As a member of your school’s booster club, you’re invested in making sure the students in your community have access to extracurricular activities and resources that can enhance their education. And a crucial part of providing those extracurricular activities is being able to pay for them. That’s where booster club fundraisers come in.
Here at 99Pledges, we’re all about involving everyone in peer-to-peer fundraising and simplifying how you make money. So we know how important it is to you to fund the activities at your school so every kid can participate.
We’ve rounded up a list of the most effective booster club fundraiser ideas to inspire your team and get you and your community involved in your next project:
- Our Favorite Booster Club Fundraiser: Walk-a-Thon Fundraisers
- Easy Booster Club Fundraisers
- Creative Booster Club Fundraisers
- Virtual Booster Club Fundraisers
Fundraisers are an effective way to raise money, but it’s important to find the best idea for your school, and that means you have to consider a lot of options. Let’s dive into our favorite idea!
Our Favorite Booster Club Fundraising Idea: Walk-a-Thon Fundraisers
1. Walk-a-Thon Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆☆
Hosting a walk-a-thon is a great way to get your larger community involved in raising money for your school. Participants gather pledges from their own supporters who agree to give a donation for each fixed amount of distance that the participant walks. For example, if a supporter pledges $5 and the participant walks two miles, the supporter gives $10.
Walk-a-thons are a fun, easy way to get a lot of people involved. Even if people don’t want to participate in the walk-a-thon itself, they can pledge donations to the people who do participate.
So, why are walk-a-thons our top pick for booster club fundraisers? Because they’re extremely cost-effective, easy to plan, and easy to participate in. All you need for a walk-a-thon is a designated walking area, a good marketing strategy, and a way to gather donations.
99Pledges can help. Here’s how it works:
1. 99Pledges creates individual fundraising pages for each student.
2. Participants share their donation pages through social media, text message, and email.
3. 99Pledges collects your donations online through the donation pages.
4. You track and share your fundraising progress (which is fun and competitive!).
5. 99Pledges transfers your proceeds electronically after your fundraiser ends.
Walk-a-thons are simple, fun, and promote exercise and health. Need more information on how to get your walk-a-thon started? Click here to see a sample fundraiser set up through 99Pledges.
Easy Booster Club Fundraisers
2. Pledge Drive Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔✔
Fun: ☆☆
A pledge is simply a payment a supporter promises to give in the future. You can run a pledge drive in a number of ways. For example, you might lead a team of booster club parents in calling other school parents and supporters and asking them to pledge a certain amount of money by the end of the drive. This is a great opportunity to tap into school spirit and raise money for your football team, band, or other club.
You can also host a specific event during your pledge drive, like a dinner with entertainment where attendees can pledge donations throughout the night that are collected at the end or at a later date. Another option is to offer a reward for reaching a certain amount of pledges or dollars promised. One popular option for schools is to get a teacher or principal to volunteer to dye their hair a crazy color. This is a fun way to motivate your school community to give!
3. Movie Night Fundraisers
Cost: $$
Effort: ✔✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
Who doesn’t love a movie night? Host a movie night in the school auditorium or gym and charge a small fee for admission. Be sure to pick a popular movie that appeals to families so you can maximize the number of attendees you’ll have. You’ll probably also want to offer movie snacks like popcorn, soda, or candy to boost donations.
A movie night will require some technical know-how and investment in movie snacks, but it’s a fun activity that many people will want to attend.
4. Basketball Shoot-a-Thon Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
A basketball shoot-a-thon gets student athletes involved in your fundraising efforts. Interested students sign up to participate and supporters pledge to give a certain amount of money for every basket the participants make in a set amount of time.
The shoot-a-thon can turn into a fun, friendly competition between the participants and their supporters as people cheer on the participant they’re supporting. It drums up some energy for your fundraiser and bolsters school spirit. Plus, all you’ll need is a few basketballs, students, and access to the school gym. Another alternative to this fundraiser is a hit-a-thon baseball fundraiser.
5. Product Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
Product fundraisers allow your booster club’s supporters to get a little something in return for their generosity. You might sell treats like cookie dough, gummy bears, and chocolate bars, or you could sell branded merchandise such as face masks or travel mugs. Whatever product you decide on, product fundraisers are easy to set up and to execute, especially if you have the help of students who are ready and motivated to act as your sales team!
To get the ball rolling on your product fundraiser, work with a dedicated product fundraising company that offers a wide selection of products so you can choose something that your supporters will actually want to buy. Have students and their parents promote your fundraiser around the community and then take orders with a provided order-taking flyer, or use an online web store. You can even gamify the fundraising process by offering a prize to the student who gets the most orders.
Creative Booster Club Fundraisers
6. Color Run Fundraisers
Cost: $$$
Effort: ✔✔✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆
At a color run, participants pay to run a certain distance (a 5K is a popular pick) and have fun getting messy in the meantime. Typically color run organizers provide colored chalk that participants can throw at each other throughout the race, which makes for a great photo op at the finish line!
Charge a fee for registration and a single bag of chalk. Participants can then pay for extra bags of chalk in different colors to have more to throw around. This fundraiser will require more effort on your part, as you’ll need to find an outdoor space that can serve as the race course and invest in colored chalk and other race materials like race bibs, water, and race t-shirts.
7. Dance-a-Thon Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
For a dance-a-thon, you’ll need participants, music, and a large space like your school’s auditorium. Typically participants dance for hours until there’s one person left standing. Supporters can pledge beforehand to provide a donation for every hour that a participant dances.
Because running a successful dance-a-thon takes a lot of planning, you want to make sure enough people attend to make it worthwhile. The key is to motivate people to participate or to stay and cheer on participants by offering prizes and refreshments throughout the night. And make sure you have a grand prize like a trophy to give to the most dedicated dancer!
8. Cook-Off Fundraisers
Cost: $$$
Effort: ✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
Calling all cooks! For a cook-off fundraiser, teams of cooks sign up to compete. Every team then has a set amount of time the day of the event to cook a large quantity of their dish (like chili or BBQ), which can be evaluated by judges and sold to event attendees for tasting.
This is a great option to get families at your school involved. Parents and students can form teams to participate, and attendees get dinner out of the deal. If you’re planning a cook-off fundraiser, be sure to find a location that can provide multiple equipment set-ups for teams to cook at and that you get all necessary food materials donated well in advance.
Virtual Booster Club Fundraisers
9. Virtual Read-a-Thon Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔
Fun: ☆☆☆
A read-a-thon is excellent for a school community because it encourages students to pick up a book and start reading. Read-a-thons generally take place over a longer period of time, giving students of all reading levels the opportunity to read for as many minutes as they can. Like any other “-a-thon” fundraisers, read-a-thons bring in money when supporters pledge money for a certain number of minutes read.
This is a cost effective option that allows kids to get competitive and participate in helping their school.
10. Virtual Talent Show Fundraisers
Cost: $
Effort: ✔✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
Virtual talent shows function like a normal talent show—the only difference is you can watch it from the comfort of your own home! Attendees pay to watch students perform their talents, meaning students can get family and friends who live far away involved in supporting their school.
Virtual talent shows take quite a bit of planning. You’ll have to find the talent, host a rehearsal, and then make sure the show runs smoothly the day of. Make sure you have helpers that are tech-savvy to ensure everyone can watch.
11. Virtual 5K Fundraisers
Cost: $$
Effort: ✔✔✔
Fun: ☆☆☆☆
Lots of people like to participate in 5Ks, but it’s hard to make sure everyone can get to a race on a specific day and at a specific time (which is often early in the morning). Instead, let everyone do the race when they can fit it into their busy schedule.
When participants sign up for a virtual 5K, they pay to complete the race on their own. In return, you mail them a medal or small trophy, and a race t-shirt. This is a convenient way to encourage a fun, physical activity in your school community and collect donations!
Additional Resources
Once you’ve selected any of these great booster club fundraising ideas, it’s time to get your team on board and make a plan. 99Pledges is committed to simplifying the way you raise money, and we’re ready to help you get started creating your fundraiser. If you want to explore other fundraising ideas or have questions about 99Pledge’s platform, check out these additional resources:
99Pledges: Frequently Asked Questions. Do you want to use 99Pledges to get your community involved in your next fundraiser, but you’re not sure how? Check out these FAQs.
35+ Best Sports Fundraising Ideas to Raise More in 2020. If you’re looking to incorporate sports and physical activity into your fundraising efforts, this roundup of ideas is the perfect place to start.
30+ Simple (& Effective) Fundraising Ideas for Kids. Young students love participating in school fundraisers. Check out this list for ways to plan your fundraiser so they can get involved.
