Great High School Fundraising Ideas Using Sportswear

How to boost high school profits with sportswear.

High school students know better. They're much more skeptical and won't be fooled by the cheap prizes seen in most prize flyers. They can remember being hoodwinked by these prize programs in the second grade once they figured them out.

So sponsors can't afford to waste their time on high school fundraising ideas that don't promote these incentive plans.

The odds show that most students will fair very poorly. To win the prizes at higher levels, students must sell many items. And those who are lured enough into trying usually give up after the first day or so. Is it any wonder that only a tiny number wins anything decent? The majority will end up selling very little or don't even participate at all.

But guess what? We're talking about elementary schools, where students are typically more gullible and willing to sell for these prizes. And since enrollments are much larger, the sales numbers appear more impressive than they are.

For example, you might think that an elementary school that brings in $10,000 is a decent amount until you learn that the enrollment is 750. This would attribute an average of over 1 item sold per student. And unfortunately, these numbers bear out what the average elementary school fundraiser experiences almost everywhere.

Imagine how these sales might look for a smaller high school group sponsor trying to motivate her students with these same cheap prizes. If you took 75 students, 10% of the 750 elementary school enrollment, and applied the same projected sales amount, they would bring in $1,000.

Should any organization with that number of students be pleased with those results? And keep in mind; this assumes that the high school group in our example was as excited about the prizes as the elementary school students. Which, by the way, probably won't happen, in case you're wondering.

And to add insult to injury, these are gross sales because groups typically make 40% of the gross.

You probably don't have to look very far to find dismal results, as many high school sponsors have first-hand experience using these same cheap, junky trinkets to attempt to motivate their group to sell. And unfortunately, these types of incentives continue to get used because sponsors don't think they have viable alternatives.

To no one's surprise, it turns out that older students are much harder to please when it comes to sales incentives. In most cases, they're no longer fazed by these familiar toys and knickknacks like they might have been when they were younger.

Any sponsor who doesn't realize this will likely find out the hard way. Most high school students will laugh them off. Many sponsors already realize this and don't even offer a prize incentive. They often justify this by believing their students should already be "intrinsically motivated by the cause". After all, we're talking about high school students; they should already understand this.

Years of sales data have proven that this approach doesn't get good results and is therefore not recommended. The truth is that any student will sell more if they're adequately incentivized.

Why Fundraiser Prize Programs Need an OverhaulPracticale High School Fundraising Ideas Promote Unity

In addition to the high demand for sportswear, there are some compelling reasons why you may want to consider using sportswear to motivate your group to raise money.

Two essential things motivate high school students to join their group. They are doing something because they enjoy it and can express what they like doing with the rest of their peers and the community. Personalized sportswear with the group's name, school colors, and mascot can do just that.

Offering sportswear as the fundraising incentive can promote team unity and school spirit while providing something unique and different from what students are used to getting for making sales.

Game or travel day is the perfect time to show off your group and what it stands for. And any student who's a part of it will be eager to express it in some way.

Like football and basketball players enjoy wearing their uniform at a pep rally to show that they're a part of something significant, many other groups, like bands and choirs, do the same thing.

Sportswear provides a higher quality option than the cheap junky prizes students typically associate with fundraisers. Sports apparel may be the solution if you're looking for something fresh and different that can bring in more sales.

Sportswear Access vs. Profit Percent

Some companies offer sportswear incentives to high school fundraising groups. But since the quality is better, the cost is also higher. Therefore when groups choose our sportswear incentive plan, we give the sponsor two options.

One requires students to sell more to reach each prize level in exchange for a higher group profit percentage. With the other option, students wouldn't need to sell as much to earn sportswear, but the profit from each item sold is reduced by 5%.

Many groups do particularly well with sportswear as a fundraising incentive; however, they need to decide whether to make obtaining sportswear apparel easier or take the higher profit percentage.

Higher Fundraiser Profit vs. Better Student Incentives

The High School Team Advantage

High school fundraising ideas incorporating sportswear as incentives for teams work particularly well—for example, volleyball and basketball. Students involved with these types of groups are willing to sell more than usual because the sportswear is directly tied to the purpose of their group.

It's also common for sponsors of these groups to tie in their selling goal on one of the prize levels.

For instance, on travel days, everyone can look the same by wearing their customized polo shirt, which requires a little more selling. Wherever they go, people will know what sport or group they represent. As a result, these types of groups tend to be willing to sell more to show off their team's pride and spirit.

How Inspired is Your Group?

If your group needs additional motivation to sell, perhaps lowering the prize level requirements in exchange for a slightly lower profit might work. Even though most of your students will consider winning sportswear more desirable than the typical fundraiser prizes, lowering the amount of sold brochure items required may be even more enticing.

It's essential for sponsors not to get caught up with profit percentages. For instance, you can receive a higher profit percentage, but if you sell fewer items because you used a lousy prize program, that's not good either.

High school students are generally willing to work harder if the incentives they can earn for selling appeal to them. And at the end of the day, it's all about making more sales.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.