High School Lets Talk Fundraising!

[jessicastuart]

What do you and your teams do to make money for your program? Hopefully this discussion can help other cheerleaders and coaches out with fundraisers for the upcoming football and competition seasons.

 

[Official OWECheer]

When I cheered we did a car wash one year to raise $$$ for extra competitions. Lots of teams also do cheer camps. Some teams partner with local businesses such as car dealerships (test drive events, not sure how that works exactly, but it's profitable) to raise money.

Great thread idea!

 

[Twinklestars]

We did a car wash, but only made about $300.

At our old, smaller school, the girls were told to each get five people to come. Most gave $20, so with 11 girls, we made over $1000.

Our team has 17 girls. We should have made $1500-2000. But, it is what it is.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[Sunny]

I've held fundraisers at restaurants in the past for my squad. Those types of fundraisers are usually very successful.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[Official OWECheer]

I've held fundraisers at restaurants in the past for my squad. Those types of fundraisers are usually very successful.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

How do those work?

 

[Sunny]

Usually you talk to the manager of the restaurant and set a date and time slot for the fundraiser. Then a percentage of what people spend at the restaurant during that time goes towards your organization. Sometimes the restaurant will require people to bring in flyers in order for your organization to get a percentage of what they spend. Every restaurant is different.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[cheernerd5678]

Instead of doing a car wash, we sell car wash cards. We sell them for $10 but it's a $12.99 value., so people are willing to buy them. I'm not sure how much goes back to us.
We're also selling macys coupons, basically you pick a day and sell 25% off coupons for that day. I'm not sure if it's a set price or if you pick it, but you get the entire price.
Our sonic lets you carhop and keep whatever tips you get. I think it might depend on specific location but if sonic is popular where you are you should ask your local sonic if they do that!


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[cheermomforever]

Sherwood Forest farms in Washington sells great Christmas wreaths and other items. You set the price. We usually raise each item by $5 and do very well. Free shipping for a small minimum.

We have also checked out Brax fundraising and may do it. It is cups and travel cups of all nfl, nba and college teams.

Last year we had an auction of I5 team members "services". We offered, photography session, 2 hours of"man power" for moving, garage clean out etc., make up and hair at comps, tutoring, time share vacation with friends. It did very well!


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[Official OWECheer]

I saw Butter Braids being advertised once, and a specialty/gourmet popcorn fundraiser.

 

[Hscoach10]

Hosting a competition is our biggest fundraiser. It is a lot of work, but we raise over $20,000 of profit in one day. We also host a beef and beer, get corporate sponsors, sell raffle tickets, sell joe corbis, host youth clinics and have done a few restaurant fund raisers. I sometimes feel like car washes are more work than they are worth. Overall I would say we keep the cost of cheer manageable for families.

 

[mollymags]

My allstar gym does lots and lots of Shake the Can fundraisers at local grocery stores. We have lots of younger kids so people think they're cute enough to give them change. We've also done a donation drive where we got a certain amount of money back if we filled the donation company's truck. I'm not sure who this was done through, though.

The EP I work for has lots of high school and college teams work events as fundraisers. I'm sure other companies do this as well as it's much more cost effective to have fundraising groups in the more non essential positions at events (floor security, door security, helping with admissions, working at company owned vendor booths, etc). Usually these are slotted during the summer but check EP websites to see if they have something in your area and send in a staff application!


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[Dixie]

Our team does a bazaar one weekend a year. We make $40,000-$50,000 a year and that covers all 40 girls for the year. That's our only fundraiser. Takes a few years to catch on, but then the community starts looking forward to it.
My son's hockey team was only allowed to do 'action' fund raisers, not just asking for money. The most successful were bagging groceries and carrying to cars (kept all tips, wore jerseys to promote their team) and car hopping at sonic. Again, they kept all tips and had a blast doing it! Our teachers have done this as a campus fundraiser also. Cleared $13,000 in one night but requires lots of promotion and an adult per child if under 18 since they are handling money transactions for sonic.
We've also hosted spaghetti dinners and pancake breakfasts ($5 person but some always give more). Staff serves. People pay more to pick their table (fav teacher serving) versus getting put at the next available table. Once supplies and cooking/custodial staff funds are removed we made $5,000-$7,000.


The Fierce Board App! || iPhone || Android

 

[jessicastuart]

Loving all these responses! Here are some that my program does:

1. Traditional Car Wash: We sell pre-sale tickets and the girls make 100% profit off of the ones that they sell (10 x $5.00 = $50!) we then split the drive-up profits amongst the girls that worked the wash. This past July we made $900!

2. Bottle Drive: We usually run this after Memorial Day or after the 4th of July. We assign streets in our town to our cheerleaders and they hand out flyers advertising the bottle drive, asking for bottle and can donations. The morning of the bottle drive, the girls collect from their assigned street and bring them to the high school. A local recycling company picks up the bags and boxes of glass bottles and takes them to their sorting location (all for free, they don't even take any profit)! In June we made $800, our best bottle drive yet.

3. Community Sponsers: We sent out letters to local businesses and ask for sponsor donations. Any donation over $50 receives advertisement on the back of t-shirts that we wear to games, competitions and events.

4. Restaurant Nights: We have done them at McDonald's, Moes, Chipotle and Applebees. A certain amount of profit from that night during a specific time frame is donated to the program. Most of the places have our girls "work" and they have a lot of fun with it!

5. Spaghetti Dinner: A local Italian restaurant runs a deal for school programs. We pay for dinners at $4.00 a piece (spaghetti with sauce, 2 meat balls, a chef salad and dinner roll) and we sell them for $10.00. We have families donate beverages and baked goods to include with the dinner. Cheerleaders serve the dinners and most of the community comes out and supports them. One of my favorite events!

6. Usual candy bar/Tastefully Simple/candle/cookie dough fundraisers during the slow months.

We hosted a local competition last season and made $8,000. It was amazing and we are working towards hosting the same competition annually because of our school size (we have 3 gyms, which is rare in our area). A lot of posters have mentioned cheer camps open to the community, and I'll be doing one in late-September! I'm super thankful for the suggestions I've read on here. I can't wait to set it up!

 

[CheerTeamNerd]

Loving all these responses! Here are some that my program does:
4. Restaurant Nights: We have done them at McDonald's, Moes, Chipotle and Applebees. A certain amount of profit from that night during a specific time frame is donated to the program. Most of the places have our girls "work" and they have a lot of fun with it!

The Applebees pancake breakfast fundraiser is awesome. Applebees cooks all the food, however the girls act as waitresses and hostesses and bring out everything for the customers that come in. Because Applebees isn't normally open for breakfast ANY CUSTOMER that comes in automatically donates a percentage to your organization. Applebees also provides a pre-made flier, and you can just plug in your organizations info and pass it around.

Additionally, there are basic fundraising/selling merchandise programs that are super easy and can be done throughout the season to gain funds.

Fundraising | Team Cheer

A lot of the items you can sell have up to a 90% profit for the girls. It's super easy for parents to bring the order sheets or items into their offices etc. to sell.

In my high school, we were also allowed to have bake sales at school every Friday afternoon. The Senior students would go set up during the last period of the day. Those were always a big hit among students and made between $50-$100 every time (I came from a very large high school).

 

[Official OWECheer]

FUN"D" 2 RAISE Cards: The Fun Scratch-Off Fundraising Card