If you’ve ever been involved in team sports like baseball or soccer, you know how expensive it can get. While your coach works hard to help your team’s star athletes hit home runs, parents should be hitting it out of the park with winning baseball fundraising ideas.
Imagine a high school baseball team that’s eager to compete in a summer tournament across the state but is hindered by steep travel costs. In a creative twist, the team organizes a community-wide “Home Run Derby,” inviting residents to sponsor each hit. They raise an incredible $16,000, covering travel fees, meals, and new equipment.
To help you connect with community members and boost fundraising totals like this, this guide will cover all your bases:
- 10+ Best Baseball Fundraising Ideas
- Baseball Fundraising Best Practices
- How To Market Your Baseball Fundraiser
When picking a baseball fundraiser, remember that it should be fun for your team. Fundraising together teaches kids the value of teamwork and community engagement. Let’s dive in!
10+ Best Baseball Fundraising Ideas
Baseball teams can raise money in several ways, from a standard crowdfunding campaign to complex fundraisers that require extra coordination. Team members’ families are often the primary funders. Occasionally, other community members and businesses support local teams because of an alumni connection or to show goodwill, too.
Don’t strike out with your campaigns this year! Here are several baseball fundraising ideas that effectively target these groups.
1. Hit-a-thon
Hit-a-thon fundraisers can involve your entire team, their families, and friends. They work just like standard pledge fundraisers but are much more fun. Essentially, your players will be your fundraising team. They’ll ask their family and friends to pledge a certain dollar amount for every ball they hit or every foot their balls travel during their games.
For example, Bobby might sign up to participate in your hit-a-thon. He would then ask family and friends for support. Perhaps his Aunt Caroline says she’ll pledge $5 for every ball that Bobby successfully hits during your event.
If you choose to use distance as your metric instead, Aunt Caroline might pledge $5 for every 10 feet that the ball travels. Now, not only does Bobby have to hit the balls, but he has to try to hit them out of the park!
You could even host a home run derby in which participants solicit pledges for each home run hit to focus on power hitting.
Rincon Valley’s hit-a-thon
For a real-world example, Rincon Valley Little League hosted a hit-a-thon using our pledge fundraising platform. By having team members rally community support, the team smashed its fundraising goal and raised an incredible $59,857 to improve its fields and facilities.
Other teams have raised substantial amounts like $40K and $33K on our platform, too. We’ve seen amazing results for baseball hit-a-thons, so take your best swing! Our platform is free, and you only pay a transaction fee for the credit card donations you receive. Unlike with other providers, your team will keep all of the fundraising revenue apart from those transaction fees.
2. Fun Run
Other variations of a-thon fundraisers include a walk-a-thon or a fun run. These baseball fundraisers can involve younger community members, like players’ younger siblings. These are less focused on skills like hitting a baseball, making them more inclusive.
Here’s how these baseball fundraisers work:
- Step 1: Plan the event. Pick a date, time, and location for your fun run. Create a playlist, and plan out your route to include water stations.
- Step 2: Participants sign up and create donation pages. Encourage team members and the entire community to participate. We’ll set up fundraising pages that team members can share to collect donations.
- Step 3: Supporters pledge donations. Participants’ friends and families will pledge to donate for every minute or lap walked. After the race, your baseball team will collect donations based on participants’ results.
If you don’t want to take a pledge approach, simply collect donations as an entrance fee. In any case, liven up your fun run by making it baseball-themed. Players, coaches, and supporters can wear their team jerseys and merch, and the path can be decorated with baseball paraphernalia.
This event raises funds for the team through pledges and promotes health, community spirit, and the joy of baseball.
3. Sponsor a player
This baseball fundraiser relies on the generosity of community members who want to donate to help players afford necessities like new cleats, uniforms, or travel fees. Family members, business owners, or other community members can donate.
To pull off this kind of fundraiser, you’ll want to do a photoshoot with your team members. Then, post their photos on your website and social media with a short caption that includes some personal details about the player (their position, favorite hobby, etc.). Also, explain the impact of a sponsorship, such as a new uniform for that player.
4. Matching donation challenge
This baseball fundraiser hinges on support from local businesses. You’ll find a sponsor who agrees to match the total amount of donations raised by the team within a certain period. This approach creates a compelling incentive for the community to donate, knowing their contributions will have twice the impact. It’s a powerful strategy that leverages the competitive spirit of sports to boost fundraising efforts.
360MatchPro’s matching donation challenge guide shares some great examples of this. The Demopolis City Schools Foundation partnered with a local banking company to host a matching gift drive. They coordinated it with Giving Tuesday so they could leverage the generosity already surrounding that special giving day. Donors knew their contributions would be matched, so they ended up donating $6,940. With the Robertson Banking Company’s match, the fundraising total was $11,940!
5. Fundraising eCards
Go digital with your baseball team’s fundraisers by hosting an eCard fundraiser. You’ll create a series of electronic greeting cards featuring team logos and player photos which can be sold to family, friends, and fans. Think of them as classic baseball trading cards — just online! Alternatively, design generic eCards for occasions like birthdays and holidays. Just be sure to add your team logo to the corner to help spread brand awareness.
Add the eCards to your website or launch them on your chosen eCard platform’s website. Then, supporters can purchase your eCards for various occasions, and the proceeds will directly support the team.
When selecting a digital greeting card platform to power this baseball fundraiser, find one designed explicitly for ease of use and fundraising. For example, you should be able to kickstart your design with templates and fun animations and add suggested donation amounts.
Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Father’s Day, or birthdays, eCards can be a fun addition to your baseball fundraisers.
6. Team merchandise
Family members love repping their kids’ teams. Custom merch is a great way to capitalize on this while fundraising for your baseball team! By creating customized merchandise, you’ll also give team members a way to remember their time on the team for years to come.
This type of fundraiser also offers flexibility. When designing your merchandise, go simple with just your school mascot or logo and your players’ names on the back, or make it more fun by hosting a design competition! Opening up the design process to your team or other students can help you create unique merchandise each year.
Additionally, you can sell merchandise year-round online and in person at games, events, and other fundraisers. This maximizes the fundraising potential and means you can raise money with a merchandise fundraiser while running other fundraisers.
7. Baseball camp
A baseball boot camp requires team players to teach younger community members essential baseball skills. Your players can gain valuable volunteer experience while helping younger kids develop their skills so that they can possibly join your baseball team one day! Parents will also love this idea because they’ll have a safe place for their kids to go while they’re at work.
8. Cookout fundraiser
If you decide to fundraise with a cookout, charge an entrance fee and bring your whole community together. This can be a great event to do on the same day as a game or completely separately.
To make it a fun event for the whole family, set up activities for younger kids, put on some music, and provide ample space to sit down and eat. Consider setting up a booth to sell merchandise during your cookout to make an even greater impact on your baseball team’s fundraising!
9. Team breakfast fundraiser
This concept is very similar to a cookout. While a cookout can be done with portable grills, a breakfast may require you to request permission to use the school cafeteria on a weekend morning. Your booster club, PTA, or team managers can handle these permissions and liaise with the team and school administrators.
If you have the venue to pull off this baseball fundraiser, this can be a unique way to bring your team and supporters together for a meal they don’t normally spend together! Just like with a cookout fundraiser, you’ll want to charge for tickets to attend the breakfast and set up a merchandise table as well.
10. Pitching contest
A pitching contest is the perfect baseball fundraising idea for getting your supporters fired up with a little friendly competition. To make this fundraiser work, charge a fee to enter the contest. You can also offer the opportunity to buy more tries for competitors who didn’t have their best showing during their first attempt.
This fundraiser works well for older kids or parents who have had pitching practice. That means it might be more suitable as a high school baseball fundraising idea. However, you can also create different “leagues” to ensure fair competition and give everyone a chance to participate.
At the end of your event, hold an awards ceremony and give each league’s winner a prize. These prizes can be small, like a free ticket to the next game, some of your team merchandise, a free snack ticket for the concession stand, or a small ribbon or trophy.
Baseball Fundraising Best Practices
Because there are so many options for baseball fundraising, you can get creative with the idea you choose. But no matter what idea you run with, you should follow the same best practices to make sure it’s a success:
- Look for matching gift opportunities. More than likely, many of your team’s donors work at companies that have matching gift programs. Even if you’re not hosting a matching donation drive, these programs allow you to multiply the contributions you receive during all your baseball fundraisers! Just make sure you leverage a matching gift database to find these opportunities and spread awareness of the programs to supporters.
- Select fundraisers your players will enjoy. While raising money is the goal, fundraising as a team can bring your team closer together and help them work together. An idea they’re excited about will make this much easier!
- Use a fundraising platform. Fundraising technology can help you easily sign up participants and collect donations so you can keep your baseball fundraiser organized and efficient. 99Pledges makes it easy to collect pledges for your next hit-a-thon, fun run, or any other event. Check out this video to learn how our platform can power your fundraiser:
Using these best practices will help you maximize funds, stay organized, and make sure everyone has a good time fundraising!
How To Market Your Baseball Fundraiser
No matter if you’re fundraising for a Little League or high school team, follow these steps to get your baseball fundraiser the spotlight it deserves:
- Step 1: Create informative marketing materials that highlight the details of your fundraiser, its goals, and how funds will be used. This could include flyers, posters, digital images, and videos showcasing your team and the fundraising event.
- Step 2: Pick your marketing channels. Spread the word on social media, pin fundraising flyers around town, and send emails to community members. You can even use Google Ads to spotlight your baseball team’s fundraiser. These ads can target local community members searching for relevant keywords, such as “local sports fundraisers” or “support youth baseball.”
- Step 3: Write messages that play to each channel’s strengths. That means quick and punchy for Google Ads, fun and engaging on social media, and a bit more heartfelt and detailed in emails. Make every word count.
Make your baseball fundraiser the talk of the town with effective marketing. It’s all about being seen, inspiring donations, and having a blast while doing it!
Additional Resources
Don’t strike out with your fundraising campaigns this year! Whether you’re fundraising for a Little League or a high school team, these sports fundraiser ideas are sure to raise a few extra bucks.
With a powerful pledge fundraiser through 99Pledges, you can hit your goals out of the park just like Rincon Valley Little League did. That way, you can fund your new locker room, equipment, travel fees, or anything else.
If you’re ready to start planning your next baseball fundraiser, explore these additional resources from 99Pledges:
- 55+ Genius School Fundraising Ideas: Shatter Your Goals: Explore other ideas for getting the student body involved in your fundraising.
- Planning a Walk-a-Thon Fundraiser: Your Questions Answered: Follow these steps to host your team’s walk-a-thon fundraiser.
- 22 Successful Basketball Fundraising Ideas for Your Team: Are you also looking to fundraise for your youth basketball team? This guide has plenty of ideas to help you get started.
