Fundraising Helps Women’s Sports Continue to Succeed

Fundraising for girl’s sports teams continues to be crucial for many teams and at multiple levels of competition. Despite yet another banner year in women's sports - with a great mix of historic success occurring aside some surprising and entertaining results - lack of media coverage and equity between men and women’s sport leagues drove 2019 to be the year that women put their foot down.

Let’s review some of the notable stories from women’s sports in the past year:

• Oregon women’s basketball, led by Sabrina Ionescu, rallied from a double digit deficit to defeat the U.S. Women’s National Team, handing the best women’s basketball team in the world only its second loss against the NCAA ever (last loss was in 1999 against the University of Tennessee).
• U.S. Women’s Soccer speaks out about equal pay and treatment while on the road to a World Cup Victory.
• Women’s U.S.A. U19 Basketball team named co-team of the year after it recaptured gold at the Women’s World Cup with a thrilling 74-70 OT win over Australia.
• UCLA won its 11th national softball championship, led by 2x collegiate player of the year Rachel Garcia, defeating Oklahoma in a best of three series.
• Both the WNBA and NWHL prepared to go strike to to gain better pay and working conditions for their professional leagues.
• The U.S. won a controversial final in the IIHF hockey championship over Finland.
• Hockey fans petition TSN after poor coverage of the Women’s World U18 Championships.
• Bianca Andreescu defeated Serena Williams to become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title. She took home the Bobbie Rosenfeld award as Canada’s female athlete of the year as part of her success.
• Brooke Henderson became the winningest golfer in Canadian history.

Fighting to Compete: Funding Women’s Sports

In 2015, researchers published a study on the role athletics played in the lives of men, women, and children. Parents of children who participated in sports saw major benefits, including:

• Better physical and mental health
• Learning about discipline and dedication
• How to get along with other people
• Helping with future schooling
• Improved social life

As children, both boys and girls play sports at similar rates (76% and 70%). But as they grow towards adulthood, continued participation drops at a much steeper rate for women. Part of this has been access to programs as kids enter high school, while other elements have included families being more deterred by the financial costs for female athletes than for males.

Ever since the Women’s Rights movement and ultimately the introduction of Title IX, women across the U.S. and Canada have been increasingly empowered to fight for gender equity in the world of sports. But a gap still remains as we’ve approached the 40th anniversary of the bill. If anything, girls have at times seen a reduced share of total athletic opportunities as recently as 10 years ago, when a study of U.S. public schools saw opportunities decrease for high school girls in comparison to boys.

Valuing the crucial role that sports play in our children’s lives, foundations such as the Sharp Center, Women in Sports Foundation, Women Leaders in College Sports, and the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS), are working to ensure increased access to and exposure of women’s sports across North America. This has included various grants to different entities in need and connecting aspiring athletes with the leaders of today. But there’s still more work to be done and millions of girls who can benefit from fundraising campaigns to enrich their sports experience.

Fundraising’s Role in the Modern Sports Landscape

FlipGive is doing its part by providing a better way for teams to fundraise, incorporating modern technology, online shopping, and social media to help make team funding a seamless part of everyday life for both kids and parents alike. Not sure if it’s worth it to fundraise? Here are 5 reasons why you should be pushing your family’s teams to fundraise.

Fundraising Promotes Teamwork And Bonding Within The Community

In team sports, working together is fundamental to success. Skills such as communication, trust, and understanding your role are key, which fundraisers provide a perfect opportunity for these to be on display off the field. In addition, fundraising events enable teams to better connect with the community on a more personal level. When there is a more emotional connection between team members and those around them, it boosts morale, improves fundraising success, and increases team spirit. Even better - for schools, it’s been shown that successful sports teams with successful fundraising also benefit academic fundraising needs, particularly from alumni.

Fundraising Promotes Real World Skills

One of the benefits of being a kid is, you don’t necessarily have to deal with a lot of the responsibilities that trouble adults experience daily. Fundraising campaigns allow kids to get a taste of many real world implications, such as understanding what things cost, problem solving, setting a goal, and having the drive and strategy to their milestone.

Fundraising Can Create New Exposure

For both sport teams and individuals, getting seen at the right place can be crucial for future opportunities. Fundraising campaigns often catch the eye of the media, which can bring new exposure to a sports team within its community. This can lead to a new surge in interest and support.

More importantly, fundraising is commonly used in sports to help pay for travelling to tournaments and training camps. At these camps, teams and players can test their mettle against many of the best competition in their sport. Not only does this allow for the chance to improve skills, it allows players to shine at a time when they might catch the eye of important figures in their sport.

At FlipGive, teams have raised money on a regular basis for this purpose, such as over $7,500 to go to softball superstar Jennie Finch’s softball invitational.

Fundraising Can Help Pay For Better Coaching And Equipment

Costs for sports have been well documented in recent years for how significantly they have increased over the past few decades. Time reported in 2017 that costs for youth sports could range from anywhere between $2,000 (U.S.) and $20,000 a year. At the same time, sports such as youth soccer are increasingly having a hard time with finding quality coaching due to the allocation of costs.

For young athletes, having the right equipment and training is crucial to their performance, development of skills, and their safety. Fortunately, fundraising efforts can enable you and your team to target exactly what you need. Using methods such as cash back on everyday items can enable teams to easily transform average purchases into all of the funds needed.

Fundraising Can Be Fun!

While fundraising can be a noble or necessary cause to get behind, it can often lead to fun and memorable experiences for those involved. There are several fundraising ideas that can be done for any cause, and many of them would be enjoyable without the mission behind them. For many, a fundraiser creates a chance to use another passion they have to benefit something they believe in, making the event that much better.

Are You Ready to Hit Your Campaign Goal?

At FlipGive, our goal is to empower parents, coaches, teachers, managers, and kids to enrich their sports teams and school programs they love with the funds they need. Learn more about our mission, or how you can create a fundraising team today for free.