Fundraising pins to the extreme:   This is a $5000+ fundraiser idea for your team using fundraiser pins.  How well does it work... pretty darned well for some teams each year.  Metro Pins has several teams that order early from us each year and they do this or something very similar.  This is how one ball team that orders with us each year does this as their primary fundraiser.  In 2009 they ordered 500 extra pins.  The coach proudly told us his players had raised well over $5000 last year, $7800 to be exact.  They ordered 1000 pins in February and had the extra fundraising pins sold by the end of March.  The other 500 were for pin trading at the world series.

He asks each of his players & families to be responsible for selling 25 of the fundraiser pins, or buying the pins themselves if they don't want to bother with selling them.  Some people don't want to mess with it.  Anyway, this way each family contributs at least $250 to the fundraising effort, and selling or buying the pins is up to them.  This keeps the fundraising effort/contribution semi-fair amongst the families.  The coach does not limit how many team fundraiser pins they can sell either.

He offers great prizes like a new bat of their choice, a glove of their choice, a bucket of balls, etc. to reward his 'high fundraising' players.  He made up a simple prize sheet, with pictures of the six prizes for the top six 'pin sellers'.  He paid for the prizes after all the pins had been sold with the money that was raised.  He offered about $1000 in prizes.  He still cleared over $6000 for the team account this way, even after the cost of the 500 extra pins.  Plus they got a much better 'price per pin' ordering 1000 instead of 500 pins.  THIS PAYS FOR EVERYTHING THIS COACH'S TEAM DOES ALL YEAR.  If you choose not to offer prizes, you can keep more money in your account, but the kids will of course not be as motivated/competitive.

HUH?  You're probably wondering, how did this team raise $7800 with just 500 fundrasing pins at $10 each?  Some of the kids wanted the prizes so much that they sold their world series trading pins too.  Funny, huh?  He had to call back and order some more pins so those kids had enough for pin trading.  Three things to take away from that 'problem'.

        1.)  Hold back the world series pins from your kids until after the fundraiser.
        2.)  Offering good prizes really motivates most of the kids to try to sell them.
        3.)  Fundraiser pins are just an easy way to raise team funds.

Some of his players wanted to "win the free bat or glove" so badly that they sold their world series pins as fundraiser pins and just planned to order replacements later.  The coach also told us, that once someone said 'yes' and agreed to buy a fundraiser pin, his more successful kids would ask the person, "How many would like?".  Often the person would buy more than one.

So, try it first yourself with just 50 or 100 extra pins on your team order.  If it works for you this season - order more or even try a whole fundraiser next season.