12 Fundraising ideas for your football team (2023)

As a community football club, raising the amount of funds you need to survive can be an ongoing struggle. Thankfully, with a slice of inspiration and the support of everyone at your club, successful fundraising ideas for your football team are not too far away.

Here are 12 suggestions to get you started:

1. Mix up your sponsorship agreements

Chances are, sponsorship already makes up a significant chunk of your fundraising efforts. We've plenty more on raising money through sponsorship in our Essential Guide to Growing Club Sponsorship Ebook, but you can still harness your position as a thriving football club to ramp up your sponsorship arrangements.

Making your club an attractive prospect to companies is the hardest part. Increase that by offering them something in return for their investment. If you're having trouble getting businesses to hand over their cash, think outside the box.

Equipment is a huge drawer of funds to grassroots football clubs, so your equipment supplier should be high on the list of potential sponsorship deals to strike. They aren't going to just hand it over to you, so what can you offer them in return?

Does your club website have a consistent stream of traffic? If so, you could promote their products online.

Do you have a lot of members (and therefore email addresses)? If so, couple that website promotion with an email. You can add value with a sponsor advert in the promotion.

Set up an exclusive club discount for any sales you make and get some equipment from the supplier in return.

How about social media followers? If you've got a decent following, ask for a product to giveaway in a competition, promoting their products in the process. Members are much more likely to get behind these efforts if they know the club will receive a kick-back from their efforts.

Shout about this collaboration with a blog post and fan the engagement by auto-posting to Twitter and Facebook.

Elsewhere, you could allow a company to photograph your team using their equipment. High quality sports photography is expensive, so offer them a cut-price opportunity where you get to keep the equipment at the end.

Make good use of your club facilities, open them up to relevant businesses for free and in return get something your club could do with.

In difficult financial times, it's vital to think outside the box to get sponsors on board. Move the partnership on from just a cash exchange and strike a deal that is mutually beneficial to them and your football team.

2. Sponsored event

Throw a one-off special event that encompasses the whole community, and mould it around your position as a football club that serves the local area.

To base your event on, think of a quirky or alternative angle to your sport. In a similar vein to going on a sponsored walk or cycle, hold a non-stop 24 hour football match (and get sponsored for every minute played), or impose a rule on the match like three-legged players (with sponsorship on a goal-by-goal basis).

Set up Pitchero's fundraising tool for your club to start earning online immediately. Just create a fundraising product in your online shop and see the target soar!

Events like this are a little bit different from your standard sponsored day out and leave the opportunity for more people to get involved.

Plus, if offers a secondary angle for fundraising. Engaging the community with these types of events raises your profile amongst potential new members. Invite them to the club for a day of fun and they might just sign up as a club member.

3. Jump on national events

The national footballing and sporting calendar is full of opportunities for your club to raise funds.

The obvious one for those who have a clubhouse bar is to throw events for football matches involving your national team. If a footballing tournament such as the World Cup or Euros is happening, get a prize and organise a sweepstake.

Elsewhere, you could jump on sporting days in our national calendar like Sport Relief. These are all opportunities to get your club and the local community together – which can then translate into fundraising opportunities.

4, 5, and 6. Be busy on match days

Match days are a potential goldminefor raising cash for your football team. A regular influx of members will be at your club throughout the day – offering a golden opportunity to engage them in fundraising activities.

For clubs that have a small band of regular supporters, team kit is an obvious place to start. Like we mentioned earlier, can you get a couple of hundred pounds worth of kit together (hats, socks, hoodies or shirts) from a local supplier?

Sell them onto club members and supporters who want to proudly sport their club's badge from the side of the pitch.

Another significant part of the match day football experience is food and drink. We all love a Bovril and half-time pie when we watch our professional team – so why not your Sunday League side?

Food and beverages are part of the makeup of watching football. Take advantage and start a pitch-side food and beverage stall.

Idea number three involves cars. Droves of cars stream in and out of your club on match days and, particularly if you've got a number of teams stacked up to be playing on the same day, it could convert into a fundraising opportunity. How? Car wash.

You might find volunteers hard to come by initially, but there should be no shortage of people wanting their car to be cleaned. Whilst they're stood watching the match, give their car a quick once over and charge them a few pounds for it.

7. Football pub quiz

The pub quiz is the ultimate way to get club members back into the clubhouse during the week spending their hard earned cash. And the ultimate in pub quizzes is surely the football-based quiz.

Tap into your members' love of the beautiful game and organise a weekly football quiz. You could even tie it into training nights, allowing players to socialise after training on a weekly basis.

You could broaden it out and make it an online quiz with a product in your online shop to pay.

8. Football cards

This is probably another one for match day, but football cards are another great way to bring in a little bit of extra cash with a football spin.

You can buy a pack of 50 online for next to nothing. Grab a bottle of wine from behind the clubhouse bar as a prize and sell them to members at half-time, during your pub quiz or at your organised events.

9. Run a summer gala

Even when the traditional season is over, the opportunities to raise funds for your club are still there. One popular route is the summer gala. Throw a short-sided, tournament-style football event at your club, inviting local teams in the community to take part.

Aside from the money you'll get from inviting clubs to enter, you can bring in club sponsors and community partners to chip in and add to the quality of your event - something which is a saleable asset to potential sponsors.

Hold a raffle and grab the prizes off a collection of local businesses. Invite food establishments to setup the food and beverage stalls. Ask your local bookshop if they'd like to sell at the event.

These are all day events. Players and parents will have spare time on their hands in between games – exploit it to raise funds for your club.

10. Maximise those facilities

If your club is lucky enough to have club facilities like a 3G training pitch or indoor training facilities, they are a potential gold mine when they're not in use.

Is there a local five-a-side league in need of somewhere to play? Offer them an affiliate membership scheme that brings their money into your club. It could also act as an opportunity to find new members.

Are there a number of local businesses who could make use of your facilities during the week? Every day your training pitches are not being used is a missed opportunity to raise funds for your football club.

11. Consider sporting schemes

Football is big business to some of the country's biggest corporations. Its popularity means that some of the world's biggest brands are constantly delving into the industry – and grassroots clubs can benefit.

Nike is an example of a big brand's efforts to put back into the grassroots end of the sport. Their Nike Partner Club programme lends the Nike name to a series of grassroots clubs.

If you make it onto the programme, you'll be given financial support for coaching qualifications, access to events at St. George's Park and general guidance and support on attracting members, volunteers, players and sponsorship.

Note: To apply for the Nike Partner Club scheme you need to be an FA Charter club. Here's how to achieve that status.

Running alongside that is MacDonald's UK Kit scheme, where the fast food chain gives kits to youth football teams across the UK, in partnership with Adidas and Nike.

Supermarkets are also a good source of potential sports equipment. Sainsbury's have been running their Active Kids scheme for a number of years, and it can be an easy way for your whole club to get involved simply by doing their weekly shop. Collect vouchers in store and spend them on anything from match balls to corner flags in their online catalogue.

12. Host an exhibition match

Finally and as a slight extension of the sponsored event idea, your club to tap into its rich history and host an exhibition match.

Got a title winning team from twenty years back? Is your longest standing player coming close to retirement? Or do you have a special affiliation with a local professional team?

Any of these scenarios are a great excuse to organise an exhibition match at your club. Line your first eleven up against a team of legends, or give your local pro side an added fixture during pre-season.

The local community can really get behind these nostalgic or David v Goliath-type story lines. Plus, it casts your net a little wider by attracting a new audience.

Couple this with the ideas suggested earlier (look to be 'busy on match day') and you could be on your way to securing a significant level of funds for your football team.

Raise valuable club funds - free download

Without revenue, your club simply cannot continue to serve the community. With the help of our free Ebook, you can get loads of handy tips and strategies for raising the funds your club needs to survive.