Inside the Fundraiser: How One Wrestling Team Raised Five Figures In the Offseason

Following a successful season for Lowell Wrestling in Michigan, the program faced a common problem. They needed to fundraise. 

Worse yet, this was the offseason. Public interest in wrestling after a long season was at a bit of a drop off. Many wrestlers were competing in spring sports, and attention was focused elsewhere. So how were they going to pull this off? It was a challenge, but using a combination of shrewd fundraising decisions and picking the right platform, here’s how Lowell Wrestling raised $11,851 during their offseason.

Chose The Right Fundraiser

There’s a lot of ways to fundraise, we’ll help you choose wisely.

With so many choices, it can seem hard to pick the perfect fundraiser. That’s why Teamfi exists, to help teams and programs choose the right avenues for fundraising.

There are three recommended digital fundraising strategies all with high level tracking, customized donation pages, and automated outreach to potential donors:

1. Calendar Fundraisers

A calendar fundraiser is a digital calendar with numbered squares that supporters can “buy” for a donation amount. For example, square 10 equals $10. Once a date is claimed, it’s no longer available, and the team works toward filling the whole calendar.

Our calendars have blank spots so that even when your calendar is filled, you can keep it rolling.

This format is straightforward for athletes to share online and for supporters to complete quickly.

2. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a digital fundraiser where the team shares one main fundraising page. Each athlete can have their own link that connects back to the team goal. Supporters make donations directly on the page, and progress is tracked in real time. This method makes it simple to collect donations from a wide group of people, even those who can’t attend events in person.‍

3. A-thon Fundraisers

An A-thon fundraiser is built around a simple activity like shooting baskets, running laps, or in the case of a program like wrestling, lifting weights. Supporters pledge either a flat donation or a certain amount per repetition, mile, or point. It works well because it ties the fundraiser directly to the team’s sport and gives families and friends an easy way to contribute.

Lowell opted to go with a calendar fundraiser, having successfully ran crowdfunding campaigns in the past.

Clear Fundraising Goal – The program was clear about what they were fundraising for.

Within their team’s calendar fundraising page and within each individual wrestlers’ fundraising page, was Lowell’s clear message. “Here’s why we are fundraising.” The Red Arrow program was raising money for summer wrestling opportunities which included camps, bringing in local talent for skills clinics, and trips to Branson, MO, and Gatlinburg, TN for elite tournaments.

Having fundraising goals and reasoning laid out increases your fundraisers’ success chances significantly. It takes all of five minutes, part of the ease of opening a Teamfi fundraising campaign.

The summer highlight was important too. Nearly half of Lowell wrestlers were competing in some sort of spring sport, so having a reason to fundraise even while they were focused on another sport helped keep kids and families engaged.

Full Program Participation – Invited both their high school and youth wrestlers.

Instead of doing a fundraiser for both their youth program and high school programs, combining fundraisers helped the program coalesce around one digital fundraiser.

For a family with wrestlers in both programs, this made it easier for families to keep track of wrestlers and donate a set amount of money per family. It was also a great way for the program to incentivize internal competition between the high school and youth program, who can fundraise more?

When it came to the high school program, coaches were able to utilize programs like FinalForms to be in contact with families. Coaches also used email to send weekly updates and push wrestlers to fill in their contacts.

11 youth wrestlers filled their calendars while four high school wrestlers filled theirs, those fifteen individuals totalling just over $7,500. Others who filled their calendars even just halfway still raised over $200 for the program, more per wrestler than most fundraising with physical sales like cookie fundraisers and popcorn sales ever can do due to product costs. The calendar was 100% free to utilize.

Incentivization – Offered a Custom Wrestling Singlet Incentive

Sometimes small gestures like offering an incentive can pay off. That’s what Lowell Wrestling did.

For every Lowell Wrestler that filled their calendar, they got an individualized custom singlet from their local wrestling singlet company.

When it comes to incentives it’s all about math. How do you motivate your fundraiser participants without taking away from your fundraiser? Here are some questions that need to make sense for your program when it comes to incentivization.

Does the incentive excite your fundraiser participants?

For Lowell it did, the kids were excited about wearing the singlet designed for them. If the kids are motivated, the parents are motivated too. This incentive was particularly targeted toward the youth wrestlers, and that helped the youth program outperform the high school program this time around.

Did the incentive cost too much compared to the fundraiser?

Completely filled calendars bring home $496. It cost about $50 for the singlets. Lowell found that youth wrestlers were especially wanting to get this incentive and were raising more than enough to cover the cost.

Does it take a lot of work to provide this incentive?

In this case, the singlet incentive didn’t take Lowell Wrestling a significant amount of time to fulfil, which made it a good incentive.

Following the fundraiser, Lowell Wrestling used social media, which was also a big part of their fundraiser marketing, to highlight all the kids who filled their calendar. By following up with their incentive and highlighting winners, it reinforced parents’ trust in the club.

Took Advantage of Teamfi’s Automated Outreach

All Lowell coaches had to do was get their kids to input 20 contacts.

The goal for every Lowell wrestler fundraising. Get your 20 contacts in. During the offseason it wasn’t always easy, but for every kid that got their 20 contacts in, the results started coming in.

It was all easy to track for them and it’s part of how other programs have seen so much success with digital fundraising.

With Teamfi’s software they could not only tell who had gotten their contacts in, but also who their contacts were. If their contacts were their friends also fundraising, well that wasn’t helpful. If they were relatives or family friends, that was likely a much better avenue for fundraising.

That was it though, that’s all Lowell Coaches needed to do. The rest of the outreach, all completely automated.

"Honestly, Teamfi made it simple. The kids just sent the calendar link out and it pretty much ran itself. We raised more than I expected without me having to chase anyone down.”

– Lowell Wrestling program director Matt Dood

So How Did They Do It? Great Organizing and the Right Tools.

Lowell Wrestling’s offseason fundraiser is a good reminder that the right mix of planning, incentives, and tools can take the stress out of raising money. 

By choosing a digital calendar over a pen and paper template, they were able to utilize those tools that turned a decent fundraiser into a great fundraiser.

By choosing a calendar fundraiser, setting a clear purpose, getting full team participation, and leaning on Teamfi’s automated outreach, they turned what could have been a quiet offseason into a five-figure success. 

For any team looking at the long months between seasons and wondering how to keep funding moving forward, the Lowell example shows it’s possible to do it with focus, strategy, and the right platform behind you.

We were there every step of the way, and if you’re ready to get rolling, we’ll be with you too.