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COACHES' FUNDRAISING IDEAS FROM ACROSS THE NATION

- Having a Car Wash at a Gas Station? Pump Gas and Wash Windows for extra donations.
- We worked as "boosters" at Six Flags over Texas.  We received $50 per booster.
- We bussed tables at a local country club on 4th of July and raised $1300 in one day!
- We sold CHEESECAKE.  Yum.
- We design and sell the school basketball and football programs.  We make $5,000 on ads alone.  Then we make extra of the sale of the programs.  I tell the kids, "You never know unless you ask."  Ask everyone you know and meet to buy an ad!
- We made the most money off candle sales.
- We had a craft table at a local craft show.  Everyone was responsible for making 5 crafts.
- We held a spaghetti dinner and silent auction.
- Our team orders 25 pizzas and sells them for $2 a slice to kids as they leave school.  The smell of that delicious pizza is too much to resist on empty stomachs!
- We held a cheerleading clinic.  We charged $25 per girl and they all got a free T-shirt.  We sold ads for the back of the T-shirts to cover the cost of them.
- We had a cheerleader pageant.  We advertised in the paper and sent a flyer to all the local schools and gyms.
- We worked a concession stand at an amusement park for a day.
- We sold tupperware and avon.
- Is your Car Wash at McDonalds or another fast-food restaurant? Have an adult with a sign stand at the exit of the drive-through window. Patrons will give you the change they get back from their orders!
- Waitress at a local restaurant one evening. Teams typically earn 10% of what they sell and tips.
- A twist on the old car wash — Wash the cars at a Car Dealership one morning.
- Contact your local Sports Arenas. Older kids or parents can work one of the concession stands for a game or concert event. Your group earns minimum wage. 10 people working 8 hours is $400-$500 for one night of work! Not bad!
- Work local events—car races, air shows etc. as ticket takers or other positions.
- Have your Car Wash at Wal-Mart. They will match everything you make up to $2,000!!!
- Recycle! Hold a glass or bottle drive (wine bottles, beer bottles, juice bottles.) Before you start, contact the local glass recycler to find out which bottles are refillable, which aren't and how much you’ll get for them. You’ll make more money if you to take the glass to the recycler. Print flyers and let the community know that you are having a glass drive. Have them time put their empty containers outside their front door on a specific date for pickup. Use a trailer or truck to collect the glass.
- Contact Wal-mart, K-mart, the local mall, etc. Ask if you can set up a gift-wrapping table on weekends the month before Christmas.
- A twist on the Rummage Sale: Rent tables at a local flea market on the weekend. They usually rent for $10 a table, but you may be able to get them free. Have the team bring all their garage sale items. Customers are already there!
- Hold a flea market. Got a parking lot? Get one! Many plazas or churches will let you use theirs. Sell spaces for $10 each, $25 with a table. Call a party rental place for prices on tables. Put an ad in the Greensheet or local paper.
- Hold a CRAFT SHOW! Same concept as a flea market. Put flyers at local businesses, day-care centers, restaurants. Put an ad in the paper. Print flyers and put them at local craft stores. Contact crafters through the internet or at a previous craft show. Or put an ad for crafters in the paper. Sell spots for $25-$50 each.
- Sponsor a Job Expo. Local businesses looking to hire new employees rent space — you set the price (at your school gym, a conference center or hotel ballroom). Get a ad in the newspaper. Try to get a radio station involved. Charge $4 admission. You could make a bundle!
- Stand outside of Just For Feet or K-Mart with some mats and have “Buck a Tuck.” Your kids do a back tuck for a buck.
- Local radio or tv stations will send their staff to play softball or basketball against your team. Why not have a cheer-off too?
- Contact a local Fiesta Mart (a large grocery store chain in Texas) and asked about their community fundraising program. They donate a Mexican dinner for 125 people. Sell tickets for whatever price want. On a chosen night prepare the food and hold the dinner. Fiesta will want in return to come to the dinner and promote their products for 30 minutes while you finish preparing the food. Even if you don't have a Fiesta close by you could challenge a large local grocery chain to do the same. Be sure and tell them what a great advertisement this would be for them right there in the area.
- Holiday Season Babysitting. The Friday after Thanksgiving and the following two Saturdays, the cheerleaders babysat children of parents who wanted to go Holiday shopping with out their children (and for any other reason).
- Find a stretch of high traffic road at least one mile in length in your area, preferably by a shopping center. Set up stakes and heavy twine for One Mile. Start Friday at lunch through Sunday evening and try to collect one mile of dollar bills from passersby. Also sell sections to local businesses. People will come by out of curiosity just to see a mile of money. You could possibly raise over $10,000.....Good Luck
- Put together a celebrity answering machine message fundraiser. Find or hire someone who does very good celebrity impressions. It’s a perfect gifts for friends and relatives. $15 for one message, $25 for 3 messages and $35 for 5 messages. The only cost is the tapes. People like Arnold the terminator, James Bond, President's Nixon, Reagan, Bush, or countless others on their answering machine totally customized with their names.
- Every year around Christmas time hold a Breakfast with Santa for preschool kids. In addition to breakfast, space is rented to local crafters. People look forward to this event. They can do some Christmas shopping, there kids can see Santa and get a great pancake breakfast. Print flyers and distribute them to local daycare centers, hang them at pediatrician’s offices.
- Midnight Madness — open gym Friday or Saturday night from 8 pm—midnight for $5 per kid at your All-Star gym
- Find old uniforms stored away in closets and storage rooms at home or the high school (our school district normally buys the uniforms and they give permission to sell them). Wash them and put an ad in the local newspaper that you are selling cheerleading uniforms.
- Tupperware, Pampered Chef and Avon have fundraising programs.
- Put together a cookbook. Gather up favorite recipes from the community, and then we separate them according to category. Type the recipes into the computer, and then print them out. Make a nice cover using graphics. Get them copied and bound at an office supply or copy store.
- Have a Bingo Party. Solicit gifts from Stores etc. Give these gifts as prizes. Sell tickets at a reasonable price and provide refreshment for sale. You will be surprised the profit.
- Hold a Fashion Show! Get really cool stores around your community to donate various outfits for the day's show. Select a few models from your school, get some cool lighting and music going, form a runway, and then spread the word! Sell tickets for whatever you think is reasonable. Have refreshments available afterwards. This is good advertising for the clothing stores plus a chance to show the community how active and fun your school really is!!
- Hold an open art exhibition called "Cup and Mugs". This event raises money through a $5.00 entry fee per item entered. The artists who entered also donated a cup or mug to be auctioned off at the end of the event. The event was a great success, fun, and the artists can't wait till the next thematic arts exhibition and auction. Stay tuned as the next one will be featuring "Hats" should be a blast!
- A FREE car wash a thon. You have a FREE car wash. Each person washing cars gets sponsors ahead of time. Sponsors pledge a certain amount of money per car — once cent, a dime, a dollar — for each car they wash in an afternoon. This makes money several ways. If you wash 100 cars in an afternoon, and 10 sponsors pledges 10 cents a car, you made $100! If each person in the club has 20 people, that can add up. You will get a lot of cars, because people will get their car washed for free. If a huge traffic gas station will donate the space and the water, it is great because people are already stopped. If you have a bucket that says "Donations accepted", *most* people will throw in at least a dollar!
- Hold a slumber party at the cheer/dance studio with music, food, and dancing for little kids. Have a $15-$30 dollar cover charge.
- Fill a room with balloons (100) or more depending on the amount of people in your group. Sell the balloons at $2.00 each. The balloons are filled pieces of paper with prizes donated from local business or cash!
- Sell "Halloween Insurance” for $2.00. Your group guarantees to clean up any soaped windows, cars, etc the day after Halloween. If you do get called out to clean, you’ll probably get an additional donation despite having paid for the insurance.
- At a local Golf Course (Private courses are on the best), set up a small table and offer to clean golf clubs and balls. Also sell raffle tickets for either a golf prize or cash prize to be drawn that day. It is best to set up this concession during a golf tournament.
- Check with your local McDonald's restaurant. They have a program called McBucks. You get 50 cents on the dollar, but the consumer get the whole dollar worth of food at the restaurant. However, they still pay the tax.
- A different twist to the "down the river duck race". 100-1,000 (donated) tennis or ping pong balls are consecutively numbered. The balls are sold for $2.00 each. The balls that have been paid for are put in the scoop of a front end loader and on "race day" the balls are dumped down a hill in your community. The first ball to enter the home stretch trough wins prize money.
- Hold a "non-event" -- you send out invitations that say "THE XYZ SQUAD is holding its first annual Black Tie Non-Event. The event will not take place on June 1, 1996. Cocktails will not be served at 6 p.m. with dinner not served at 7 p.m. No program will be held at 8 p.m. Then you itemize the money they will save by not having to attend your event -- tux rental, buying a dress, babysitting, parking, cost of the dinner, having your hair done, etc. Then you ask for a donation for that amount. If you're looking for less money you can make the event more casual (no tux rental, etc) to get the suggested donation down to an amount you want to request.
- Parents night out at the preschool -- do these every Friday night in December from 6 pm to 10 pm and charge enough to pay costs plus make money. People really need a night to do Christmas shopping etc.
- Every year before competition invite parents, family and friends to come and watch you practice. Charge $4 or $5 at the door. Sell snacks/drinks. Ask a local furniture store to donate a reclining chair (chairs). Sell tickets ahead of time. Those who win the drawing get to sit in the chair and get waited on during the rehearsal.
- 9-12 year old cheerleaders can “Give a Mom a Break.” Offer to play with pre-schoolers at mom’s home while mom does housework or just takes a bath! It gives younger kids supervised babysitting experience and kids earn $3-$6 per hour.
- Sell suntan lotion, visors and ice water at local events. Ask to set up a table.
- Sell root-beer floats outside a local store for $2 each.
- Tutor latch-key kids after school for one month for $1-$3 a day per kid.
- Have a “Wall of quarters.” Draw a huge picture on a wall covered in posterboard (use duct tape to stick it to the wall and then Goo Gone to remove any residue). Tape a quarter to the picture and sign your name on the outside to show your support. When the picture is full of quarters, take a picture of it. You’ll be amazed at how fast quarters add up!
- Get 3-5 5-gallon water jugs. Put a photo of each squad in front of them. Ask parents—family—friends to put spare change in them. The team that raises the most money gets a pizza or slumber party.

INTERNET FUNDRAISING

www.fundraisingdirectory.com Over 100 fundraising companies with descriptions and website links.

www.fundraising-yellow-pages.com For small groups. Ideas, events, non-food products, services, auctions, on-line donations.

www.schoolpop.com Register your group. People shop at over 300 online stores. 20% of each purchase goes to your group!!!!!! Print up 1000 business cards at Office Depot ($10) with this website on it and instructions on how to get to your teams’ site. Give each person on the squad 50 cards to distribute.

Get donations from family-friends of things to auction off on E-Bay. Put one person in charge of the auction. Be sure to put in the description of the item that the proceeds are going to a good cause!

www.fundraising-newsletters.com Get a fundraising newsletter each month