Experienced or start-up AAU travel basketball organizations alike are always looking for new ways to fundraise. Soliciting funds for your upcoming season is one way to grow the organization into one of the region’s best. That’s why we’re covering more than 100 fundraising ideas to help your AAU travel team achieve its monetary goals!

This article will show you how to set up and sell sponsorships for your AAU organization. Selling a sponsorship can help your organization raise between $500 – $5,000. We’ll discuss how to get this started, what to expect along the way, and some best practices for soliciting the most sponsorship money for your AAU travel team.

What is A Sponsorship?

A sponsorship is a form of marketing between two organizations. Typically, businesses serve as sponsors by providing another group or organization money, resources, or both. In exchange, the entity receiving the aid will promote the business. NASCAR provides a great example of this as drivers are often known for their car’s sponsor rather than its make and model.

Before attempting to solicit a sponsorship, the first thing your organization should decide is what your fundraising goals are. If your organization hasn’t already set up a budget for the upcoming season, we have a step-by-step plan explaining expected expenses for a travel basketball team.

Once your squad has decided how much is needed, the next step is determining how much the travel team hopes to raise beyond player contributions. Both nonprofit organizations and for-profit groups alike can solicit businesses for sponsorship, making this an excellent opportunity for basketball squads to offset their expenses.

How to Set Sponsorship Levels

We’ll use a hypothetical AAU squad for this section. The Big City Dragons want to raise $2,000 for their upcoming season from local businesses and individuals. How can this travel team get started? Let’s dive deeper into this.

A good practice for setting these levels is to divide your organization’s request into three sponsorship “levels” with varying amounts. The bottom tier is for businesses or individuals looking to contribute small sums to your organization. The medium level is designed to attract larger payments, and the highest tier is reserved for the largest cash amounts.

Since the Dragons want to raise $2,000 and have 10 players on their team, let’s split that total into a $200 target for each player. Setting this target allows the organization to decide what ranges should be available in each level. The lowest tier should be below the expected target, and the highest tier should be above the player’s goal.

Why should the lowest and highest tiers not be the targeted goal? Two reasons come to mind. First, past experiences suggest that not all players will reach the goal. The second is psychological: picking between three options has been identified as the optimal number of choices, and individuals often pick the middle tier.

For this scenario, the Dragons should set their lowest tier at amounts up to $150. The medium tier would range between $151 and $299, and the final level would be for $300 or more.

What Will Sponsors Receive?

Now that your organization has set its levels, the next step is determining how your travel team will market sponsors at the corresponding level. To do this, take inventory of what marketing tools your group has to offer. Social media posts, shirts identifying sponsors, and logos on jerseys are great marketing opportunities.

We’ll return to the Big City Dragons. The organization has multiple social media platforms, warm-up shirts without anything printed on the back, and plans to host a basketball tournament for the upcoming season. These are all opportunities to advertise sponsors.

Should every Big City sponsor receive the benefit of these three opportunities? The answer is no. Organizations should offer their lowest sponsor tiers the least valuable items, reserving better marketing opportunities for larger amounts. Social media recognition is a powerful tool, but it’s also a free one. That is all the Dragons will offer their smallest-tier sponsors in this scenario.

Often, organizations will include marketing benefits from the lower tiers into the upper levels. In this scenario, Big City is offering its medium-level sponsors both a social media shout-out and the business name to be printed on the back of their warm-up shirt. This provides an additional benefit to sponsors paying more, increasing the likelihood to solicit those funds.

Organizations can be creative in how they reward sponsors. Plaques recognizing the sponsorship or having the team participate in community service opportunities in honor of the sponsor are two more ways travel basketball teams can offer recognition.

How to Solicit Sponsors?

We’re almost there. You’ve figured out how much you want to raise, how to target each level, and what your sponsors will receive in return. Now, you need provide your AAU team with ways to solicit the funding. To do that, you need to create a form.

Sponsorship forms should offer a brief explanation of the organization, what the funding will be used for, and what businesses or individuals receive in return. Travel teams should also have names for each tier. Frequently, these tiers will be identifiable by different names such as the team’s colors, for example.

The form should capture all of the information you’ll need to recognize the business or individual, as well as acceptable payment methods. Nonprofit travel organizations should also note on the form if these are tax-deductible donations. This is another benefit businesses will receive for sponsoring your basketball team.

Finally, make copies of this sponsorship form for your team. Reveal your fundraising goal to each player and/or parent, and ask these organizational members to make in-person sponsorship requests. It’s harder to say no to someone face-to-face, especially if adults are being asked by young players on your AAU basketball team.

Do you have any photographs, videos or success stories you can share with our audience? Leave them in the comment section below, and we’ll reach out to you perhaps to feature you in a future news article. Make sure you join our email list below to stay informed about future articles in our fundraising series.

This is one article in our “Fundraising 101” series. Click here to see 100 more ideas on how you can raise money to fund your AAU travel basketball team.