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’ll 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.
These platforms often 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.
What features should you look for in team fundraising software?
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 pay them a percentage of your earnings.
Additionally, there are some core features that your team should look out for when comparing tools. Use this checklist to “score” the platforms you’re considering:
☐ Quick and easy setup
☐ Minimal parent involvement
☐ Cost-effective with transparent pricing models
☐ Customizable donation pages with both group and individual page options
☐ Flexible payment processing
☐ Mobile-friendly, accessible interface for convenient engagement
☐ Simple donation tracking tools to monitor progress
☐ Integrated communication tools
☐ Robust reporting and analytics capabilities
☐ Top-of-the-line, responsive support
Want to learn more about these features? We’ll dig into them more deeply when we cover the 99Pledges team fundraising platform.
What are the top team fundraising platforms?
Now, we’ll share our recommendations for team fundraising software. 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—99Pledges—which has all of the must-have features listed above.
Top Platform: 99Pledges
99Pledges is a team fundraising platform designed for youth sports teams, organizations, clubs, and schools. We know how important your work is in the lives of young people, and we understand that fundraising dollars play a critical role in that work. That’s why we offer our robust, comprehensive platform to support teams like yours for free.
99Pledges offers all the essentials your team needs to drive revenue and community engagement:
- Quick and easy set up. 99Pledges will set up your team’s fundraising pages so you and your athlete’s parents don’t have to. The platform is simple to use for both donors and back-end users, making supporting and managing the campaign as easy as possible.
- Minimal parent involvement. As mentioned, athletes’ parents are often busy and may not have much extra time to devote to fundraising on your team’s behalf. 99Pledges streamlines parents’ responsibilities and allows them to share campaigns online in seconds.
- No startup costs & no platform fees. Many fundraising platforms lack transparency with pricing and surprise you with hidden fees after your fundraiser ends. Opt for 99Pledges, a free, lightweight solution that does exactly what you need it to instead. Only a small credit card transaction fee applies.
- 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. With 99Pledges, you can customize these pages with your team name, branding, and a compelling description that will inspire them to take action. Plus, create a teamwide page and have us set up individual pages for each team member.
- Flexible payment processing options. Accept a wide range of payment methods to raise as much as possible. The 99Pledges platform accepts digital payments via debit or credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
- Uses a mobile-friendly interface. Make engagement convenient by meeting supporters where they are. When you create a 99Pledges donation page, it will be accessible via any device, from desktops to smartphones, so supporters can donate from anywhere, at any time.
- Simple donation tracking tools. Tracking your fundraising progress helps you see whether you’re on target to hit your goals—and if you’re not, you’ll have time to course correct. Use 99Pledges to track donations and generate easy-to-understand reports.
- 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. 99Pledges automatically sends donors tailored communications like donation receipts, thank-you emails, and reminders.
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. Teams can use GoFundMe to raise money for equipment, traveling, and more.
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. 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 their team.
Drawbacks: Participants must complete the donation page set up their own, adding to parents’ responsibilities. Mightycause only has paid plans with no free option, making it inaccessible for teams with slim budgets.
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.
Drawbacks: Some users indicate that the donation pages look dated. 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. Nonprofits, individuals, and community groups (like your team) can use this tool. RallyUp allows you to create a free, branded campaign website that can manage a-thon fundraisers, auctions, raffles, crowdfunding, and more.
Drawbacks: RallyUp caters primarily to larger nonprofits with extensive fundraising experience. Its full suite of features may be overwhelming or too complex for your team’s needs.
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 raise money 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 for 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 Fundraise 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 their to-do list. Your team may also 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 buy 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. This type of fundraiser can be challenging to promote due to the broad range of brands and products parents could purchase from.
3 Tips for Leveling Up Your Team Fundraising Campaigns
1. Use the pledge fundraising method.
During a pledge campaign, participants collect donations from supporters based on the completion of a certain task or event. The donations are paid after the pledge is made, once the event or challenge wraps up.
Often, these donations are based on a unit of measurement relevant to the challenge. For example, a supporter might pledge $5 for each hour the participant spends dancing during a Dance-a-thon. If they dance for six hours, they receive $30 from that donor.
Here’s a quick overview of how the pledge fundraising method works:
- Step 1: Create. Set up your team’s fundraising page and create individual pages for each team member—remember, our team at 99Pledges can handle this for you!
- 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. Encourage team members to collect pledges from friends and family members.
- Step 4: Track. Measure your progress and share it with the team and your supporters to spark competition and encourage participants to keep fundraising. Additionally, track their performance in the challenge, whether it’s a Read-a-thon or Fun Run, and report back to donors.
- Step 5: Get paid. Receive the proceeds from your campaign within 24 hours of your fundraiser ending! No waiting around for your funds.
This method takes some of the fundraising responsibility off your plate and helps you reach beyond your typical audience of supporters. Use the pledge model to engage donors near and far, give your team members an active role in the fundraiser, and, of course, raise the funding you need to support your team.
2. Choose engaging fundraising ideas.
The best thing about the pledge fundraising model is that it can work with almost any fundraising idea. The idea you choose can make or break your fundraiser—it must be exciting to your team and community to garner support.
Here are some ideas organized by sport to help you get inspired:
- Baseball: Some of the top baseball fundraising ideas include sponsoring a player for the season, selling team merchandise, holding a baseball camp, and organizing a cookout.
- Our Favorite Idea: Hit-a-thons are a classic baseball-themed fundraiser. Your players will collect pledges based on the number of times they can hit a baseball or the distance the ball travels. You’ll track their performance, report back to pledged donors, and collect the funds!
- Football: Consider football fundraisers like selling exclusive or VIP seats, offering coupon books to local businesses, organizing a tailgate fundraiser, or holding a fun summer event to get supporters excited about the upcoming season.
- Our Favorite Idea: If you’re looking for a simple, low-effort fundraiser that you can run all season long, consider touchdown sponsorships! Local businesses will agree to sponsor a touchdown. Then, when your team scores a touchdown, have the announcer shout out the business, display their logo on your stadium’s screens, and have the student section or cheerleaders hold up posters.
- Soccer: Soccer teams can raise money with ideas like a Fun Run, soccer-themed bake sale, sports tournament, and soccer lessons for kids and beginners.
- Our Favorite Idea: Kick-a-thons are similar to other “A-Thon” fundraisers, but they’re tailored to soccer teams! Players will collect pledges for each kick they get past a goalie and into the goal.
- Basketball: Try out basketball fundraisers like a video challenge, calendar sale, basketball camp for younger kids, concessions sale, or March Madness-style basketball tournament.
- Our Favorite Idea: Host a three-point competition, inviting members of your community to register and compete. To enter, they’ll have to donate. Then, challenge them to shoot as many three-pointers as they can within a minute. Award the winners prizes or trophies.
Just as you should consider your community’s interests when choosing these ideas, you should also keep their time in mind. Avoid fundraising ideas that will require hard work and hours of time from busy parents. In other words, balance the fun factor with the required time commitment.
3. Make engaging easy.
Make joining in or contributing as easy as possible to boost engagement and participation in your fundraisers. This means:
- Linking directly to donation pages for supporters
- Accepting a wide range of donations
- Responding to and resolving questions, concerns, and tech issues
- Offering fundraising assistance or tips to participants, especially if you choose a peer-to-peer format
- Giving participants pre-made resources they can use to promote the campaign (e.g., branded graphics, templates for social media captions, details about the fundraiser’s purpose, etc.)
This is why it’s so important to choose a robust and reliable team fundraising platform. The best providers go above and beyond to deliver fundraising coaches, handle set-up, and support your team throughout the entire campaign.
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.
- Little League Fundraising Ideas: An Ultimate FAQ Guide. Fund your Little League this season with these exciting fundraising ideas!
- Genius School Fundraising Ideas: Shatter Your Goals. School fundraisers can help you fill in the gaps to give students better learning experiences. See how to drive more revenue with these creative ideas.
