Beyond the financial benefits of earning money for your sports team's needs, there are non-monetary benefits to fundraising as well, especially for younger teams. Several factors go into organizing a successful fundraiser and as a coach or leader, you'll want to involve the kids in this if you want them to benefit.

Additionally, a fundraiser usually takes place before the actual season, so these lessons can be learned before they hit the field and can be kept in mind throughout the season.

Goal Setting

The most successful fundraisers we've seen over the last fifty-eight years have included concrete goal setting. This involves mapping out how much money your team needs and how many products each individual would have to sell to get there.

However, this math may go right over the heads of your young sports team. Instead, explain to them the number of wreaths they need to sell and have them talk through how they plan to do so.

This includes questions like:

• If they want to get that fancy new fundraising jersey for every team member has to step up to the plate? This one should be a resounding “everyone!”
• If they know that typically 1 out of 5 contacts will end up purchasing, how many people should they contact if they need to sell X amount of wreaths?
• If they know they can talk to about 10 neighbors in one hour of door-to-door wreath selling, how many Saturday mornings do they need to plan on dedicating to their fundraiser?

After they see how breaking down the fundraiser helped them reach their goals, they may do the same for their athletic goals. Ex. “How many times do I need to kick the ball into the goal to get a goal?” If the answer is typically 10, they should set a goal to getting that number down to 5 within a month.

Working Through Hiccups

When it comes to goals that don't come to fruition, it's often really hard for athletes to swallow, especially young ones. It feels very personal to them. Given that fundraising might feel a little less important to them, dealing with ups and downs before the actual sports season will be helpful. They can learn how to deal with any disappointments and fight through any obstacles.

One thing to emphasize with this lesson is how everyone's journey is different. One person's fundraiser might be going easy breezy, while another kid deals with unforeseen hiccups. The important part to remember is that the hardships only make for a more impactful experience. The same can be said about athletics: for some, it comes easier than others, but either way, the athlete needs to work hard and take the lessons as they come. The athlete that struggles more will likely have a better story to tell at the end of the day.

The World is Bigger than their Sports Field

This is a lesson that the young athletes might hear a lot at school or from their parents, but learning it within the athletic organization itself will be healthy for them. By working with adults and the community at large to raise money, they will deal with many people they normally wouldn't. This will show them there is a big world happening outside of their sport and they will need to be good at working with it if they want to be successful.

An added bonus: Through fundraising, they could form new relationships with community members and gain support for their sport. That could bring in new fans to their games and keep the team connected to their community beyond the fundraising season.

Teamwork

Right from the get-go, demonstrate to the team that the most successful fundraisers are ones where the team worked together to meet their goals. This could include sharing ideas of what works and what doesn't, helping one another with goal setting, and even just talking through any challenges. All of this camaraderie, if established before the season, can take the team to the next level when they hit the field.

Before you dive into your fundraiser, gather your team and bring up these lessons. At the end of your fundraiser, check back in and see what takeaways they had. You may be surprised at how excited they are to share their experiences with one another and see that goals were met, or even exceeded!

With 59 years of working with fundraising organizations
of all kinds, Evergreen Industries understands how
early preparation is a cornerstone of successful
fundraising and we are here to help.
Let's Fundraise!

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: JUNE 30, 2022