5 Mistakes First-Time Fundraisers Make (and How to Skip Them)
Almost every team makes these the first time around. The good news: they're easy to avoid once you know they're coming.
We've watched a lot of first-time fundraisers go from "we have no idea what we're doing" to "we hit our goal and the kids are losing their minds." Here are the five mistakes that make the difference.
1. Burying the goal
Donors give faster when they know exactly what they're funding. "Help our team" raises less than "Help us replace our 12-year-old uniforms before regionals on April 15." Specifics, deadline, dollar amount. Always.
2. Hiding the team
A fundraiser without faces is a wall of text. The teams that consistently outperform are the ones with photos of the actual kids — at practice, in uniform, holding a "we need YOUR help" sign. People give to people, not to causes.
3. Asking the coach to do all the sharing
The coach is one node. The team is twenty. When every player has their own page and their own ask, the network is twentyfold. The coach should coordinate, not carry.
4. No follow-through
The donation is the start, not the end. The teams whose donors come back next year are the teams that send a thank-you and a photo of what the money paid for. A 30-second video on Instagram of the new bag the donations bought builds the next year's fundraiser before it starts.
5. Forgetting local businesses
Every neighborhood has local businesses that want to be seen as supporting the team. Most fundraisers never make the ask. A simple email — "we're raising for X, here's what sponsorship gets you, can we count on you?" — has a surprisingly high yes rate from places that already know the team's families.
The good news: skip these five and you're already doing better than most teams' first attempt.
