Competitive Fundraisers

Team fundraising for a club, a squad, or one athlete

Competing costs money long before anyone plays, and it arrives as a stack of separate bills: league and club fees, a tournament entry, mats and uniforms, ice time, a coach's travel, and hotel rooms for a weekend three states away. Team fundraising on GiveSendGo is how a club, a squad, or one family asks the people around them to cover it, whether that's a cheer program raising for nationals, a gymnastics team replacing equipment, or one travel baseball family getting through a season.

You don't need to be a nonprofit, you don't need an EIN, and no booster organization has to sign off. Anyone can start a fundraiser. Log in, click Start a GiveSendGo, pick the recipient's country, set a goal, and write what you're raising for. Be specific about what the money covers. A fundraiser has to be transparent about how the funds will be used, and a real breakdown ("$180 per athlete for the state entry fee, $2,400 for two vans") is also what makes people give.

Who receives the money when the athlete is a minor

This is the part most families get wrong, so read it before you set anything up.

The recipient must be 18 or older, live in the fundraiser's country, and have a bank account there. If their country isn't supported, a trusted adult in a supported country can be named as recipient and pass the funds along. Every recipient completes identity verification before any transfer. The recipient's country can't be changed after the fundraiser is created.

A 16-year-old gymnast cannot be her own recipient. A parent, a guardian, or the club has to be. If the club or booster group is receiving the money, whoever fills out the bank details chooses the Business account type, which takes the legal business name plus the organization's own bank details, so the funds land in the club's account rather than a coach's personal one. A person still stands behind it. An authorized representative, 18 or older, completes that form and provides:

• A bank account in the fundraiser's country, and in the US make it a checking account, since transfers go out as checking transactions and savings accounts can be rejected.
• A tax ID, a government-issued photo ID with a date of birth, a phone number, and a residential address rather than a PO box.

Verification runs through the payment partner and isn't waived for anyone.

Start a GiveSendGo

What GiveSendGo charges

GiveSendGo doesn't take a cut. There's no platform fee. What's deducted is the payment processor's fee: 2.7% + 30¢ per gift for US fundraisers, 3.5% + 30¢ outside the US. On a $100 gift to a US fundraiser, $97 reaches you.

Two different optional amounts get called the tip. Every giver sees a suggested tip to GiveSendGo at checkout that they can set to any amount, including zero. Separately, you can send GiveSendGo a percentage of what you raise, and if you set that at creation it's added on top of each gift and shown to your givers at checkout, so some read it as a platform fee. Change or remove it anytime in your fundraiser Settings.

The teams and athletes listed further up this page are raising right now. Back one of them

Getting the money before the entry deadline

Sports run on deadlines, so start earlier than feels necessary.

Your first gift becomes available 5 days after it's received. Every gift after that becomes available on a rolling 3-day basis. Once you request a transfer, it typically lands in your bank within 2 to 3 business days. Non-USD transfers can take longer.

You can set transfers to go out weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, or request them manually from the Transfers tab whenever funds are available. A manual transfer sends your whole available balance, and after one is approved you wait 24 hours before requesting another. Minimum transfer amounts vary by country. Verification of the recipient's ID and bank setup typically completes in 1 to 2 business days, but it doesn't start until the first gift arrives, so that clock begins after your first giver, not the day you publish.

What makes a team fundraiser work

A team fundraiser moves when every family shares it rather than just the coach, and when updates keep coming while people are still giving, because an update is what brings a giver back a second time. One account can run more than one fundraiser, so a club can run one per athlete and keep each total separate.

A new fundraiser can take up to 48 hours to appear in GiveSendGo's search, and it joins a category listing like this one once it has been published 5 days and raised $100 USD in online gifts. Your own link works the minute you publish, so send it to the parent group first.

Start a GiveSendGo