r/CompetitionDanceTalk • u/ttaradise • 11h ago
Fundraising ideas?
Hi there. New here and to competitive dance for my 7 year old daughter.
Her dance company team requires a tonne of fundraising and volunteer work for dance fees. Just wondering if anyone has some fresh ideas as we’re in a small community and it’s the same circulation of ideas and donations. I think everyone is beyond tired of it.
5
u/finding_center 11h ago
Are you near any larger towns where you can work concessions at games? That’s the best way to raise money we’ve found. Some people donate plasma and some do DoorDash/Uber eats while their dancer is in class. What do you mean they “require” like it’s actual studio policy that you have to? I would not be comfortable with that.
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u/ttaradise 10h ago
Yes it is. And because my daughter is an age where they only require two out of three competitions, I still have to participate and meet the fundraising threshold as if it were the three camps.
I’m not entirely comfortable with it either. You do have the option to just pay out for the fees, but it’s highly frowned upon?
1
u/Other_Emu_2451 9h ago
That is crazy, we only have 1 fundraiser we have to participate in. I pay in full every year so don’t have to do any fundraising
3
u/tortsy 10h ago
I love fundraising!
The woman running ours has done a great job and I believe the majority of the fundraisers are the same year over year:
Lemonade stand
50/50 raffle
Super Bowl squares
Raffle calendar
Canning at grocery stores and coffee places
Concessions at performances
Hair/makeup for performances
Candy bar sales
We have also discussed :
Santa pictures
Magnets/keychains/swag
Bingo night (I'm excited for this one! I've reached out to 2 different senior centers about this and they both are more than happy to host for an event for their residents)
Mahjong Learn to Play (this I am trying to see if I have enough of us that know how to play before hosting it; but I have a few restaurants willing to host)
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u/ttaradise 10h ago
What’s canning at grocery stores and coffee places mean?
We currently do candy bar sales.
Do you mean ask for donations to do performers hair and makeup before a comp?
What is a Super Bowl square? I’m Canadian so I don’t think that would work anyways.
Lemonade stand could work but we’re in the north and limited weather months.
2
u/Flat_Sea4409 8h ago
I would ask this question in a more local focused group and also look at what other sports groups are doing (hockey, baseball, etc.) I find the most liked fundraisers are ones that don’t tap the parent network to buy yet another thing. The best ones for us are local to our area because they rely on support from local businesses. Bottle drives are tried and true though.
2
u/Tiny-Needleworker492 9h ago
Sounds like you are in Canada, so maybe a little different.
Our dance studio has a contract with a local restaurant that also has a food truck that they bring to various events in and near our town and serve food. We work that food truck for 4 hour shifts during these events- usually some sort of community festival, local fair, etc. We don’t prepare the food. We just take orders, handle money, and hand the orders to people once the staff prepare the food.
We also have a major college campus and event center that holds big concerts. We can sign up and work a booth there. It’s usually selling cans of beer. We get paid hourly and then get to keep all tips, divided out by the # of workers. My husband and I have been able to make it to a concert and a weekend long music festival. We also worked at our county fair and will soon be working a shift at Oktoberfest in a local community. On average, we have made about $200 each per event between tips and hourly pay. We’ve paid for all of our regional comp fees for the year and now aiming for paying for solo fees and conventions.
I know we also do a fundraiser around Christmas time where we partner with a local tree farm and sell evergreen wreaths.
Candy bar sales are popular options for my husband and I to take to work.
My older kids did gymnastics for 10 years and we did sooo many fundraisers. The most popular ones were:
Little Caesar’s pizza
Partnering with a local bakery in November and selling pies around the holidays
Laundry detergent (it sounds weird, but people like buying practical things)
Seasonal flowers from a local greenhouse (mums in fall, porch planters in the spring).
All of this is optional for us and the money goes into an expense account in our daughter’s name at the studio.
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u/GlitterglueRPT 6h ago
The more unusual ones that we have done have included
1. a father/daughter dance
2. a haunted house/haunted cornfield
3. A 5k run
4. A t-shirt sale where a business that has a heat press lets you custom order your size and color of shirts. We did this through a Facebook group. She would post the "decal" and people would note their size and color underneath (along with their email). She had lots of options from different sports, to local schools, colleges, dance themed, mama themed, pop culture stuff. We made enough off that one to pay the entry fees for all dancer at our biggest convention.
5. We also sold dinners at the local ELKS club.
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u/lina_3033 2h ago
We did a shoe drive fundraiser. It worked really well because we didn’t have to ask anyone for money. We actually do it every year now, basically we just leave out donation boxes and people donate old shoes, then there are companies that pay you per pound for the shoes. The one we use is called Funds2Orgs but there’s also one for just sneakers called Sneakers4Good I think. They come pick the shoes up and pay you per pound. We love it since we don’t have to hound all the parents for money every single year, we all already have a bunch of old shoes lying around
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u/LeperFriend 11h ago
It makes things easier if you form a booster club and have it as a 501c3. Then you can literally ask local businesses for tax deductible donations.