T-Shirt Fundraisers - How to Derive Maximum Profit?

As one of my fundraisers for the upcoming season for my team, we are looking to sell team t-shirts. These would be plain white t-shirts with the logo of our team on the front and team sponsors on the back We're looking to run this during the course of the season (so from about June to end of July-ish).

My question(s) is/are:
a.) What method(s) or website(s) have you used to do this kind of fundraiser?
(i.e. Have you used a specific website (like Customink, etc) AND/OR what have you done to prices to ensure t-shirts aren't being sold at cost?)

b.) If you haven't used a specific website, how have you done your fundraiser/sales in order to generate maximum profit for your team?

This is one of our ways of giving back to our sponsors (along with banners, plaques, etc, depending on what they donate), so it needs to be something we can really ensure we promote and draw major attention to. We have 2 other fundraisers planned for the year outside of soliciting from businesses, but we would like this to really become one of our key fundraiser methods. Any help would be appreciated!

While I like the idea of printing tshirts with the team logo and sponsors, I am not sure how well it will work as a fundraiser. Do you expect people outside of your team to purchase the shirts? How many do you really expect to sell? This sounds like something we would do if we had some extra money in the budget and wanted to give the players and parents something to wear to tournaments to build brand recognition.

I don't think I'd expect to sell many outside the team. What about doing something more general? Softball theme but not team-themed? Or maybe with a small logo as branding but the focus being something more general?

grcsftbll said:

What about doing something more general? Softball theme but not team-themed? Or maybe with a small logo as branding but the focus being something more general?

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Do you have an example of something like what you're saying here? We did what JAD proposed above in terms of shirts for the players at the end of our 2015 season ONLY because we had enough money to allow for it. In 2016 we had nearly $1000 less in our account, so we weren't able to do that. I found a couple of websites that do their t-shirt sales on a sliding scale (the more you order, the less the cost), but that still wouldn't help identify how much to sell them for so that a profit was made, etc. We've intended this as being one of our ways of giving back to the sponsors, otherwise they get banners, plaques, and a weekly ad on our FB group.

In terms of who would purchase these - assuming we advertise it through FB, our games, our youth baseball/softball program, etc, I don't see a reason we can't reach a lot. However, we're the only team in our town that does this (our youth program gets sponsorships like always - we're the new kids on the block at it were).

We're planning a car wash and bake sale/BBQ in May and a youth kickball tournament in June as our other 2 fundraisers. We wanted to have another fundraiser to help ensure we had funds for the end of the season to hold us until 2018.

JAD said:

Do you expect people outside of your team to purchase the shirts? How many do you really expect to sell?

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The intention is yes - we do get a decent number that come to our games - we're only in our 4th season compared to the boys' team of the same league, so we're still making our name and seeking respect and recognition. Trying to get our name out and about is our goal - attract spectators, supporters, future players, etc. I think we can also safely market this to where we could say "Orders will not be processed without a total minimum of ___ purchased overall". I know many websites require minimum numbers in that regard. We tried this last year but I was a slight idiot and started the fundraiser AFTER the season ended where nobody cared. One of my parents suggested starting it in the end of June (around the start of the season) and running it through the end of the season.

I'm just keeping all of my options open - whatever can help ensure we HAVE a team.

I have one that says, "All I care about is softball and like 3 people." There are a billion ideas for shirts out there that aren't team specific. I see them on Facebook all the time. I would think something general would appeal to more people than a team shirt, since really only people affiliated with the team will want to buy one probably.

The design I've created at the moment has the classic "Eat. Sleep. Softball" in pictures on the front (with the knife/fork, bed, and swinging player), with our name underneath, and the back just says "2017 Team Sponsors" at the moment. If we make enough money on our other 3 fundraisers, we may not even need to do this, but it was just a thought (and a way to give back to our sponsors as well).

Aside from plaques, banners, and FB ads, I can't think of what else to do in that regard OR other fundraisers to do as well that we can get away with since we're not considered a not-for-profit organization (we explicitly state any donations from businesses are deductible as advertising expenses, and this has been verified as legal).

You might want to think about doing decals with your logo. We did those for DD's high school team. We had 200 of them made, sold them for $10 a piece and made nearly $8 profit per decal. The margins would be less for a smaller amount but they are really easy to sell to friends and family as opposed to t-shirts...

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.

Your best bet to to have some samples then order the shirts, that was you not stuck with the extra inventory.