a-thon events. Maybe a
Dance with the Stars style dance or a community serve-a-thon would suit your group.
Utilizing Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software
Once you’ve decided which event works best for your team, you’ll need to find a crowdfunding platform that makes donation collection seamless.
An online crowdfunding campaign is essential to raising money with a group fundraiser. Our crowdfunding websites make it easy for groups to share their fundraising page and get donations from friends and family. Some key features of our software include:
- Fundraising Pages: Personal and group fundraising pages are the heart of the system. Each participant and team has a personalized page with images, videos, their mission statement, a fundraising thermometer, and social media links.
- Easy Sharing: Participants can send a donation request to friends and family members via email or social media, including a link to their personal page. Making it easy and secure for potential donors to contribute is key.
- Prize Management: Encourage healthy competition by providing incentives and prizes for the top fundraisers. Track multiple award levels and print reports to easily distribute prizes. When participants reach a certain fundraising level, they get a prize widget on their personal fundraising page. Read more on how our software helps you encourage your peer-to-peer participants to fundraise.
- Product Sales: Sell water bottles, t-shirts, after-party tickets, and other related products on your website.
- Reporting: Always be able to check the progress of your online registration and fundraising goals in real-time, so you can plan an extra push to promote your event strategically.
Many Teams Raise 2-3 Times More With Our Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Platform
Best Team Fundraising Idea #4: Community Fundraising Events
Many small groups are successful with community fundraising events, such as community picnics, car washes, or bake sales. Have group members prepare food and sell items to raise funds for your cause. Tie the event in with the food that’s in season. For instance, offer strawberry shortcake, jams, and fresh vegetables in the summer. In the Fall, have pumpkin bread and apple pies. While at it, why not collect all the recipes and offer a cookbook for sale? People are always excited to learn about a new, tasty recipe that is easy to make. Reach out to a local band and ask them to donate their time by entertaining guests during the event.
Consider incorporating a fundraising raffle into any community event. Contact local businesses for prize donations and sell raffle tickets at the event for additional revenue.
Best Team Fundraising Idea #5: Fundraising Product Sales
Your
group may want to consider merchandise sales. Some ideas for product sales include:
- Sell School Paraphernalia: If you are a school group, get the crowd ready to cheer for the home team with all the right school paraphernalia. These can include hoodies, coffee mugs, mascot stuffed animals, temporary tattoos, foam hands, jerseys, t-shirts, caps, and more.
- Sweets: Shop around for the highest profits when selling sweets and goodies, such as flavored popcorn, cookies, candy, pretzels, and snacks.
- Seasonal Catalog Goods: The holidays always find people seeking unique gift ideas, eager to spend a little more than usual. Another great option is a catalog with seasonal or holiday goods, which often include treats, gift wrap, and home goods.
- Natural Specialty Goods: For more healthy goods, consider looking at catalogs that offer specialty items, such as coffee, flower bulbs, candles, and natural soap fundraisers.
- Discount Cards: A discount shopping card is a wallet-sized card with a selection of prearranged discounts at local and national merchants in your area. Each card sells for around $10 and provides for unlimited usage of
special offers for one year.
DoJiggy powers eCommerce stores for nonprofit product sales, allowing you to take your sales online.
Best Team Fundraising Idea #6: Team Sponsorships
Soliciting team sponsors is one of the easiest, most lucrative sports fundraising campaigns. Players, coaches, and parents can help identify and contact local businesses to ask for sponsorships and donations. Team sponsorships can be effective for any sport, including baseball, softball, soccer, football, lacrosse, hockey, and gymnastics. Team sponsorships usually work best for sports that are highly visible within the community. For example, a soccer team that competes weekly at a community center, where hundreds of parents, children, and locals are present, provides businesses with exposure to a large audience through logo presence on banners and team uniforms. There may even be community bulletin boards or a community center newsletter where sponsors can post advertisements and coupons.
If your team is soliciting
sponsors, establish sponsorship levels and outline the benefits sponsors will receive at each level before requesting donations. Businesses will be more likely to support the team, knowing they will receive something in exchange for their
donation. A basic sponsorship requires a smaller donation (maybe $250), and sponsors receive benefits such as a link from your organization’s website and a logo on the team banner.
Offering larger sponsor levels, such as a Title Team Sponsor, can generate significantly larger donations ($ 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.
Team Fundraising Roles and Duties
With a group, you have many minds, bodies, and resources to help you think of creative ideas, plan and manage activities, and reach out to potential donors. Have a fundraising kick-off meeting where team members discuss their strengths and experience. Then, assign duties to different team members. This will help you be more efficient in your planning efforts. Below are some key areas to consider in the fundraising planning process.
- Logistics and Timelines: This group manages all the details (i.e., obtaining event permits, creating and managing timelines, and checklists).
- Sponsorships: These individuals tap into local businesses and the networks to which group members are connected to solicit sponsorships and corporate donations.
- Marketing and Public Relations: These individuals promote the event through media relations (i.e., press releases), social networking, and the creation of promotional materials.
- Hospitality and Communications: The fundraising cheer squad! This group updates participants, organizes pre-and post-event meals and activities, and coordinates entertainment.
- Volunteers: This person or group handles volunteers, including recruitment, creating volunteer schedules, assigning volunteers to specific tasks, and ongoing communication with volunteers.
- Donations and Pledges: Assign someone to implement a secure fundraising platform for collecting secure donations, managing event details, and tracking participant success.
Always Thank Your Donors
Be sure to thank sponsors and donors for their contributions. Sending a thank-you letter at the end of the season, recognizing sponsor contributions on a team website or newsletter, and inviting sponsors to team parties are all great ways to show appreciation and possibly bring them back again in future years.
More Fundraising Resources for Teams and Groups
Many different kinds of fundraising initiatives work well for groups and teams. Take the time to brainstorm with members of your organization to determine what type of fundraiser they’d enjoy participating in. If participants are invested in the activity and can have fun while raising money, chances are you’ll have a successful fundraiser. Visit our creative nonprofit fundraising ideas page for more ideas and tips for planning your fundraising campaign.
