130,500 causes · $320M raised · 4.7 since 2009
Individual fundraising credit
The first question a parent asks, and the answer most teams get wrong.
Free for up to 20 items Unlimited bidders No credit card required
"If my kid brings in the most, does our bill go down?" It is reasonable, it is asked at the first meeting, and how a team answers it shapes the whole fundraiser.
Most teams answer it as a fairness question and decide by vote. It is not primarily a fairness question.
Why it is a compliance question
Where a charitable organization is involved, funds raised in its name are its funds, applied to its exempt purposes. Crediting them to reduce a specific family's personal obligation looks like a private benefit to that family, and individual fundraising accounts of this kind are a well-known area of scrutiny for youth sports organizations.
It also affects the donor. Somebody who gave believing they supported a team programme, and whose money in fact reduced one household's bill, was told something inaccurate — and it is the organization that told them.
Where the club is for-profit, the analysis is different and no better: the payment was never a charitable donation at all, and describing an auction for a for-profit club as a donation drive is the more serious error.
Take it to an adviser, not a vote
This is one of the few situations where the honest instruction is to stop and get advice. The facts differ — entity type, state law, league rules, how the funds are held — and a parent committee cannot resolve them by consensus.
Ask your own accountant or counsel, and where a school or governing body is involved, ask them too. One conversation, once, and the answer holds for years.
The structures that generally work
A general fund. Everything raised goes to team costs, reducing what every family pays or funding what the team could not otherwise do. Simple, defensible and the default answer.
A general fund plus documented need-based assistance. The structure this guide points to throughout. A written policy, an application, one named decider who is not the fundraising committee, criteria applied without regard to who fundraised, and a record kept.
It gets to the same humane place as crediting — a family that cannot afford the season is helped — without tying help to how much a child sold, which is the part that both fails compliance and punishes families with small networks.
Separating personal sales from charitable fundraising. Where families genuinely want to offset their own costs, some clubs run that as an explicitly non-charitable activity, described accurately as such, and kept entirely apart from anything solicited as a donation. Whether that is workable is exactly the question for your adviser.
Say it once, clearly, at the start
Whatever the team decides, publish it before the first ask:
- Where the money goes, in one sentence
- Whether individual credit applies, plainly and without hedging
- That assistance exists, how to apply, and that it is confidential
- That participation in fundraising is voluntary and affects nothing about playing time, selection or standing
That last point deserves stating out loud. In a travel team a parent will wonder, a child may worry, and a coach must never be in a position where the question could arise.
Never publish per-family totals
A leaderboard of which family raised what is the fastest way to make a voluntary auction into a public ranking of household means and social networks. It is visible to the children, and it lands on exactly the families already struggling with the bill.
Recognise participation collectively, or not at all.
And handle the family who asks for their money back
Occasionally a parent who solicited from their own relatives will ask for that amount to be credited or returned. It comes from a reasonable place and the answer has to be the same one you published in week one.
Which is why publishing it in week one matters more than any other paragraph on this page.
General information, not legal or tax advice for your team. Whether your club is for-profit, a charitable organization or a booster group attached to one changes what a donor may claim and what you may do with the money — this is exactly the situation to put in front of your own adviser.
Frequently asked questions
Can we credit fundraising to individual families?
Take it to an adviser rather than a vote. Where a charitable organization is involved, crediting funds to reduce a specific family's obligation looks like a private benefit, and individual fundraising accounts are a known area of scrutiny for youth sports organizations.
What if our club is for-profit?
The analysis is different and no better — the payment was never a charitable donation at all, and describing an auction for a for-profit club as a donation drive is the more serious error.
What structure generally works?
A general fund plus documented need-based assistance: a written policy, an application, one named decider who is not the fundraising committee, criteria applied without regard to who fundraised. It reaches the same humane place without tying help to how much a child sold.
Should we publish per-family fundraising totals?
Never. It turns a voluntary auction into a public ranking of household means and social networks, it is visible to the children, and it lands on exactly the families already struggling.
Ready to start your auction?
Name it now and set it up later. Free for up to 20 items, unlimited bidders, no credit card.
Free for up to 20 items · Unlimited bidders · No credit card required