All-Star Fundraising

[acecheermom]

Do your programs do any type of fundraising to help with athlete's costs? If so what are some of the things you guys have done that are successful?

I've done some fundraising but it's never been a huge focus for us but now I have 2 all-star cheerleaders and I'm finding that fundraising is going to be a necessity with double the cost. So I'm looking for ideas. Lots of stuff I'm finding online requires minimums, etc. Just not sure what is going to be the easiest/best/most productive option.

Thanks

 

[cheermomforever]

Sherwood Forest farms for Christmas items. Amazing product, small minimum for free shipping, u set the price. We usually add $5 per item. I make over $100 profit easily each year.

 

[quitthedrama]

It's really hard to fundraise if you don't have the gym support. Our gym has a phenomenal booster club and the gym is contracted with a large college and a professional sporting stadium. Parents work the events and the booster club receives funds for doing so. There are some other smaller fundraisers and separately the gym offers "canning" (collecting loose change from customers in front of local retailers), but the bulk of my fundraising efforts come from working the events. I generally at least cover my competition fees, while some people can cover their entire season including some travel.
Booster clubs are a huge undertaking (especially if they are done legally) and can't be done without the gym ownership support (although they must remain separate entities), but they can be incredibly helpful to decrease the cost of cheer.
If your gym doesn't offer these types of opportunities, look for a part time job. I coach middle school cheer and my kids help me. My paycheck for this goes towards cheer. Babysitting or something similar can be a good option.

 

[SL&AM]

Do your programs do any type of fundraising to help with athlete's costs? If so what are some of the things you guys have done that are successful?

I've done some fundraising but it's never been a huge focus for us but now I have 2 all-star cheerleaders and I'm finding that fundraising is going to be a necessity with double the cost. So I'm looking for ideas. Lots of stuff I'm finding online requires minimums, etc. Just not sure what is going to be the easiest/best/most productive option.

Thanks

CP's current program is doing a Golf Tournament at a local country club.
NON-CP's dance studio did like a fun pasta one and recently hooked up with a company that allows people to order stuff online (I'll come back with the names of the companies) and as people buy it, you get credited.

In the past, Pizza Hut cards were really popular for us.

 

[Belinda]

In Sweden it's really common to sell all kinds of stuff, like there are several companies specializing in helping schools and teams and what not to sell stuff. So we annually sell newbody(clothes), and cookies.

 

[Eyes On The Prize]

It's really hard to fundraise if you don't have the gym support. Our gym has a phenomenal booster club and the gym is contracted with a large college and a professional sporting stadium. Parents work the events and the booster club receives funds for doing so. There are some other smaller fundraisers and separately the gym offers "canning" (collecting loose change from customers in front of local retailers), but the bulk of my fundraising efforts come from working the events. I generally at least cover my competition fees, while some people can cover their entire season including some travel.
Booster clubs are a huge undertaking (especially if they are done legally) and can't be done without the gym ownership support (although they must remain separate entities), but they can be incredibly helpful to decrease the cost of cheer.
If your gym doesn't offer these types of opportunities, look for a part time job. I coach middle school cheer and my kids help me. My paycheck for this goes towards cheer. Babysitting or something similar can be a good option.

Both of my gyms did this and it was super helpful for many, many people.

@acecheermom - My last two years of cheer I managed to fundraise all of my costs for myself by working at these things. It was beyond helpful. And it was really fun. (Well it's more fun when you look back at it. It wasn't as fun when you're actually working.) If you work at them consistently you get to know a lot of the parents of your child's teammates and its cool. And if you can get more people to work at once it really adds up fast. It wasn't uncommon for some families to have mom and dad and older sibling work at one time.

If you do have a booster club, I would see if they can do something like this for the gym. It could really help a lot of families and possibly open opportunities for other families to join cheer knowing they'd have this opportunity to fundraise if, for some reason, they couldn't afford cheer otherwise.

 

[Lazydaisytoo]

Our last gym did a lot of Yankee Candles, cookie dough, frozen pizzas, etc. Personally, selling stuff isn't for me. Neither my husband nor I work in an office, and even if we did, we still wouldn't want to sell stuff.

I haven't heard of much at the new gym. They've done some canning, but we live so far away, I'd be afraid anything she earned would be offset by gas and tolls. CP is working this summer and will buy her own uniform.

 

[gofriars610]

Back in my hockey-playing days, the booster club would work Bingo nights at the local Bingo hall. They were actually kind of fun.

 

[acecheermom]

Thanks for ideas. Its a struggle we don't do a booster club. We are looking at lots of options for fundraising to help thus this post. One of our biggest issues is all the school, school clubs, school athletics, etc fundraising also. I feel like our community is fundraised to death, which doesn't help our cause at all. lol

 

[cheermomforever]

We sold cookie dough and we got 40% of what we sold that went directly to my CP account. Very profitable. We got the same for Yankee Candle.

 

[cheermomof4]

Our booster club is contracted out at several sporting/concert venues in our area and we also do the normal selling items (candles, cookie dough etc) We are able to pay for cp's entire season including travel to FL. I haven't written a check in 3 years, it's a HUGE help. Honestly if our gym didn't offer the fundraising, cp wouldn't cheer.

 

[omgitssydthekid]

Our gym does trash bags and that does really well also.


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[shorttpai]

A local gym was doing a blood drive, and for every person that attempted to give blood got the gym $10. Seemed like it would be really profitable (not sure how it turned out though!)

 

[Alexx]

A local gym was doing a blood drive, and for every person that attempted to give blood got the gym $10. Seemed like it would be really profitable (not sure how it turned out though!)

I wonder who they got to pledge the 10 dollars per person.

 

[OECtumbleina]

My gym has a booster club. We did a mulch sale that I received a pretty good profit from. I'm junior coaching for the gym this season and I have a part time job too. Try having a garage sale maybe!