Fund Raising

You will need to spend time fund raising regardless of whether you're building a youth or high school program. Funding is needed to pay for coaches, field space rental, team travel costs, lacrosse goals, team equipment, spray-paint for lining the fields, team jerseys, lacrosse balls, etc. Without effective fund raising methods your organization will need to rely heavily on player fees.

There are lots of fund raising methods and you'll need to decide how much money your group needs and which fund raising options work best for your organization. You can rely on one or two large fund raising events each year or you can hold multiple, smaller fund raising events where a small amount of money is made at each event. The key is to be creative in your fund raising methods. A few fund raising ideas include:

• Holding a car wash: Contact a local restaurant or supermarket, like Pizza Hut or Costco, to see if they will let your organization hold a car wash beside their store. You will only need to use their parking lot and their water hoses behind the store. Convince the store to let you use their facilities by suggesting that your car wash will draw potential customers to their restaurant or store. Get your entire lacrosse team to help out. Have 2/3 of the team members wash cars while the other 1/3 make "Car Wash!" signs and hold them on street corners to drum up business. Set a monetary amount for the car wash, like $5 or $10 per car, or have the car wash be free and ask for donations. Sometimes the latter method, asking for donations, brings in more money than having the car wash cost a fixed amount! Ask a few dedicated parents to help collect the money and organize the event. When held near a busy intersection, car washes can bring in anywhere between $500 and $1,000 in a 3-4 hour period.
• Holding a bake sale
• Selling magazines
• Asking for parental donations