T-Shirt Fundraisers - How to Derive Maximum Profit?

That was the plan at the moment. I have the design (sans sponsors on the back of the shirt at the moment). We would advertise the sale and I have a Google Forms document where they'd fill in the information. The only thing they wouldn't know is the price assuming we do things on a sliding scale through a website. If we did it manually, there are many craft stores (AC Moore, Hobby Lobby) that sell the same t-shirts we would've used by a website. We can just purchase those, identify how much screen printing at a local vendor would be, and identify the profit margins based on individual costs.

Not to be negative. But.... my dd played travel softball 11 years so far plus 4 seasons of HS and 2 years of university club. Volleyball 6. Basketball 6. Soccer 7 years and she ran track 2 years. In all that time (38 team seasons) I bought 4 team sweatshirts and 3 tshirts. And had 2 team hats given to me. It's going to be hard making any money on a tee shirt sale.

Completely fair evaluation. I'm trying to market it to spectators as a way for us to raise funds so it doesn't have to appear as though it's for only team members/family. The problem is that is always the stigma with these types of sales, so I'm investigating all avenues to try and make it a success. Thankfully my season doesn't start officially until late June (I start practices/fundraising in April) so I have plenty of time to look into things.

gdc03120 said:

I had not actually thought about that idea. $8 a decal profit isn't a bad margin depending on what gets sold, etc. As I said before, we've mainly used this idea as one of our ways of giving back to our sponsors, so I'm not sure how I can ensure this continues without their inclusion and/or what I can now do to make sure they get enough recognition that it's worth their donating.

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For the sponsors you could do a team picture on a plaque to display at their place of business and then have a banner made to hang up on the dugout at your games.

That's essentially what we do. We offer five (5) levels of donation, and each level adds more to the mix:

Single (up to $100) - Weekly ad on our FB page
Double (1-2) - Weekly ad + logo on t-shirt
Triple (2-3) - Weekly ad + logo on t-shirt + small size banner
Home Run (3-4) - Bi-weekly ad + logo on t-shirt + medium size banner + small thank-you plaque.
Grand Slam (4+) - Bi-weekly ad + logo on t-shirt + large size banner + large thank-you plaque

All the donating businesses get a thank you letter signed by all the girls/coaches. We meant to do team photos at the end of the season, but 1 girl was pulled by a parent with 3 games to go, 1 joined last minute to ensure we had enough, and it was just a general, garden-variety clusterf**k. This year we're doing team photos before the season starts.

We never had much success with corporate sponsorship's for TB, but local businesses would help support the HS team. My suggestion would be to come up with a budget and present it to the parents. If the parents want to offset their fees by bringing in a local sponsor, they are welcome to do so, but I think you are going to be in for a rude awakening if you anticipate corporate sponsorship's to completely fund the team.

I do know of some teams that had a lot of success with raffles. Ask businesses to donate a prize, or possibly offer a discount. I have seen teams raffle rifles, shotguns, Yeti coolers, big green eggs.

Our 8U travel team made a ton in sponsorships. The coach (who is our current coach again) is a sales guy which definitely helped. To me, it's exhausting. We're not exactly independently wealthy but I just really despise fundraising. I'd rather work more and just write a check. It is the worst.

grcsftbll said:

Our 8U travel team made a ton in sponsorships. The coach (who is our current coach again) is a sales guy which definitely helped. To me, it's exhausting. We're not exactly independently wealthy but I just really despise fundraising. I'd rather work more and just write a check. It is the worst.

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I have found that it works best if you just tell each family how much they owe and offer fundraising options to help cover the fees. Some parents love to fund-raise and will go above and beyond what is expected, while others would rather just write a check. Group fundraisers always seemed to follow the 80/20 rule - 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

JAD said:

We never had much success with corporate sponsorship's for TB, but local businesses would help support the HS team. My suggestion would be to come up with a budget and present it to the parents. If the parents want to offset their fees by bringing in a local sponsor, they are welcome to do so, but I think you are going to be in for a rude awakening if you anticipate corporate sponsorship's to completely fund the team.

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We're not going after corporate sponsors. We are NOT a registered not-for-profit - we're too small/not worth it to register (according to my tax person). We're strictly going after local businesses - mom/pop type places. We've also got 2 other fundraisers planned: A car wash and bake sale/BBQ in May, as well as a youth kickball tournament for a Saturday afternoon in June.

My plan is, during my information meeting (before tryouts) is to show what our budget is (stands at about $1100 give or take) and challenge the girls to surpass that total. I do NOT charge my players to play. The only thing they pay for is their uniforms ($41) when they first join, then they pay for anything else they need on their own (cleats, etc.) All of our funds come from sponsorships, donations, fundraising, etc.

The businesses that sponsored us were almost all local/small businesses. The really big companies, it's pretty much impossible IME. Murphy Oil sent us a bunch of practice shirts though, which the girls wore in their first tournament. I remember the other teams being like, why do their shirts say Murphy on them? lol But hey, free. And they had something to wear til the uniforms came in. DD still has hers.