Fundraising Ideas for Sports Clubs To Raise Money 2023

Limits on Prizes: There might be limits on the value of prizes that can be offered, and these should not be dependent on the number of participants or the amount of money raised. Each race sells tote tickets, so the prizes correlate with the number of tote tickets sold.

Advertising: Be cautious about advertising your event. You can promote the event, but you can’t include details of the betting or odds.

Age Restrictions: Ensure that all participants in betting are over the legal age limit, which is 18 years in the UK.

Here’s 6 fun ideas for generating local fundraising ideas in your local region:

6 Charity Fundraising Ideas 2024

• Charity Auction Extravaganza: Turning Fun into Funds Organise a charity auction event. Collect items to auction from local businesses or from within your community. You could also incorporate an online component to reach even wider audiences.
• Bake-Off Bonanza: Sweet Treats for Sweeter Causes Host a charity bake sale where individuals or teams contribute baked goods. Attendees can donate to taste and vote for their favourite creations.
• Fundraising Fete: A Community Gathering for Good Organise a community fete or fair with various stalls, games, food, and entertainment. Entry could be by donation, and additional funds could be raised through individual activities.
• Sponsored Silence: The Sound of Generosity Encourage participants to stay silent for a designated period of time in exchange for sponsorship. A great activity for schools, with students sponsored by family and friends to stay silent during non-teaching times.
• Charity Fun Run: Pace Yourself for Philanthropy Organise a charity fun run. Participants can gain sponsorships for each kilometre they run. Also consider themed runs, such as fancy dress, to add a layer of fun.
• Art Exhibition: Creativity for a Cause Showcase local talent by hosting an art exhibition with works donated by local artists. Visitors can purchase the art pieces, with all or a portion of the proceeds going towards your cause.

It’s always fantastic to receive orders and speak to new, and long established customers about their fundraising. Here is another happy customer who purchased our Premier race night pack. The largest pack we provide, smaller packs are also available.

Dear Derek,
Just to let you know we had a fantastic Race Night fund raiser last night for North Wilts Hockey Club.
My target was to raise £1,000 and we ended up raising £1,350.
Everyone was well in to it and we all had a blast.
Best Regards, Chris McKendrick, NWHC,

Chris McKendrick took advantage of our new website addition of being able to choose the physical posted race night packs containing a DVD of the races, downloads of the races or the ability to order both together.

It is proving to be a winner and thanks as always to James at UK Web Promotions for the nifty work he did on the website to make it happen and easy to use.

• Click here to view the Race Night Premier Pack
• Choose an ‘Option’ boxes

Here you can choose the package that best suits you, a combination of the below:

1. Races as downloads
2. Races as a DVD
3. Races as a download and DVD (extra £5)

Scroll down this blog post to see a FREE download so you can try before you buy!

We have been dealing with James for a number of years now and the easy to navigate website that he oversees get a regular thumbs up when I speak to customers over the phone. Speaking of providers of services to us, hats off also to MiPA the company that provides the back up phone service to us when I am unable to get to calls directly. The calls are answered politely and customers informed that I will get back to them as soon as I am free to do so. I feel it is important that customers can speak directly to someone quickly and not be put on the dreaded hold with a multiple of press number options.

Now that Plan B has come to an end and people can mingle again and hold events in venues. Please remember to still be careful and stay safe.

We still offer free UK postage for all our packs, but you also have the option of express delivery should you require your goods in a hurry.

FREE Horse Race Download: Here is a sample race from our mid range race sets download #4 £32.95 for ten races: Click here for a UK horse race  

Team leaders, members, family and friends can be your quick win key when fundraising at sports clubs, so we’ve put together a Top 10 Fundraising Ideas agenda that won’t make you sweat half as much as when you’re on the playing field!

1 – Fundraising at a few quid per person – Training Night Tasters for friends

We’ve put this at the top as it’s not well advertised that we have noticed when we visit venues to host fundraising Race Nights.

Whichever sports venue we have visited we lookout for club promotions with a dual purpose; our favourite which we remember is to bring along a pal for £3 to join in a training session as a taster and brief introduction to the sport. Held once a month the regularity is reassuring if your buddy can’t make it this month. The double benefit is that your pal may just be interested in joining your team to swell the club coffers.

2 – Financing Your Sports Shirt Printing – Annual Sponsorship

This is a common way that most clubs use to garner cash from local businesses who want to invest in the community and the longevity of your sports club.

Consider the extra ways to sweeten the deal, such as a banner on your website which can be tracked with Google Analytics to demonstrate the number of monthly clicks of your website visitors who click and are forwarded automatically to their business website.

The best feature of this deal is that it’s not too much effort and only once a year to renew their financial support, and our next idea shows how you can eeek out a little more money by offering them exclusive appearances at various local establishments where you will be in-house making a personal appearance to the general public .. that’s right, we’re talking about supermarkets:

3 – Supermarket Bag Packing for a sports club donation

Supermarket bag packing is a hugely popular and often overlooked easy way to raise money, by collecting loose change at the till side when customers pay for their shopping. This is also a plus point if you have your sports gear on with the logo of your local sponsor, ask them to come along or provide business cards to pop into shopping bags (is the supermarket allows it – do ask!), bonus points if your sponsor wishes to provide promotional items such as shopping tote bags to give away.

Your shirt sponsor could also be approached for a dual promotional leaflet print campaign, you can promote your monthly Taster Training Nights or the date of an upcoming event such as a horse race night fundraising evening.

4 – Virtual Zoom Race Nights – Sponsor a Horse Name or Be A Punter

We have branded our packages to suit Virtual Lockdown Race Nights – as featured in a Great British tabloid Sunday newspaper.

The concept is identical to running a traditional race night, but without mattering about social distancing or carrying enough loose change, or the taxi fare home.

We’ve got plenty of free resources to learn How To Run A Virtual Racenight, or should your club be taking social distancing measures then the bar takings can benefit as well by holding a Race Night in your clubhouse – read our Step By Step Guide to running a race night.

Derek, our founder, is a highly experienced cheeky compere extraordinaire – from Ascot to Aintree he’s hosted charity horse racing nights for three decades. Yes, you’ve read that right, for over 30 years he’s been travelling the length and breadth of Great Britain being booked for auspicious occasions with companies of all industries. Fancy standing in Derek’s shoes for 5 minutes? Read about A Day In The Life of a Race Night Compere in his own words!

Fundraising isn’t easy but it doesn’t need to be a gigantic event which would be a headache to organise. Remember the old acronym KISS – Keep It Simple and Short – often kid’s and youth clubs struggle for funding and with rugby, football, and hundreds of other popular and niche grassroots sports clubs will testify, sometimes the simple ideas raise the most money.

During lockdown our downloads of the races became really popular enabling people to hold events via Zoom and some were for fundraising, some just for entertainment but a surprising number decided to have a fun night and make a donation to charity, we found many customers made a donation to the NHS and also prostate and breast cancer charities. Well done and we hope our £10 discount voucher helped you in this.

Now that downloads of the races are becoming more popular we have added the option when purchasing one of race night packs to choose between having the races on dvd or as a download, just click on the link when choosing your required race night pack.

Don’t forget the reason the packs go up in price is purely for the reason that the more people attending your event the more tote betting tickets you will need. Everything else in the packs is exactly the same.

5 – Earn Money From Your Sports Team Website

Now this one is a great one that most clubs have a handle on, but some niche sports (Octopush, Shinty, Rallycross, Synchronised Swimming, Fencing, Korfball to name a random few)  may take this learning opportunity as mainstream clubs like Football, Cricket and Rugby may already have a website that’s 20 years old and lesser-known activities may not have had the funds to pay for a website/hosting as long as that. Consequently, websites with a lower amount of traffic than more popular sports so it’s imperative to remember one thing:

Here’s some common fundraising tactics for your sports website:

• Sponsored posts to the club website, maybe an interview from a rising star in your sport, or a seasoned professional
• Banners – Promotional imagery, banners, and creatives from your shirt sponsor, or local business / tradesperson
• Using Google Analytics you can demonstrate to your paid advertisiers how many people click through from your website to theirs. Contact the leading UK SEO Freelancer who we work with, remember to mention our website when you speak with the SEO Lady Nina Payne.
• Advertise your club for functions, create a new page and upload a video to YouTube and embed in your blog post. Do a walk-through video of before and after preparing for an event, whether this is a Christmas party or a Wedding reception. Remember to mention the fire regulation for the maximum amount of people are allowed to attend, plus extra information about a DJ you recommend, or buffet prices per head.
• On your homepage you can meantion your Supermarket Bag Packing date, the ‘Bring a friend to training sessions’ monthly date, and dates of any upcoming public events and match days

6 – Make Money At Public Events and Match Days

Here’s another opportunity to fundraise right on your home turf. If you have a weekend or weeknight event, then it’s time to be proactive in asking visitors for a few quid. Here’s some popular ways that are creative ways to earn extra cash for your club:

1. Match-day raffle – Raffles may not draw in as many pennies as some of the other ideas mentioned here, so think about offering a unique prize, maybe a free car wash, a service from one of your sponsors, a food hamper raffle, guess the number of sweets in a jar
2. Car boot sales on match days or at events
3. Inflatable castles for the kids (and adults!)
4. Match-day car washing for £5, recruit people to walk around the car park as visitors enter and promise to wash their vehicle to be ready for when they leave
5. Sponsoring a team in an unusual event such as Dragon Boat racing, or hire an inflatable Zorbing football company to run a competition day. You can hire  “It’s A Knock Out” companies for Public vs Team Members – prize for the winning team
6. To echo one of the points above – recruit grass roots youngsters to come to a training day to swell your team numbers – run a family-friendly open day
7. Bar food, BBQ and bar sales, have a promotion for the day on certain lagers and spirits, a few posters around the bar area does the trick

7. Sponsored Team Challenges – From Marathons to Mountain Climbing

This one is fairly easy to organise. You can measure how many times around the pitch (or swimming pool!) that is the equivalent of 5k for a public event. You can involve youngsters with doing a sponsored walk around the pitch. There’s also cycling routes and bungee jumping to consider too. This is quite an easy way to raise a more significant amount of cash by involving the whole club in these sponsored challenges.

8. Pay To Enter Quiz Nights – Bar Takings and Food

You can treat quiz nights a bit like match days, offer food and drinks promotions, and a raffle. Again, have people book in advance for car washes, promote the event on the homepage of your website. Offer your shirt sponsors the opportunity to leave out leaflets and business cards on the bar or on a welcome table.

9 – Website eCommerce – Kit sponsoring – Sell on your website

Most websites can be converted into a an online store. Offer Click n Collect for local people. Sporting clubs will often have their kit sponsored by a local business or a generous benefactor, but in terms of cold hard cash to pay the heating bill in winter, or to reward team members with a Christmas party, when you are an active supporter of your local community balancing the books to ensure you continue to serve is an ongoing challenge, right? Using your website as a gateway to the local community and a wider reach, install an eCommerce function on your website, and sell directly to the public online.

10 – Pitch Advertising Space, Billboards, Banners and Posters

One genius idea we heard of was to contact local printing companies and ask them to sponsor pitchside billboards as they will happily design their own signs and banners. There’s the double benefit of promoting themselves and supporting your club.

Where to next?

• View the top horse races for fundraising with reduced price packages
• Send a message via our Contact Form
• Return to the Home Page
• Instant Race Night Downloads and Tote Tickets

More about Race Night Services – Looking Back In Time

Here’s a little anecdote from our beloved Derek:

During lockdown in 2020 I have had plenty of time to go through several old diaries and photo albums to look back on things I have been connected with outside of Race Night Services.

It was during a recent phone call with my old friend Ray Dorset that we talked about projects that we have worked on together. Ray is better known to music fans as Mungo Jerry and this year he is celebrating the fact that “In The Summertime” his worldwide hit was released 50 years ago and was a number one record all over the world.

One thing involving In The Summertime that we worked on together was a version a few years ago with Johnny Vegas, now Johnny it has to be said is not the greatest singer in the world and he came up with some novelty wrapping lyrics that we laid underneath Ray’s lead vocals “My name is Johnny V and the mains man MJ” and so on, both the studio producer and recording engineer both told Johnny not to give up on his day job.

We put out a CD for St Helens Rugby Club and it sold over 5,000 copies locally during the testimonial year for one of the players Chris Joynt. Ray Dorset like me has done a lot of unpaid charity work over the years and it is something we both get a kick out of, Ray uses his musical talents and I set about organising the events and making sure that everything is in place to maximise the fundraising side of things.

One thing I have learned for fundraising is that if you put in the leg work in advance is that the on the night event is much easier to organise as you have taken away the worry of have you raised enough funds to make it all worthwhile.

Race Night Services were always ready for when venues reopened and the much-needed fundraising can once again begin.

Client Testimonials – Race Night Services

Every now and again its good to catch up with our customers comments about our company, here are a select few from my inbox.

“Thank you for your professional service to us. Your race night DVD’s were of the highest quality and enjoyed by everyone who attended. Our event raised over £1,300 with your help. We recommend you very highly and will be returning in the future”

James Banks, Christ the King RC Church, Holytown

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, a great effort to help us out this week after Royal Mail failed with the first parcel. The fact that you sent out a second parcel without question speaks volumes of your company”

Neill Butters, NG32 3QT

“Thank you again for an excellent service. The races were first class”

Duncan Fraser, IV3 5ES

“What a race night, it was great and raised £984”

Janet Egan

“Thanks for a great service. £845 raised will recommend and use your company again”

John Mulheron

“Many thanks for your help and support. We had a brilliant fun social evening and made £300”

Gwyneira Clark, Garndiffaith, NP4

“Thank you for your prompt service. The race night was most enjoyable and rewarding for our rotary club”

1. Barbour. Leven, Fife

“Thank you for your excellent service”

C.J. Roberts, PE5 7AW

“We had a very successful race night”

Lawrence Gafney, GU17 0JU

“We raised over £1,050, I am a happy customer”

Allan Collinson, Middleton St Marys Social Club

“A suberb race night kit, which led to the best race night we’ve done, many thanks.”

Neil Nixon, Bradworthy Social Club

“Just a quick note of thanks, your race night DVD’s were of excellent quality, and despite a low turnout due to the weather we still managed to raise £800. I will be using your race night services again.”

Paul Davies, Severn Rescue

“We raised over £500 from our race night to help with our football club funds.”

Dave Hughes, Holyhead 

“Another great nights racing.”

Dave Rose, Barton Utd

“I just wanted to say thank you for the quality of your race night DVD’s, betting slips and general overall service. The night was a great success and we managed to raise over £1,000. I will recommend your race night services to everyone and no doubt we will probably use you again next year for a similar event.”

Andrew Roberts, Kenfig Hill Rugby FC

“Many thanks a good race night had by all.”

Barry Massey, Fenton Bowling Club

“I managed to raise £2,500 on our race night for BRAKE our chosen charity,”

Lorraine Hall, Digby Brown LLP

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We always try to please and comments like these help to motivate us.