How to improve your club’s fundraisers

Avatar
Image credit: Shutterstock.com / alexkich

Fundraising is a vital aspect of any club’s journey, without it, clubs would not survive. Therefore, it’s critical that fundraising is done as efficiently as possible. Here’s how to improve your club’s fundraisers.

Planning Fundraising Goals 

While it can be tempting to begin fundraising as soon as possible, too many clubs jump straight into it without proper planning.

To fundraise effectively, you have to consider the club’s position.

  • How is the club tracking financially?
  • What needs improvement at the club?
  • Is there club infrastructure that needs repair or upgrades?
  • Do we need new equipment?
  • Are our membership fees appropriate?

These questions and more will inform your fundraising goals. Objectives are important to have as they keep your club on track, and break fundraising into more achievable blocks, preventing overstressing.

When creating club goals, always make them specific and realistic.

If your objectives are too lofty, people will lose trust or feel unaware of what you are raising for. Additionally, if they are unrealistic or too difficult, it can hurt donor’s motivation to contribute money.

For example: Raising $1,000 to buy new shirts is more achievable than raising $10,000 to improve the club.

The latter goal feels endless while the former can be achieved and replaced by a new goal, producing a sense of progress and success within the club’s community.

Delegating Fundraising Work 

Depending on the size of your club and the number of willing volunteers you have, you want to do as many fundraising events as you comfortably can.

However, crowdfunding can be incredibly time heavy and manpower intensive. Additionally, its often tasked upon too few people.

When organising charity campaigns, it is incredibly beneficial to delegate multiple people across different fundraising streams to ensure each receives full attention, and to prevent people from becoming overburdened.

Through this, each fundraising method is being optimised to its fullest extent, while club members can still focus on their club roles.

Choosing Fundraisers 

Choosing what club donations to do can be a tricky process and often depends on the membership base of your club, as members may be likely to contribute to some fundraisers more than others.

When deciding, first reflect on what has worked well for the club in the past and what has been less successful.

Additionally, it’s important to fundraise in a cost-effective manner. Some contributions may be appealing, but if they are too time intensive and expensive than the benefits may not be enough.

Furthermore, the skills of your volunteers are also worth considering. Some of your members may have special talents which you can leverage. For example, naturally extroverted and charismatic members could make for great trivia night hosts.

Traditional Fundraisers 

There are a range of traditional fundraisers that your club can implement to help boost funds in a way that is familiar and approachable to your membership base.

Here are some examples:

  • Trivia Night
  • Sausage Sizzle
  • Auction
  • Raffle
  • Movie Night

Online Fundraising 

In today’s world, technology has generated more ways than ever to fundraise.

A valuable option for your club could be an online donation page. These pages can be added to your cub’s website, allowing members from a wider community to donate in a familiar and trustworthy place.

Donation pages are a great option for clubs as they can be relatively simple to set up and do not require too much work afterwards. However, it’s important to ensure the page stays up to date and works, you do not want to miss out on possible funds.

If your club does not feel comfortable creating a donation page or does not have its own website, you could consider opting into the Australian Sport Foundation’s (ASF) fundraising platform.

The ASF allows clubs across the nation to post a donation page to the ASF website to receive funds for club projects.

Funds donated through the ASF platform are tax-deductible, thus making donations a more attractive option to potential benefactors.

Membership Fees

The most effective way to increase the coffers of any club is to increase membership fees, as it targets everyone involved in the club. However, it can be a double-edged sword.

If your club increases fees too much, you can upset or even drive away members. Remember to always treat membership fees carefully, and as an option of last resort.

Conclusion 

Club finances are an often-stressful dread hanging over the heads of club boards and members, however, fundraising does not have to be daunting.

Through planning and delegating the work, fundraising can be made a far simpler process. Additionally, fundraising events can be an enjoyable time for all involved, generating lifelong friendships and memories.

Previous ArticleNext Article

JH Allan Reserve in Keilor East to undergo lighting upgrades

Avatar
Image credit: Football Victoria

After strong backing from the community and Football Victoria, Moonee Valley City Council confirmed the green light for upgrades to proceed later this year.

Resounding support

Ahead of the council meeting on Tuesday 24 March, Football Victoria and five Moonee Valley Council clubs created a petition backing lighting improvements at JH Allan Reserve.

What followed was an astounding 624 signatures – a demonstration of the power of united, community support. As a result, main tenants Moonee Ponds United SC and four addition clubs (including Essendon Royals FC, Avondale FC, FC Strathmore and the Moonee Valley Knights) will all benefit from the developments.

“As one of the only facilities within Moonee Valley not shared with other codes, ensuring that JH Allan Reserve meets the needs of our participants is crucial for Football Victoria,” said FV Head of Government Relations and Strategy, Lachlan Cole.

“It was fantastic to see participants and officials from those five clubs come together, support this project, and unite to speak on behalf of their needs. And it was even more heartening to see the wider football community throw their support behind the development by signing the petition.”

 

A long-awaited verdict

The decision comes as a huge step forward for the local football community, arriving after an extended process of consultations and surveys.

In September 2022, Moonee Valley City Council endorsed the Moonee Valley Soccer Strategy, which sought to identify potential upgrades at JH Allan Reserve.

Furthermore, during the community consulation between March and April 2023, 365 people participated in a survey regarding the developments. In the end, 65% of responses supported or strongly supported the installation of sports lighting at the ground.

It is therefore clear that, for much of the community, this was a cause worth fighting for. Over three years since the initial endorsement from Moonee Valley City Council, JH Allan Reserve is now set for a vital upgrade.

Final thoughts

More importantly, however, are the current and future athletes who will feel the benefit from these developments.

Football participation is growing and will continue to do so, in Moonee Valley, Victoria and Australia as a whole. That is why developments like this are so vital.

They are not merely nice to have, but are fundamental to supporting future footballers in the community by providing them with the facilities and environment to play.

Football SA Commits $100,000 to Referee Fuel Subsidy as Cost-of-Living pressure Mounts

Avatar
Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football South Australia has announced a fuel subsidy scheme for match officials across its semi-professional competitions, allocating up to $100,000 for the remainder of the 2026 season in response to rising fuel costs that the governing body says are threatening the delivery of fixtures across the state.

The subsidy, effective immediately, covers referees officiating across the RAA National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s National Premier League, Apex Steel Women’s State League, HPG Homes State League 1 and State League 2. The subsidy spans senior, reserves and under-18 competitions across both men’s and women’s football.

Under the metro scheme, reimbursements will be tiered against the average Adelaide unleaded petrol price recorded each Friday, applying to all matches played in the following seven-day period. Officials will receive $30 per match day when the average price sits at $3.25 or above, $25 between $2.75 and $3.24, and $20 between $2.35 and $2.74. No subsidy applies below $2.34. For regional matches, referees travelling to Port Pirie, Barossa and Whyalla will see their per-kilometre reimbursement rise from 88 cents to $1.26 when petrol prices exceed $2.35.

All subsidy payments will be funded directly by Football SA, with no cost passed to competing clubs.

The Economics behind the Whistle

Fuel prices in South Australia, as across much of Australia, have been running at elevated levels against the backdrop of an ongoing imperialist war on Iran that has sent shockwaves through global oil markets. Iran’s targeting of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant proportion of the world’s oil supply passes, has disrupted shipping and contributed to price surges that are being felt at service stations in Adelaide as acutely as anywhere.

For match officials, who are overwhelmingly volunteers or low-paid part-time workers travelling to multiple venues across a season, those price surges are not an abstraction. They are a direct financial disincentive to take on appointments, particularly in outer metropolitan and regional areas where travel distances are significant and the cost of attending a game can approach, or exceed the payment for officiating it.

The consequences are cancelled fixtures, forfeited points, disrupted seasons and players who stop turning up to clubs that cannot guarantee them a game.

“This initiative recognises the critical role match officials play in delivering competitions,” CEO Michael Carter said in the announcement, “and aims to reduce the impact of travel costs across the 2026 season.”

A Structural Problem, a Seasonal Solution

The subsidy applies only to the 2026 season. Football SA has been careful to frame it as a response to current conditions rather than a permanent structural change. The $100,000 allocation is described as subject to fuel prices remaining at current levels, with the final amount invested likely to vary as the weekly threshold calculations play out across the season.

That framing is honest about what the scheme is and isn’t. It does not resolve the underlying question of whether referee payments in community and semi-professional football are adequate relative to the demands placed on officials. It remains a question that transcends the current fuel price environment and will outlast it. What it does is buy time and goodwill in a moment when both are in short supply.

Sport, and football in particular, depends on a volunteer and semi-volunteer workforce that is increasingly being squeezed by the same cost-of-living pressures affecting every other part of Australian life. When the price of petrol rises, the people who feel it first are not the players or the clubs, it’s the officials, the committee members and the volunteers who make the infrastructure of community sport function.

Football SA’s decision to absorb that cost rather than pass it to clubs is a recognition that the referee pipeline is fragile in ways that are not always visible until it breaks. The SAPA review into South Australian football, released earlier this month, identified referee development and retention as one of the most pressing structural challenges facing the game in the state, recommending greater investment in recruitment and suggesting affiliation fee subsidies for clubs that bring new officials into the system.

Friday’s announcement does not go that far. But in a season already defined by uncertain economic and geopolitical circumstance, the levy sends a clear enough signal about where Football SA’s priorities lie.

The fuel levy will be calculated each Friday using average Adelaide prices listed on Fuel Price Australia, with payments made to officials on the regular weekly schedule.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend