25 Hockey Fundraising Ideas

Featured, Hockey Projects

Hockey Fundraising! Yay! Said No one ever! 

If you are reading this, chances are you are a hockey parent and in need of some team funds. We all know this sport is not cheap! There is unfortunately no way around it. My first year in hockey I almost fell over when they did a cash call and announced our fundraising plans. 

I can see you right now. Doing a little dance of excitement at the prospect of getting out there to do some hockey fundraising. Kicking your heels up with glee and smiling like a crazy person.

Ha ha just kidding, its the worst. I think for most of us, its our least favorite part of organized sport. I dread it so much. Nobody likes having to bother their friends and family to buy things and even worse, going door to door. But, its a necessary evil and like anything we don’t enjoy, you just have to try and make the best of it.

Typically there are two types of fundraising:

I broke the following list of fundraising ideas up into the two categories

1. Hosting a Tournament and all the raffles, silent auctions, etc that can be done at the tournament.

2. Season long fundraising which is usually events, sales, collecting cans, etc that can be done over a longer time frame

Who is responsible for Fundraising?

So as with anything on the hockey team, its all volunteer from the team parents.

At the beginning of the season hopefully someone on your team will have taken on the team manager role. Be kind to that person. They do a lot!

The team manager will oversee all the fundraising, but will appoint a fundraising coordinator and volunteers. This Fundraising team will have the following tasks:

1. Organize all of the team parents to see what resources they have for donations. Whether it be corporate sponsorship, cash donations or items for raffles and other initiatives.

2. They might have to get out there and pound the pavement to get grocery stores to donate items for raffles, swag bags, tournament snacks, etc.

3. Contact local businesses for donations

4. Decide what the fundraising initiatives will be for the year and at home tournament

5. Organize supplies, set things up, research and apply for any gaming licences needed and collect money from families for season long fundraising.

6. Enroll the parents in all the initiatives

7. Write thank you letters to those people that donated

HOCKEY FUNDRAISING AT YOUR HOME TOURNAMENT IDEAS:

Just a quick note about Team fundraising at your home tournaments. Make sure to only pick one or two things and really focus on them. It becomes off putting to attendees if they are hit up for money every two minutes. So don’t do a silent auction, plus a raffle, plus a 50/50, plus a puck toss, plus one or two items. Just pick one or two and do them well!

1. Pop a Balloon

Instructions:

At your home tournament blow up a couple hundred balloons. Sell them for $2 each. In each balloon have a prize written on a piece of paper. Prizes range from a Sucker to a bottle of wine.  Purchase the smaller prizes at the dollar store for $0.25 value and have a few larger items donated to entice players to try and win. Make the smaller items edible for a little treat as opposed to a dollar store toy that will end up in the garbage.

Supplies:

• Balloons
• paper
• Garbage Bags to Hold Balloons
• Tape to attach them to a display wall
• Box to store Prizes
• Prizes
• Garbage Bags to hold the balloons

2. Punch a Prize

Instructions:

Similar to the balloon popper. People have a chance to win a prize by punching through tissue paper to get what’s in the cup.  You can either display all the cups out on a table or build a board and cut holes to insert the cups in. Then you use elastics to cover each cup with tissue paper. Have one or two BIG prize which you have donated. Something like sports tickets, Wine basket, Signed Jersey, Photo session, etc. in the remainder of the cups have chocolates, suckers, hockey laces and other small prizes.

Supplies:

• Cups
• Tissue Paper
• Elastics
• Cardboard (If you want to build a wall)
• Prizes

3. The Great Wall of Presents

Instructions: 

How good are you at getting donations? Every team I’ve been always have that one couple or parent that seems to be able to get donations from everywhere! They pull in Jerseys, hockey tickets, photo sessions and other crazy things. But then sometimes it stinks to see no one bid on great prizes or buy raffle tickets. With the wall of Donations you wrap a variety of boxes with a guaranteed prize of $25 but up to the chance of a $200 prize. Your earning potential is quite big. People love the chance of the unknown. 

If you have sell 1 box for $25 each or 2 for $40 you can aim for 100 boxes. This will make you $2000-$2500. But it takes a lot of leg work to fill those boxes.

To get donations, ask a variety of local grocery stores, coffee shops, liquor stores, sporting good stores, pubs and other businesses to donate $25-$40 gift cards. If you have a few parent volunteers pitch in and hit 5-10 places each it doesn’t take long at all. Then use any merchandise donated from family and friends businesses as prizes to be wrapped up as well. Some great ideas are movie tickets, admissions tickets to local entertainment companies, services and more. Its a large undertaking but so much fun and the presentation of all the wrapped gifts is endless. I did this example on a pretty big scale, but you can take the concept and make it less expensive for tickets and prizes as well.

Supplies: 

• Wrapping paper and gift bags (you can save if people have any leftovers at home and can donate)
• A ton of prizes!

4. A lottery Poster

Instructions: 

Super Simple. Fill a poster with lottery tickets and then raffle off the poster. With the potential to win a lot more than the face value of the tickets, people go nuts over the “possibility”.  You can spend $50-$70 on lottery tickets and sell 1 ticket for $5, 3 for $10 and 5 for $15. All you have to do is sell 10-25 to cover your costs and then all the rest is profit. Sometimes we’ve covered with one customer! Its a good idea to always write the names and contacts down of people as they but the tickets. People can lose tickets and you don’t want any disputes when its time to announce the winner.

Supplies:

• lottery tickets
• Poster Board
• Raffle Tickets

5. Pick a Puck

Instructions:

If you have the resources or ability to get a puck signed by an NHL player then this is a great option.  You fill a table with pucks and people pay to pick a puck and flip it over. One of the pucks will have an autograph on it. (Cross your fingers it isn’t the first puck flipped) If they lose at least they got a puck to keep 🙂 You can never have too many pucks!

Supplies: 

• Signed Puck
• Blank Pucks in bulk (Canadian tire has their branded pucks at 30 for $35, but sometimes you can get a location to donate them as advertising. They are only branded on one side so you can put the logo side down to hide which one is signed)

6. The Puck Toss 

Instructions:

You have to double check with the arena to make sure they allow it but its a great one. People purchase pucks throughout the game with a number on them. You keep a sign up sheet to make sure you know what number is purchased. Then usually between second and third period, everyone from the stands throws them on the ice. The person that throws it closest to center ice wins a prize. .You can also run it as a 50/50 with the winning person winning half the money. You can charge whatever you like for the pucks, but I will do the example of $2 each. The prize can be donated.

Supplies:

• A Prize unless you are doing the 50/50
• Pucks you can borrow from the team bag or your hockey organization
• A volunteer to announce the Toss and confirm the winner

7. 50/50

Instructions:

You know what they say. If its not broke, don’t fix it. People love 50/50 draws. If you have a good sales person on your team and there are a lot of spectators it can go really well. And other than the Raffle tickets, there are no up front costs. I am quite certain everyone reading this knows what a 50/50 raffle is, but just in case. A 50/50 is when you sell tickets and you pick a winner. They win half and you keep half. $2 is a great amount to sell them at because people will almost always buy more than 1.

Supplies:

•  Raffle Tickets. Since the Rolls usually come in one giant size, the price will be the same no matter how many you sell
• A Bucket to keep the tickets in

Season Long Hockey Fundraising Ideas

Next moving onto the fundraising ideas that can be done all season. These can start on day one. Some of these are pretty big endeavors so it really depends on how many funds you need to raise for the year. Your team manager needs to get a good feel for the team on how many tournaments they want to attend for the year. If everyone wants to do a lot than you might have a lot or work on your hands. So make sure to have some fun with it!

8. Justfundraising.com/canada

Instructions:

This organization makes things very straightforward and easy for you. They include order forms, profit charts and free shipping. They have the following options of items to sell:

• Cookie Dough
• Scratch Cards
• Lollipops
• Beef Jerky
• Chocolate Bars
• Pop Corn

Supplies:

• Whatever items you decide to sell

There are profit chart and calculators on the website depending on what you would like to sell. But a great example are Christmas themed lollipops. They can be used as stocking stuffers or just a great holiday treat. Depending on what you decide to sell you can keep any unsold items to sell at your home tournament or use them as prizes for some of the games listed above.

9. Hockey Spirit Fundraising Calendar

Instructions:

These calendars have really beautiful illustrations of everything hockey. They are sentimental and easy to sell. You Sell them for $20 and the team keeps $10.The best part is that there is no money up front and free shipping. They invoice you after you do your sales run.

Supplies:

• none!

10.The mixing spoon 

Instructions:

The mixing spoon is a fundraising company offering brownie, chili, soup, cookie and scone mixes. They come in adorable jars that look like Grandma made them!

You get the order sheets and distribute them out to the team to collect pre-orders. Then they arrive about 1-4 weeks later. Because of their packaging you can suggest that they make great Christmas gifts for teachers and co-workers, so selling them in October to have them arrive by the end of November is a great plan.

There is no minimums. And free shipping on large enough orders. Each Jar sells for $10 and the team keeps $4.

Supplies:

• Order forms from the company

11. Custom Cookbook

Instructions:

Have all the cooks and bakers of the hockey team send in their favorite recipes. Or you could make it something hockey related, like “the best pre and post Ice time Snacks”. Send them in to a printer and have them bound into a fun cookbook. If you have a graphic designer even better to help! Sell them for $20. Your costs depending on how resourceful you can be can range from $5-$10.

Supplies:

• At least 20 recipes (preferable more) to make it fun. And photos of the recipes
• A printing location

12. Partner up with a Local Pub

Instructions:

Many pubs, especially ones in your community, love to partner up with sports teams. You can arrange it as a set menu with a set price and sell tickets. Or some prefer to donate a portion of their sales that night. Your job is to invite everyone you know and make a fun night! Most parents don’t need their arm twisted too hard to have a night out.

Depending on the size of the event, you can host something like a 50/50 throughout the evening. You can also ask the pub if they are ok with you asking other patrons to buy raffle tickets as well.

Every ticket price is going to vary based on your pub partnership. But an example would be selling tickets for $30 and the team keeps $10. Attendees would get a set meal and a drink ticket. Then depending on your arrangement some may give you a percentage of drink sales too. Totally depending on whether its a private or public event.

For the example below, lets look at a public event that you are just selling tickets to. No drink sale percentages. The great thing is, at the very minimum, if you can get a pub to agree to 30 tickets, you can just have an adult night out and make $300 for the team

Supplies:

• None other than your contact list

13. Professional Photo Session

Instructions:

I bet someone on your team knows a professional photographer. Everyone knows a talented photographer. Whether it be family or someone that you’ve used in the past. And photographers love exposure (see my pun there ha).

Ask a photographer to hold a mini session and families can pay and sign up for a time slot. If you charge $100/mini session. People sign up for a 30 minute slot. Give yourself time in between each slot as a buffer, but you could have 6-8 throughout a day. Offer three different dates and try to fill all the slots. The photographer makes $50/hour for the sessions and donates editing, but the selling point for them is people seeing how amazing they are as well the chance to sell prints of photos taken.

Supplies:

• Just volunteers to help the photographer organize time slots and help them on the day of to ensure people are showing up and leaving when their slot is over.

14. Rent a player

Instructions:

I went back and forth on recommending this one because it has to be done in a safe way. When I was in high school they had a program called rent a student where locals would pay $5/hour/student to get cheap labor to clean up their yards. But the school would literally drop us off on a doorstep with no supervision. I feel like in this day and age you might want to have an updated version. Maybe rent a trio where its one adult and two players available for rent for labor or errands.

You also have to have a clear price, rules and jobs they will perform available. You don’t want to send the kids out to be clearing out unsafe places or working with machinery that could injure them. Advertise certain services like simple yard clean up or snow shoveling.

You can charge $20/hour for the trio of one adult and two kids

Supplies:

• Flyers
• Possibly Shovels, rakes and other yard tools

15. Sell Tickets

Instructions:

Ask local businesses that sell admission tickets if they have a fundraising program. A lot of places sell the tickets to the team at bulk prices and then you turn around and sell them for a profit. For example. Lets say a trampoline park sells admission for $20/Hour. They sell the tickets to you at $10 each. You sell them to friends and family at $15 each. Each player is responsible for 10 tickets minimum. If you have 15 players that equals minimum of $750. People love it because they get discounted prices on tickets they would have bought anyway or that they can use as Christmas presents.

Supplies:

• None

16.  The Ultimate Yard Sale

Instructions:

You would either have to find an indoor space for this one or jump on it fast if there is a nice September weather weekend. But have each family bring as much as they possibly can for the ultimate yard sale. You throw it up on kijiji or other social media outlets that there is a 15-17 family yard sale and shoppers will come in droves! The outcome of this one is hugely varied but could bring in a couple thousand if done right.

An easy system for pricing is to have a large chart posted all around the sale and assign a colored sticker to each price. For example:

green sticker – $2, blue sticker $5, red sticker $10, yellow sticker $15, etc

Supplies:

• Venue (school parking lot, arena parking lot, indoor gym)
• Tables (hopefully venue will let you borrow some)
• cash float
• price tag stickers

17.  Throw a party

Instructions:

Rent out a community center, hire (or hopefully you know) a DJ, Buy some supplies for a concession and sell some tickets! Lets be honest, most kids at the hockey playing age don’t want to dance at a party so see if you can rent a space that allows floor hockey or other activities. This is also an opportunity that you can try some of the other ideas like punch a prize to raise a little extra money. By the time the whole team invites their family and friends, the numbers really easily hit a couple hundred people.

Supplies:

• Community center or Venue (roughly $50/hour rental)
• Concession – if you buy 200 pop and a variety of snacks and treats the concession will be about $250-$300 costs
• Float for the concession
• Dj and music set up
• Floor hockey, ladder ball or other activities for the kids to have fun

18. Wine Raffle

Instructions:

Have everyone on the team donate a bottle of wine. Then you sell raffle tickets. You will need to go through your Liquor and gaming association to run a raffle and adhere to their rules. This one is always a big hit right before Christmas. Its also a good idea to give your players a minimum number of tickets to sell but then offer an incentive to kids that sell more. The highest selling player wins the chance to run drills during practice for 15 min or movie tickets.

Supplies:

• Wine bottles – one donated by each family
• Printed Raffle tickets

19.  Set up an Account at the bottle depot

Instructions:

Collecting Cans is almost not worth the work these days. There are so many teams out there and you just can’t get the volume that seemed to be doable in the past. We always set up an account at the beginning of the season and ask all the team members to drop their bottles off whenever they can throughout the season and donate it to the account. About once a month, one of our parents with a truck would volunteer to collect bags at practice and take them in the next day. It made it more convenient for the team. Its not a huge amount but usually equates to a couple hundred dollars that can be used towards coaches gifts or year end party expenses.

Supplies:

• None

20.  Rent a movie theatre

Instructions:

The pricing and location will depend if this works. Very close to our community there is a local owned theater. It costs $800 to rent out the theater and it holds 177 people. If you sell tickets at $10 each and fill the theatre, you make a pretty great profit. They also offered that if we did it on a weeknight and got over 100 people, they would lower the price to $400 because they would normally not be that busy during the weekday and their concession sales would be up. Its a really fun night out and when else do you get to go see a new movie for $10?

Supplies:

• tickets to sell. Should be provided by the theater

21. Hockey Photo contest

Instructions:

Set up a photo contest in your hockey community. Ask participants to enter in their hockey submissions for a $5 fee. Set up an account and they can e-transfer their submission and email in their photos. You can post the photos in a facebook group to be voted on for a time duration that you decide. You could have a couple weeks for entries to be submitted and then a  couple of weeks for voting. The winning prize would be the photo printed onto a hoodie or a blanket as a keepsake. And bragging rights of course 🙂

Supplies:

• An account and email that people can transfer submissions to. Most likely done through your team treasurer
• Someone to run the facebook group
• The winning photo printed onto an item

22. Fill a bottle

Instructions:

In the beginning of the season, give each player an empty water bottle and give a due date that they have to fill it with change. They can go door to door, ask family and friends, or even busk for it if they like. Just make sure that you have some parent volunteers that don’t mind collecting and taking in all the change.

Supplies:

• bottles to hand out
• volunteer to roll or take in change

23. Host a Fantasy Hockey Pool

Instructions:

www.pickuphockey.com does a great job. Have someone on your team set up the pool and then advertise to everyone you know. People LOVE hockey pools. Charge an entry fee of your choice. Most people do $15-$25, but if you think you could get enough people to sign up, go big with $50.

Supplies:

• Just the website and a volunteer to manage your pool

24. FundScrip.com

Instructions:

Hold onto you hats because this is an amazing fundraiser if you can enroll your team. Fundscrip is a company that you buy gift cards for at face value and the retailer donates back a percentage of the gift card to the team. For example, Shell, Sobeys, Superstore and Home Depot all offer 3% back. Starbucks offers 5% and some places up to 20%. If you encourage the team parents and maybe some friends and family to buy some gift cards to places where they will be spending money anyway, they are not out of pocket anything extra and you can make some serious cash.

Before you go bananas after looking at the chart below, hear me out. Because this one is so great. If each household on your team spends $200 on gas per month (we spend a lot more unfortunately) $800 on groceries per month and $100 on eating out, that’s 11 $100 cards/player/month. Now add that up over 4 months and you have 660 cards. Get some grandparents buying cards in there and its crazy how quick it can add up. 300 cards down below doesn’t seem so hard anymore 🙂

Supplies:

• None

25. Flip Give

Instructions:

Flip give is the same premise as fundscrip. They have a super handy app that makes it very user friendly. They even have a very cool option where you can plan team outings at participating restaurants and get cash back! win win! Also with the app you can shop in store and online.

The biggest difference between fundscip and flip give is that different retailers offer different percentages on each site. So depending on where you think the most popular places your team will shop, look through their retailer offers and decide which option based on that.

Supplies:

•  None

Chart for potential profits will be similar to one above for fundscrip.

Hockey Fundraising Recap

I hope you found this list helpful and maybe a little inspiring for your next season of fundraising. The most important things to remember are to have fun with it and be creative. Also remember your fundraising etiquette to buy from other teams when they are doing their fundraising endeavors. Make sure at tournaments that you are attending to take some cash to purchase 50/50 tickets or other items they are selling.

Have a great season everyone and good luck!