Hoop Mom: Fundraising

This week, what to do about varying levels of participation in team fundraising.

Our team holds a variety of fundraisers to help offset our costs. I was wondering what we should do about families that don't participate at all or only put in a fraction of the time compared to the rest of the families. Since all of the money made is put into the team pot instead of individual accounts, it's even more noticeable when someone isn't pulling their weight – and even more frustrating as everyone benefits regardless of their participation level.

Seattle Mom

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Dear Seattle Mom:

As a parent of two children in select sports – one in basketball and the other in baseball – I wholeheartedly understand your frustration. It’s been my experience that most teams have on their rosters families facing a variety of financial circumstances – some are easily able to afford all the costs associated with select sports, from uniforms to travel costs, while others have a tough time meeting the monthly program fee. Fundraisers provide one a way to equalize this situation, but when not all families participate, it creates resentment and overall bad feelings.

While you can’t force everyone to participate in team fundraisers, you can certainly make it clear that every team member has to pull their weight. In general, I think it’s a mistake to have all fundraising money go into a single pool that is divided equally, unless you have strict requirements about participation and consequences for those who don’t show up. (This policy doesn’t apply, of course, to corporate sponsorships or other donations that don’t require intensive team labor.)

To be fair, I believe that teams holding group fundraisers should require a certain number of volunteer hours for each family, and track the hours carefully to make sure everyone is doing their part. Every family should have an "account" that shows how many hours they worked, and distribution of the proceeds raised should be based on the number of hours contributed. That way, if one or two families are no-shows, or work just a few hours, they will get a smaller percentage of the proceeds.

Here’s another idea: When our team was raising money to travel to Sacramento last year, we held a multi-family garage sale. Each family was responsible for marking their own items with color-coded stickers bearing their initials, and when the items were purchased we removed the stickers and placed them in a file under each family’s name. At the end of the sale, we tallied the stickers from each family and distributed the money accordingly.

For teams that are involved in a program with several age levels, you may want to consider a fundraising auction. We do this every year with my son’s baseball program and it’s quite successful. Parents are required to solicit the donations that will be auctioned and must meet a minimum dollar value for the items they bring to the auction. To ensure fairness, anyone not meeting that minimum is billed for the difference.

Hoop Mom

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Teresa Wippel is team manager of the Warriors Basketball Club, a 5th Grade girls' team from the Seattle area, and mom to Warriors post player Amanda Waldron. In her other life, she is a freelance writer and editor. To ask Teresa a question, email her at

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