Top 12 Baseball Fundraising Ideas

Our Top 12 Baseball Fundraising Ideas

When it comes to student and other organized sports, most teams will need to do some kind of fundraising campaign to help with the costs associated with the sport that they play. Baseball fundraising is no exception to this. It doesn’t matter what age group the team is. Whether it is pee-wee, little league, high school, or something else, there are several things involving baseball that you may need to raise funds for:

Baseball equipment
Uniforms
Training tools and gear
Travel costs
Entry fees for tournaments
Umpire fees
Miscellaneous costs

Regardless of what funds and resources the school or organization already provides, there is a good chance that you will still need to do some fundraising to help make up the difference.

While sports fundraising ideas can seem a bit overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. There are many easy baseball fundraiser ideas that can actually be quite fun. This guide is going to cover several of the top ideas that you and your team can use to raise the funds that you need.

Keep in mind, just one fundraising method may not be enough to provide the funds that your team might need. It is a good idea to do several of these to have the best chance to make as much as possible until your goal is reached. Below are some of our favorite baseball fundraising tips and ideas for you to use for your campaign.

1. Run A Car Wash Fundraiser

This idea has to be one of the classic fundraising methods that most people initially think of. There is a reason that this fundraising idea seems to be popular: it works really well. When people see your car wash, they immediately become aware of how long it has been since they’ve washed their own car. On top of this, people love supporting local groups like sports teams and will jump at the chance.

Car washes are an incredibly easy thing to set up. They require very little upfront costs. Often, the supplies needed are even provided by parents of the team members. All you need is:

Plastic Buckets
Car Wash Soap
Sponges and Rags (washing)
Towels (Drying)

While there are plenty of specialty items to make washing easier or to provide additional services like vacuuming and cleaning the interior, the items listed above are the bare minimum that your team need to successfully raise funds with a car wash.

For a busy car wash, simply find a place near a main road where you will get a lot of potential people driving by. The best place usually involves setting up in a parking lot of a business. You can usually convince the business owner to let you use their water for free. You may need to hook up your own hose. Make sure to get some of the team members to stand near the road with signs, convincing people to come in for a car wash. The rest of the kids will be doing the actual washing.

While it is easy to just make a set price per car that drives up for a wash, consider doing a car wash as a “pay what you want” model. Often, you’ll actually make more per car due to people wanting to be extra generous. However, if you you decide to charge a set amount per car, you can still encourage people to donate and leave tips for the team.

2. Student and Teacher Game

If this is for a school, one fun tradition is to have a game where the players and the teachers play together. You can either have the teachers be on a team to play directly against the team members, or for even more fun, mix the players and teachers so there is half of each on the teams. This kind of game is great because so many people that may not normally come to baseball games will show up for the student and teacher game.

To raise funds, there are several different things that you can do. First, you can charge tickets to this specific game. However, in some circumstances, it may be better to put the game on for free so that seats are full. You then raise funds by selling concessions, just like you would at a regular game. During this special event game, it is also a good idea to sell raffle tickets so that people have the chance to win some prizes during the game.

Lastly, it is a good idea to simply ask for donations during the game. Make sure to let everyone know that this is to raise funds for the team. Have some players go around with a collection box and you’ll likely get many donations.

3. Sponsorships For The Baseball Team

Getting the team sponsored by several local businesses is one of the best ways to raise funds for the team. Many local businesses are going to be spending money on local advertising anyway. Not only will paying for a sponsorship be a lot cheaper than their other advertising opportunities, but it looks great for them to be helping a local team.

This is one of those fundraiser ideas for baseball where it really helps to get the parents and teachers involved in helping the players. Parents and teachers will have a lot more connections to local businesses and usually get a more favorable response when reaching out to them.

You should offer different tiers of sponsorship to local businesses. Each tier will ensure that there is something that is affordable no matter the size of the business. The cheapest tier could be simply including a link to their website on the team’s website as well as their logo on the team’s banner. A higher tier will have heavier placement on the banner. It can also include their business logo on your team jersey, trophies, or plaques. For the highest tier of sponsorship, they should also get a large business board or banner directly on the fence around the team’s home baseball field. The highest tier business sponsors can also include a shout out from the game announcer directly over the microphone.

Bronze Tier: Website link. Logo on team banner.
Silver Tier: Website link. Logo on team banner, jersey, trophy, and plaques.
Gold Tier: Website link. Logo on team banner, jersey, trophy, and plaques. Unique baseball field advertisement. Announcer sponsor shoutout.

Make sure that all of the specific benefits are listed for each tier of sponsorship before approaching businesses. By having two or three options to choose from, it actually makes it more likely to get a business to sponsor the team. Having a tiered list makes it a question of which tier would they like instead of would they like to sponsor or not. Also, by having the benefits clearly listed, local businesses are much happier to donate so that they know they are directly benefitting from their donation. Make sure to compare the sponsorship to an advertisement. Because local businesses are already spending money on advertisements anyway, it is very easily for them to justify the cost of a sponsorship if they just consider it part of their regular advertising budget.

Regardless of what tier of sponsorship a local business goes with, ask if you can leave a donation box for the team at their establishment. Some businesses that choose not to pay for a sponsorship may still be happy to let you place a donation box. Make sure to write down every business that has a donation box so that someone from the team can go around and collect donations regularly.

4. Local Business Baseball Fundraising Discount Card

Similar to the sponsorships, a local business discount card is a great way to get the support of the local businesses behind your team.

The idea of a discount card is that you first go to all of the local businesses to see what kind of discounts that they can offer to anyone who has one of these card. Restaurants and other eateries are really successful with this method. For restaurants it can be 10-15% off the check, a free drink when a meal is bought, or other ideas along those lines. Automobile shops can offer discounted oil changes and tunes. Other service based businesses can offer discounts on their service.

Many businesses will be more than happy to agree to offering a discount to support your team. They know they will get a lot more business due to the card than they might otherwise get. It is a win-win scenario for both the team and the local businesses. If you are going to be approaching businesses about team sponsorships, this is a great thing to bring up at the same time. More than one baseball fundraising opportunity can be pursued at the same time, saving you time and energy.

Once you have an agreement from all of these businesses that they will offer the discount to anyone with the discount card, you then get the cards made. Make sure to put an expiration date on the card. It is common for these to be good for one year after purchase. The front of the card should have the team name. The back of the card should have all of the businesses listed along with their discount offer.

Then, you send the players to sell the discount cards locally. They can go door to door, set up a booth in front of a popular grocery store, or sell them at other local events and festivals in town. Churches and other community gathering spots are also great places to sell the discount cards.

5. Walk-a-thon or Fun Run Fundraiser

This is another classic way to raise funds because it works so well. First, choose a walk-a-thon or a fun run. You can get parents and other family members to help out with this.

Everyone who participates will be trying to get as many donations as possibly. For the fun run, it will usually just be a flat rate for the run. Walk-a-thons will often bring in additional funds because you get people to donate based on the number or miles that the player walks.

Have players and their parents reach out to find people willing to donate for this event. For parents, the workplace or their church is a great place to get a lot of people willing to donate per mile.

It doesn’t have to just be players that actually participate in the walk-a-thon or run. Anyone who wants to help raise money for the team can participate and collect donations.

This is another event that you can reach out to businesses for some additional sponsorship. You can get businesses to donate drinks and snacks for the participants, and in turn they get to put a sign up at the event.

6. Sell Cookie Dough, Chocolate Bars, and Gift Wrapping Paper

There are several companies that you can reach out to that provide items that you can sell to people in your community to help raise funds for the baseball team. These companies are specifically tailored for helping organizations with fundraising, so you can trust that their products do well. The three most common of these items are:

Cookie Dough
Chocolate Bars
Gift Wrapping Paper

For the cookie dough and the gift wrapping paper, these are usually things that people will order out of a catalog and the item will be delivered to them at a later day. The upside of this is that they don’t usually require any upfront costs. The deal with the team is that these are sold by the team on behalf of the company that provides it. A portion of the profits of each item sold goes toward the teams funds.

For the chocolate bars, these are usually purchased ahead of time from the company. The benefit here is that the people that buy the chocolate bars from you are getting their items immediately. Sometimes, you can get local businesses to help sponsor the chocolate bars. This means that they help pay for the wholesale cost of the chocolate bars in exchange for some sponsorship advertising being printed on the chocolate bar wrapper. Their advertisement will usually show a discount coupon that the purchaser can use at a later date at that business’ establishment. By having a local business sponsor the chocolate bars in this way, that means the team keeps 100% of the money for each chocolate bar sold within the community.

To sell any of these items, many of the ways previously mentioned will work. Selling door to door is always reliable. While a door to door salesman don’t have the best reputation, when it involves kids raising funds for something like a sports team, it makes a big difference. People are usually happy to hear out the kids and are more likely to purchase.

You can also set up a booth to sell any of these items. Some of the places that you can set up a booth to sell these items are:

Grocery stores: Pick a busy grocery store and set up a booth in front. If you have enough kids available, set up booths in front of both doors. Make sure to ask people arriving and leaving he store.
Baseball Game: People attending the game are more likely to be happy to support the team. Set a booth out front.
Fairs and Festivals: Check if there are any upcoming fairs or festivals in the area and set a booth up there.

For the chocolate bars, here is another great way for parents to help their kids sell them. Take a couple of boxes of the chocolate bars to work. Make sure everyone knows that you have them available for purchase and to come to your desk if they’d like one or two. Once a coworker buys one and is seen eating it, others will also get a sweet tooth and come buy one. It won’t be long before people in the office are buying several to take home with them for their families.

The gift wrapping paper is especially successful if it is right before the holiday season. People know they will need to buy gift wrapping paper soon anyway. This way they can easily justify the purchase and they will be happy knowing that they are supporting a local baseball team.

7. Breakfast or Dinner Baseball Fundraiser

If you have a cafeteria available to you, hosting a breakfast or dinner fundraiser for your team is a great event to raise some additional funds. The idea is pretty simple. You sell tickets to people in the community for either a breakfast or a dinner that the team will host. It’s important for either of these that parents are available to volunteer their time and expertise for the cooking. Kids will mostly be helping serve the food.

For breakfast, the classic idea would be to make pancakes. Pancakes are relatively inexpensive to make, which allows a higher profit margin for baseball fundraising. Along with the pancakes, you should have some bacon, scrambled eggs, and assorted cut-up pieces of fruit. You will also need juice and coffee for drinks.

For dinner, the most common idea would be to have a spaghetti dinner. Like pancakes, spaghetti is rather inexpensive and easy to make in bulk. The only thing you need to offer with spaghetti is a side salad and some garlic bread. The spaghetti can be just a simple tomato sauce with ground beef. You may also want to offer some cookies, or cake and ice cream as a desert. Don’t forget to include something to drink. It’s easy and cheap to make a large amount of punch.

While you can also do a lunch, breakfasts and dinners are usually more popular due to pancakes and spaghetti both being easy to make in bulk. If you can think of something to offer for lunch that can be made in bulk, like soup and salad, you can consider that as well.

You can also go more gourmet if that is something you want. More time and effort among volunteers is needed if you try to do fancier meals. However, you can then charge much more for tickets to your gourmet breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

To help save on costs that cut into the funds you raise, see if any local businesses will be happy to donate items. Grocery stores may offer to provide you free paper plates, plastic cutlery, plastic cups, and possibly even some food. In exchange, you can put their business logo on the tickets as a form of advertising.

To make more money during the dinner, consider holding a large raffle with several prizes. Similarly to the grocery store sponsorship, ask local businesses to offer gift prizes for the raffle. This doesn’t have to be limited to only physical products. They can offer free services as well. When people show up to the meal fundraising event, have all of the prizes displayed on a table near the entrance. Immediately ask people how many tickets they would like to buy for the raffle. They can buy as many tickets as they want to increase their chances. Next to each prize is a bowl. They place the their purchased raffle tickets in the bowls of prizes that they want to win. The more tickets they place in a bowl, the better chance they have to win that specific prize.

Similar to the raffle idea for the baseball fundraising event, you can do a silent auction. People bid a certain amount and the highest bid wins the prize. With this method, you need to be careful that the prizes won’t cost more than what people will bid on or you risk losing money. There are two ways to prevent this problem. The first is to have a minimum bid prize to reflect the base cost of the item. The second is to offer prizes that, while valuable, don’t actually cost the baseball team any money. These can be something like if one of the parents has a nice vacation home or cabin, they can offer the winner a free weekend using it. Another great example for a bid item that doesn’t cost anything is if the baseball team provided a service to the winner. This could be a couple hours of work at their house. They can clean the interior and do yard work outside. Be creative when coming up with auction ideas.

8. Local Restaurant Partnership Fundraiser

Another delicious way to raise some funds for your baseball team is to partner up with some local restaurants. Make a deal with them that on a specific night, they will share a cut of the money they make that night with the baseball team. Have them choose a night that is normally very slow. Once you’ve made a deal with one of these restaurants, have the players, parents, and teachers all start spreading the word. You want to completely fill the restaurant. Many people will be more than happy to help the team in this way, because they have to eat anyway. It is not any trouble for them to eat at a specific restaurant to support the team.

You can make deals with several restaurants. If you do this, make sure to spread out the dates of these restaurant partnerships. It isn’t very productive to do this at five different restaurants, five days in a row. However, if you do this once a week throughout the baseball season, there is a good chance you will have a good turn out every time.

Many restaurants will be happy to make a partnership for something like this. Because you are doing it on a weekday night that might otherwise be slow, you are bringing them a lot of extra business. On top of that, some of the people that eat there that night to support the team may decide to become regular patrons and come back again at a later date.

9. Rent An Athlete

Similar to the car wash, one of the easiest ways to raise funds is by providing a service. Services have little to no upfront costs. Most of the time, the only cost is time and energy. This means that the full amount can go directly to supporting the team.

One fun service to provide is letting people of the community rent the baseball players to do odd jobs and tasks. A player would simply let people in the community know about the offer. People would pay for an hour or two of that players time to come take care of small tasks. This can be things like cleaning out gutters, mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning pools, or anything else that the person can think of that they may need one of the athletes for.

Make sure that the jobs are safe for someone in the age range to be performing, and it is always a good idea to make sure the parents are there to supervise for anything more complicated. Depending on the job, you can charge for the task to be completed, or simply charge by the hour.

When selling this service, it is important that the kids explain that the money is to support the baseball team and help with expenses. When people know they are helping directly with the baseball team, they are more likely to agree to pay a higher fee for the work that is done. If they think the kids are just doing this on their own to make a little bit of extra money, it is unlikely they will be willing to spend as much for the same amount of work.

10. Sell Team Merchandise

Selling team merchandise is a great way to bring in extra funds. Not only can merchandise be sold door to door or by setting up booths like other items on this list, but team merchandise sells really well directly at the games that the team is playing.

Team merchandise that sells well are things like t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, water bottles, and more. Just have the team name logo printed directly on the items being sold. You can contact a local print shop and see what kind of merchandise they can put your logo on.

It’s a good idea to ask the print shop that will be making your merchandise if they want to be a sponsor for the team. Instead of paying for the sponsorship directly as previously mentioned in this guide, the print shop can offer to print you a certain number of free items or offer a steep discount to get all the same sponsorship benefits that paid sponsors get. By offering a sponsorship deal like this with the print shop, you’re removing or severely lowering the upfront cost needed for this baseball fundraising method.

Instead of going through a print shop, you can make the merchandise yourself by using iron-on transfers. This will work best for t-shirts, but you can also do it on hats and some other items. You will need to buy a large amount of blank t-shirts or see if a company will donate them to you. Then, print out your team’s logo as a mirror image on iron-on transfer paper. When you iron the logo onto the shirt, it will be shown the right way around.

11. Punish the Coach Fundraiser

If this is for older kids, like a high school, a really fun fundraiser for sports teams is an auction to punish the coach. The concept is pretty simple. The team comes up with a bunch of fun and relatively harmless “punishments” for the coach. These are things like having to wearing a crazy, bright colored suit for a day, temporarily dying their hair a weird color, getting a pie in the face, and more. Many students will be more than happy to donate to see the coach get this punishment.

Basically, the students, and other teachers, donate as much as they want towards their favorite punishment. The punishment that receives the largest amount of donation money after a set amount of time is the winner.

If the other teachers are willing to help out, they can also offer to receive a punishment and collect donations for it.

12. Home Run Derby Tournament

A home run derby is when you have players compete in a bracket style competition to see who can hit the most homeruns within a set amount of time. They are pitched balls over and over, usually using a pitching machine. They usually have 4-5 minutes to hit as many as they can. The person who hits the most home runs in their time is the winner.

Turning a home run derby tournament into a fundraiser is pretty easy. You simply have the competing players collect sponsorships. Similar to a walk-a-thon, you get sponsors to pay the player for every homerun they hit within the competition. The better the players do, the more money they get to collect in donations.

Home run derbies usually do better with older kids where they actually have the power necessary to hit home runs. However, if this is for younger kids, you can ask for donations for each hit, instead of homerun.

Other Small Ideas

Clearly there are a host of easy fundraising ideas for sports and events. Below is just a quick list of additional ideas that we have not listed above:

Golf tournaments
Gourmet popcorn fundraiser
Scratch card fundraiser
Snack fundraiser
A charity auction
Food truck fundraising
Can drive fundraisers
Discount card fundraising
Cookie dough fundraising
And many more….

Adrenaline Fundraising

At Adrenaline Fundraising, we offer all kinds of different ideas and help for things like:

- Basketball fundraiser programs
- Football fundraising ideas
- Soccer fundraiser ideas
- Volleyball fundraisers
- Youth sports fundraisers
- Elementary school fundraisers
- Church fundraising ideas
- And various other youth sports team fundraising programs