Fund Raising

Without funds no club can survive. The better the club the better the Fund Raising Programme. Effort and enthusiasm is the best motivation for Fund Raising. Listed below are some of the tried and tested methods of fund raising. When it comes to raising funds there is basically no new ideas just new enthusiasm.

The Foundation for Sports and the Arts (FSA) were established in 1991 to distribute income generated by the football pools promoters. The foundation's aim is to enhance the quality of life for communities and to encourage and fund sports and arts at every level. The FSA consider promoting participation and enjoyment by everyone is more important than promoting sporting or artistic excellence or success. Funding is available for capital and revenue projects for a wide variety of sports and arts purposes, such as play areas, museums, art projects, etc... If you would like more information you can email contact@thefsa.net or visit the website www.thefsa.net

For further grant opportunities visit www.voluntaryactionfund.org.uk

Subscriptions / Membership Fees
For some reason football teams are reluctant to charge realistic fees and some don’t charge anything. Research has shown that if youngsters have to pay for something they value it more as it gives them a sense of owning the club.

There are different ways of setting clubs fees. Token annual memberships of say £10.00 with a weekly subscription of say £1.00 or a straight annual fee of £50.00 with the option of paying in instalments.

Clubs can quite easily handle a situation where a player through genuine financial hardship in the family cannot afford such subscriptions. Obviously it needs to be done sensitively and with the maximum of discretion. A separate club fund could be set up whereby a grant could be made to the individual youngster for example.

Sweeps / Raffles
Before any club can sell raffles or sweeps it needs to obtain a Lottery Licence. These can be obtained through the Law and Administration Department of their local council. There is a nominal annual fee to be paid and a named official on behalf of the club holds the licence. There may be a police check carried out to determine if that person is a suitable person to hold such a Licence in the same way as the licences to sell alcohol are handled.

No player under the age of 16 can sell sweeps or raffles. They should be given to the parents or guardians to sell.

Xmas Raffles can be a good money-spinner if handled correctly. The printing costs of the tickets are normally the greatest expenditure. You should only purchase the number that you can realistically expect to sell. For a single team club this is more difficult and a club with a number of teams does it easier. The more prizes you can get donated then the more profit you will make.

Jumble Sales and Fairs
These are good money-spinners but are hard work and take a lot of organising.
You must get a hall.
Get helpers to collect jumble.
Mail shot all the surrounding houses to the hall and advertise the sale in the papers.
On the night before the sale set out your stalls and identify some of the better items and put a price on them.
It’s a good idea to organise Teas and Coffees and make a charge on the entry tickets to cover this.

A bottle stall and a raffle should always be held as you can make a considerable sum of money from those. Remember it’s the players’ relatives who have donated most of the bric a brac so they are unlikely to buy the jumble.

With a bottle stall and raffle you can get them to part with some money.

You need helpers to clear away. Some committee members may take the better items to a boot sale. You can approach dealers to clear it. Alternatively a fleet of cars to the local dump is the only option left.

Horse Nights
These are best held in a licenced social club. You will generally find that a social club will let you have the hall for nothing, as it is a way of generating business for them.

You can hire all of the equipment required e.g. videos.
Or
Alternatively use big foam dice and 6 rolls of old wallpaper with 18 squares on them stuck to the floor can be the racetrack. The first roll of the dice is the horse number and the second roll the number of spaces it moves.

Before you start you should have Irish Bingo or even quicker Heads or Tails. This where all the assembled company pay in a set fee either £1 or £5 and put their hands on their heads or bottoms. The MC tosses a coin and announces if it is heads or tails. Those who get it wrong sit down the last one standing gets either 40% or 50% of the total collected.

If possible get the assembled company to buy each horse for £10. The winning owner will get £30 the club keeping the other £30. You can have an auction race where the horses are sold by auction again the winner will get half the proceeds. It is best to hold the auction at the last race by such time the assembled company will be merry and more perceptive to bidding for a horse.

Tote Tickets for each horse in the race can be sold but these tickets should be marked with the race number horse number and sequential number for easier calculation of the odds. A calculation of the total number of tickets sold and total taken in for each race is made. Exactly half of this is divided up by the total number of tickets sold for the winning horse and paid out to each holder of a winning ticket. 

A disco can then be held. Again with such an assembled company a raffle should be held with all prizes being donated by parents and friend attending. As a rule of thumb a horse will generate roughly £10 per person attending and the raffle plays a very big part in that

Bingo Nights
These can be held in school or church halls. The prizes should be items donated. You should not play for money in these premises. You can either borrow or hire a bingo machine and the books can be bought from a friendly social club.

Arrangements should be made to have a tea or coffee break where you can sell Home Baking and hold the raffle. Once again the raffle will be the main money raiser. As a rule of thumb you could expect to make £5.00 per head per person attending.

Sponsored Walks / Penalty Shoot Out
This is a good old stand by and is certain to raise money. All you must do is get sponsorship forms printed and distributed to your players. As a general rule each player will collect on average £10. Committee members should not miss out on raising sponsorship.  Sometimes they can get as much as five to ten times more than a player.

Sportsmatch, Awards For All or Lottery Funds

Lottery Fund – Everyone’s a Winner
The National Lottery has raised more than £17 billion for good causes across the UK. This site has information on how to get Lottery funding, news on the organisations that hand out Lottery money, and case studies on Lottery-funded projects.

How £9 billion of National Lottery funding is helping children and young people.
This year The National Lottery is highlighting the many thousands of projects for children and young people that have benefited from Lottery money. A total of over £9 billion had been invested across the UK - over half of the £17 billion raised for good causes over the past 11 years.

The money has provided a wealth of new opportunities for children and young people - from after school clubs and regenerated parks and green spaces, to new arts, heritage and sports facilities.

This investment has changed almost every aspect of life for children and young people living in the UK, by helping to provide them with greater opportunities and equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need for the future.
www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk    

Sportsmatch
Sportsmatch is an award scheme that supports grass roots sport projects that encourage participation at community level, especially youth groups. In Scotland, Sportsmatch is funded by the Scottish Executive and administered by sportscotland.

Sportsmatch matches commercial business sponsorship on a £ for £ basis and has three primary objectives:

To encourage businesses to sponsor community sports
To foster lasting partnerships between business and community sport
To further develop and improve community access to sport through quality business sponsorships

You can have at most 3 sponsors per project, each contributing at least £500. Sponsorship can last between 1 and 3 years for any one project.  Sponsorship can be in cash or in kind with regards sporting equipment.  Awards start at a minimum of £1,000 (£500 for schools and colleges) and go up to £10,000 per project.   Applications are viewed by a panel on a competitive basis as there tends to be more bids than there are funds available.
www.sportscotland.org.uk/SiteNavigation/Funding/TopicNavigation/Sportsmatch/Sportsmatch.htm   
The Young People's Fund in Scotland
The Young People's Fund in Scotland is a £20 million grant programme to help young people aged 11-25 learn new things and take part in healthy and positive activities that make them feel good about themselves. It is expect that most of the money will be used to fund projects in local areas that address important local issues. It can also be used to fund new ideas or projects that cover more than one local authority area, involving groups of young people who share common concerns, experiences or issues.

Groups can apply for grants ranging between £5,000 and £1 million, spread over one to four years. They cannot fund individuals but different kinds of organisations can apply including community or voluntary organisations, charities, limited companies and statutory bodies such as local authorities or community councils.

www.biglotteryfund.org.uk          

Awards for All
Awards for All gives small grants to help small groups Grants are awarded of between £500 and £5000, for projects that get people involved in their community. You could receive help if your group helps people to take part in arts, sport, heritage, social, environmental, health-related, educational and other community activities.
It’s easy to apply.
You can apply at any time.
The application form is simple.
You’ll hear the result quickly.

www.awardsforall.org.uk