Imagine this: it’s the start of your region’s Little League baseball season. You’re doing everything you typically do to prepare, such as sharing about the team online, securing sign-ups, and holding tryouts. But when it comes time to review your books, you realize you’re going to need to raise a little extra funding to have a successful season.
Your team is not alone in this. Around the country, sports teams are tasked with tracking down the funding they need for the season. The key to getting it? The right team fundraising platform.
For example, the Washington-based Evergreen Little League team grew its fundraising results from $5K to $15K just by switching to 99Pledges. In this guide, we’ll explore our top recommended team fundraising platforms that can help you see the same results!
What is a team fundraising platform?
A team fundraising platform is simply software that allows a group of people to fundraise. This group could be a football team, marching band, cheer squad, or another organization.
Often, these platforms allow users to fundraise online with the peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising model. P2P fundraisers get each member of the team involved, having them raise money on behalf of the team from their social networks. To facilitate these campaigns, team fundraising platforms typically offer both teamwide donation pages and individual pages for each team member.
Team Fundraising Platform Essentials
As a coach, you’re busy juggling everything from team management to practice planning to communications with parents—and you may even be doing all of that on top of a full-time job. Plus, your athletes and their parents are just as busy with school, work, family obligations, and more. All of this means that you need a team fundraising platform that takes the burden of fundraising off your shoulders, rather than adding more to your plate.
That’s why we believe some things are nonnegotiables when it comes to choosing fundraising software. As you search, look for a platform that:
- Allows for quick and easy set up. Look for a provider that will set up your team’s fundraising pages so you and your athlete’s parents don’t have to worry about it. The platform should also be simple to use, both as a donor and a back-end user, to make supporting and managing the campaign as easy as possible.
- Requires little to no parent involvement. As we mentioned, athletes’ parents are often busy and may not have much extra time to devote to fundraising on your team’s behalf. Ideally, the platform should either eliminate parents’ responsibilities or streamline them so it only takes a few minutes.
- Is free with no hidden fees. There are plenty of costly fundraising platforms out there, but these are usually meant for larger nonprofit organizations with more complex needs rather than the local Little League team. Opt for a free or low-cost, lightweight solution that does just what you need it to instead. Be wary of software that requires you to raise a certain amount in order to use the software for free.
- Has customizable donation pages. Your donation pages are critical to the success of your online fundraiser—after all, this is when your supporters decide whether to support your team. Ensure you can customize these pages with your team name, branding, and a compelling description that will inspire them to take action.
- Offers flexible payment processing options. To raise as much money as possible, it’s best to accept a wide range of payment methods. Look for a solution with flexible options. In addition to accepting digital payments via debit or credit cards, PayPal, ApplePay, and GooglePay, you should also be able to process cash and checks.
- Uses a mobile-friendly interface. Similarly, it’s important to make engaging with your fundraising convenient for supporters. Your donation page should be accessible via any device, from desktops to smartphones, so supporters can donate from anywhere, at any time.
- Has simple donation tracking tools. Tracking your fundraising progress can help you see whether you’re on target to hit your goals—and if you’re not, you’ll have time to course correct. Check that your team fundraising platform automatically tracks donations and generates easy-to-understand reports.
- Offers communication tools. Maintaining regular, prompt communications with supporters shows that you value their support and encourages future donations. However, this can quickly become stressful and eat up hours of your time. Focus on finding a solution that automatically sends communications like donation receipts, thank-you emails, and reminders.
Remember to practice due diligence when looking for the perfect platform. Some solutions may seem promising at first, but it’s crucial to read the fine print and ask clarifying questions. For example, a provider could claim to be free but require you to turn over a percentage of your earnings to them.
What are the top team fundraising platforms?
Now, we’ll dive into our recommendations for team fundraising. Each of these platforms is designed to help teams like yours come together to raise the funding they need. We’ll get started with our top pick, which has all of the must-have features listed above: 99Pledges.
Top Platform: 99Pledges
99Pledges is a team fundraising platform made for youth sports teams, organizations, clubs, and schools. We know how important your work is in the lives of young people, and we understand the essential role fundraising dollars play in that work. That’s why we offer our robust, comprehensive platform to teams like yours for free.
In addition to having all the essentials listed in the previous section, 99Pledges follows the simple, yet lucrative, peer-to-peer fundraising structure. Here’s how it works:
- Step 1: Create. In just a few minutes, we’ll set up your team’s fundraising page and automatically create individual pages for each team member.
- Step 2: Share. Each donation page is shareable, meaning your team can link to them in social media posts, emails, and on your website. Promote your campaign to raise money for your team.
- Step 3: Collect. Leverage the ease of online donating to inspire more donations from your supporters, whether they’re local family members or supporters from across the country.
- Step 4: Track. Measure your progress and share it with the team and your supporters to spark competition and encourage participants to keep fundraising.
- Step 5: Get paid. Receive the proceeds from your campaign within 24 hours of your fundraiser ending! No waiting around for your funds.
To see our software in action, check out our sample fundraiser pages and reports. You can even create a customized sample tailored to your team and fundraiser type.
Over the years, we’ve learned that our customers raise two to three times more funds when they switch to 99Pledges. Even better? They accomplish this with less setup time, paperwork, stress, and management. 99Pledges makes fundraising easier for everyone involved—including organizers, participants, parents, and donors—without compromising the impressive results.
Other Team Fundraising Options
GoFundMe
Overview: GoFundMe is a popular crowdfunding platform used to address a variety of fundraising needs. Individuals and groups alike use GoFundMe to raise money for medical and veterinary costs, charities, disaster response, and more. Some teams use GoFundMe to raise money.
It’s easy to set up an account, link it to your team’s bank account, and share the page with supporters. Overall, this is a good option for simple, short fundraising campaigns.
Drawbacks: This platform only supports crowdfunding campaigns, meaning participants won’t have individual, trackable donation pages. Also, GoFundMe is a fairly stripped-down platform, meaning it could lack the capabilities you need to manage more complex needs.
Mightycause
Overview: Mightycause offers solutions for nonprofit fundraising, team and event campaigns, and giving days. Its team fundraising solution allows users to create dedicated websites and track metrics in real time. Fundraiser templates help participants get started quickly and start fundraising for your team.
Drawbacks: Participants must complete the donation page set up on their own, adding to parents’ responsibilities. Also, Mightycause only has paid plans with no free option.
Vertical Raise
Overview: Vertical Raise is an online donation platform for youth sports and performing arts teams. The platform leverages compelling email, text, and social media messages to rally more support for its campaigns. The platform is easy to use, both for back-end users and participants.
Drawback: Some users indicate that the donation pages have a dated look. Additionally, Vertical Raise charges a service fee of 20% of the total funds raised, cutting into fundraising profits.
RallyUp
Overview: While RallyUp offers software for enterprise-level nonprofits and other large organizations, it also has a solution for small and grassroots fundraisers. This tool can be used by growing nonprofits, individuals, and community groups (like your team). RallyUp allows you to create a free, branded campaign website that can manage a-thon fundraisers, auctions, raffles, crowdfunding, and more.
Drawback: RallyUp’s free plan requires your team to ask donors for tips (which the platform then keeps). The only way to remove this question is to upgrade to its unlimited plan which has a 7.5% platform fee.
Donately
Overview: Donately is a robust fundraising platform that serves many different industries from nonprofits to churches to influencers. It offers a crowdfunding solution designed specifically for teams to help them fundraise for new uniforms, equipment, and more.
Drawbacks: Team fundraising is excluded from Donately’s free plan, meaning you’ll need to invest in the starter plan. This plan costs $19 per month plus a 3.5% platform fee.
Give Lively
Overview: Give Lively offers software to support digital, event, and peer fundraisers. Its team fundraising solution unites groups of like-minded people to raise money for a shared cause. Team leaders can create the main campaign page, have participants set up their own pages, and promote the campaign. Additionally, the platform is free (with the exception of fees charged by third-party payment processors).
You can also get donors involved in the fundraising process. Give Likely includes an “I Want to Fundraiser for This” button on the campaign page for your top supporters.
Drawbacks: Coaches and athletes must handle the campaign setup themselves, adding another item to your to-do list. Additionally, you may have to wait longer to receive funds—some payment methods can take up to seven business days.
FundRazr
Overview: FundRazr is an online fundraising platform made for sports teams. This solution offers crowdfunding websites to help sports teams and individual players raise money for uniforms, travel, competition entry, and more. Getting started is quick and easy, and you can make the benefits of donating feel more tangible to donors by allowing them to “purchase” a specific item with their donation (e.g., a jersey or tank of gas).
Drawbacks: Team leaders will need to set up the campaign and enroll team members on their own.
FlipGive
Overview: FlipGive is a more passive way for your team to fundraise. In short, you’ll invite supporters to purchase items from participating retailers. From these purchases, the team will receive a portion of the purchase price as fundraising revenue. Ideally, families purchase the products they normally would while supporting your team, eliminating the need to ask them for additional money.
Drawbacks: It’s difficult to know whether you’ll be able to earn enough to hit your goal. Additionally, this fundraiser can be difficult to promote because the range of brands and products parents could purchase from is broad.
Additional Resources
Fundraising is such a key part of running a sports team—it gives you the support you need to truly make an impact on your athletes. However, constantly chasing fundraising dollars can be draining and pull focus from what really matters.
With the right team fundraising platform, you can easily raise what you need without ever taking your focus off the field. Get started with 99Pledges to save time and money while crushing your fundraising goals.
To learn more about earning money for your team or other organization, check out these additional resources:
- Winning Sports Fundraising Ideas to Help You Raise More. Need creative ideas for your team’s next fundraiser? Look no further than our comprehensive guide.
- Best Baseball Fundraising Ideas That’ll Be a Hit. These baseball fundraising ideas are sure to engage your players, parents, and community. Check them out!
- Genius School Fundraising Ideas: Shatter Your Goals. School fundraisers can help you fill in gaps to give students better learning experiences. See how to drive more revenue with these creative ideas.
