It's Not About Product

A lot of people think that selecting the right product to sell will determine how well a fundraiser does.  While offering your community good quality products is both a point of pride and will be critical to the continued success of successive fundraising campaigns, keep in mind that success in sports fundraising has little to do with the products sold.

Several years ago a youth baseball league in a nearby community had been selling about $20,000 worth of pizza kits every year as an annual fundraiser with voluntary participation. The league’s board of directors was approached in the fall by a fundraising salesperson who guaranteed in writing that if they sold his cheesecake products next spring—also as a voluntary fundraiser—the league would make at least 10% more profit than they made selling pizza kits the spring before or the salesman’s company would make up the difference in cash.  The board members were quite divided but ultimately decided, with the profit guarantee in hand, they had nothing to lose by switching to cheesecakes in the spring.  To the board’s complete astonishment, the baseball league went on to have a $37,000 cheesecake fundraiser.

By this example it would be easy for the casual observer to conclude that cheesecakes are a far better fundraising product than pizza kits.  However, what the fundraising salesperson understood that the baseball league’s board of directors didn’t realize was that their pizza kit fundraiser was under-performing.  When the salesperson offered his company’s profit guarantee to the board of directors he made sure that the guarantee was conditioned upon certain changes in the way the fundraiser was conducted.  In other words, the salesman understood that successful fundraising is not so much about what is sold; rather, it is about how it is sold.

In terms of products, there are scores of successful fundraising ideas for sports teams and leagues.  Products typically sold by youth sports organizations are fundraising discount cards, submarine sandwiches, raffle tickets, lottery calendars, and various types of frozen food (i.e., fundraising food such as cookie-dough, pizza, cheesecakes, etc.).  Sports fundraising campaigns using these products can be enormously successful, or they can be very disappointing.

Still, to say that product fundraising is not about product is a very counter-intuitive statement for many people to wrap their minds around.  When referring to a product that was part of disappointing fundraiser, someone may say it did not do very well, or "We'll never sell that product again".  However, consider the fact that the product that seemed to fall on its face last time around was probably a stellar performer for other organizations in similar communities across the country.  If the product was such a dud, then how could other organizations have so much success with it?

Certainly, there are other reasons that some board members will point to for the failure of a campaign; however, that is the subject of another article.  (See Why Did Last Season's Sports Fundraising Campaign Tank?)  The point here is that the fundraising product an organization chooses to sell is going to have very little effect on the outcome of their sports fundraising campaign.  It's not about product.  The most effective fundraising ideas for sports teams have more to do with campaign implementation and management rather than products.   That is, what it really comes down to is the way the campaign is planned and conducted.  There are three major components of most successful fundraising campaigns—good timing, appropriate player incentives, and a motivational kickoff presentation.  That is the central theme of this article, and those three elements are the most important ideas for fundraising success.

Good Timing

Starting and completing your fundraising campaign as early in the season as possible—and certainly before your regular season games begin—is important because that is when your players will have the most enthusiasm for their sport and are most willing to participate in your fundraiser. 

That build-up of excitement prior to Opening Day—when the players first get to wear their new uniforms and compete for wins—is, in part, transferrable to the fundraiser.  That kind of excitement and energy is often both palpable and contagious.  Players also develop a sense of belonging to a team and a league, crave individual recognition for the contributions they make on behalf of their team and the league, and they all want to be sports heroes.  

This enthusiasm isn’t lost on the players’ parents.  If fact, it’s contagious.  During the pre-season parents are sharing in their children’s excitement and are more supportive of the organization.  This is the best time to run a voluntary fundraiser.

Opening Day ceremonies and the first games represent the high point of the league’s collective excitement and sense of anticipation.  However, for most teams, after Opening Day and as the regular season wears on, both players and parents lose some of their enthusiasm. 

Fundraising statistics bear out that the most productive voluntary sports fundraising campaigns start and end in the weeks prior to the start of the regular season, and productivity declines for those fundraisers that are conducted after regular season begins.  The general rule in fundraising is The Earlier the Better, and there are few exceptions to this rule.

Strong Incentives

Let’s face it, fundraising is nobody’s favorite activity and, if you are asking for voluntary participation, you should ask yourself this very important question:  “What can our board of directors offer to our players that will make them want to participate in the fundraiser?”

There are two important “multipliers” that will determine the success of your fundraiser—the number of players participating and the average number of units sold per player.  (See Fundraising Multipliers)  Any incentive you offer that engenders collective player excitement and is perceived by players as being at a sales level that is within their individual reach will have a positive effect on both of these multipliers.  That is, choose the right incentives and place them at sales levels that make the players see them as worth their investment of time and effort and these incentives will increase the number of players who participate in your fundraiser and they will also increase the average number of items sold by all participants.

To illustrate the impact of incentives numerically, if the use of incentives increases the number of players who participate by 25%, and the average seller sells 25% more product than they would have without incentives, then the sale will be 56% (1.25 X 1.25 = 1.56) larger than if incentives had not been used.

A few words of caution are in order here.  First, keep in mind that the money you spend on the fundraiser's incentives should bring back to your organization more in net profit than the money that was spent to provide them.  There’s no point in offering incentives if the cost of providing them is greater than the additional profit they can be expected to return.  However, also keep in mind that even items such as embroidered league jackets can easily be supported by a fundraiser if placed at the correct sales level.

Second, try to offer only “must have” prizes—especially sport-appropriate prizes or items that your players cannot purchase outside of the fundraiser.  This will get your players’ attention, motivate them, and give them a sales goal. 

Finally, try to select prizes that can be earned by individual effort as opposed to “top-seller” prizes or “team prizes”.  Generally speaking, prizes that can be individually earned at attainable sales levels tend to be more motivating because they give each player a greater sense of control along with a reasonable expectation that they can be earned.

If you need help with selecting or providing appropriate prizes, check with your organization’s fundraising sales representative. This person is not only likely to help you set up an incentive program, but may also contribute to the cost of providing and promoting the incentives.

Motivational Kickoff

If you are conducting your fundraising campaign over, say, a two or three week period, then you should keep this in mind:  Probably more than 80% of your fundraiser's sales will occur in the first three or four days of your campaign, and perhaps 5-10% will occur in the last two or three days.  Very little will be sold between those two phases.  Therefore, getting your fundraiser off to a good start by giving a motivational presentation directly to the players at the start of the campaign can have a huge impact on your fundraiser’s outcome. 

Another few words of caution:  Don’t rely on your coaches or team parents to kickoff the fundraiser.  They may mean well, and they may even promise to deliver a strong performance, but more often than not they will just end up handing out the fundraising information to the players with few words of guidance or encouragement.  Some leagues are fortunate if they have just one or two adults who can effectively deliver a motivating call to action.  Hopefully, these leagues directors selected one such person to run their fundraiser because it is good to know that the person who will probably be the most invested in the outcome of the campaign is also someone who can effectively rally everyone around it.

A proper motivational fundraiser kickoff presentation should accomplish several objectives: (1) It should make the player feel comfortable with the products they are selling so they feel comfortable talking about the products with others; (2) It should tell the players how to take a sales order, and when and to whom to turn in the orders; (3) It should let them know what incentives they can earn by participating in the fundraiser, and (4) It should give each player a moment to experience the collective excitement of their teammates as the incentives are being revealed.  If you don’t have an experienced fundraiser sales representative to provide this function, then you should carefully script a presentation so it is very brief (3-5 minutes) and can be delivered by someone who is good at giving a short motivational speech.

An experienced fundraising chairperson or your fundraiser sales representative can give you guidance regarding how to best set up the logistics of the presentations for your “photo day” or for days that your teams have practices.

There’s More . . .

Running a fundraiser is like running a business and, even though you run a fundraiser for only two or three weeks, it is bound to be a success if you start it at the right time, use strong incentives, and get people in your organization motivated to make it a success.  However, there are a few things you should watch out for—things that can undermine all the good things you put in place.

First, almost every youth sports organization has a coach or two who has a negative attitude about fundraising.  Often, these coaches don’t make the neural connection between the fundraiser and those things the fundraiser provides such as good equipment, new uniforms, and fields that are well maintained.  A coach with a negative attitude about the league’s fundraiser can “poison the well” for an entire team, so make sure that each coach understands the purpose of the fundraiser, that the fundraiser is voluntary (if it is), and that if they can’t offer encouragement they should at least refrain from making comments that will undermine the campaign’s success.

Second, be careful about the “vibes” you give out.  If you believe the fundraiser is making an important contribution to the financial health of your organization or that it will help to keep player registration fees low, then you should never appear apologetic about asking players and parents to participate in the fundraiser.  In fact, knowing that everyone will benefit from it, you should cheerfully and confidently promote participation.  If everyone gets the impression that the fundraiser is important to you, then they will have a higher regard for its importance to the league and be more likely to participate.

And finally, make every effort to make your first fundraiser of the season a huge success so—hopefully—your organization will not have to do another one in the same season.  If another fundraiser has already been planned, then don’t let word about it get out.  If players and parents know that another fundraiser has been planned it will put a damper on the enthusiasm for the current fundraiser. 

Remember, a fundraiser's success—or lack of successs—is really not about the products being sold.  A discount card fundraiser can have as much success as most food fundraisers.  Rather, successful sports fundraising is all about the things you do—or fail to do.