New Head Coach

Run summer clinics for ages 7-12 and use your players as labor. Run them again over Christmas vacation and again in February as a preason warmup. My son's coach charges $30 a two hour session or $150 for a week (three hours a day) in the summer. A fifty kid winter or preseason session raises $1,500 per session. A weeklong with 50 kids raises $7,500. In the offseason sessions the players are slave labor. In the summer they get paid as counselors.

Add: At the camps is a concession stand with team tees, sweats and hats. It's the same stuff the players wear in practice. The kids want to dress like the high school players.

First of all congratulations and best of luck.

One of the first things I would do is identify the economic ability of the area you are going to draw from. Basically if you live in a poor area then you will need to gear fundraisers / goals / targets towards smaller amounts. Nothing creates frustration and lack of help more than unrealistic expectations. If you want people to work and raise money with you then it needs to be something they will buy in.

Second is develop a long term plan of things you want to accomplish with money. This is where you bring up the field improvements to the parents. Identify the things you can fix quickly, easily and cheaply first. By doing this people can see that change can happen through work. It might be a new paint job for the dugouts or something along those lines but if parents can walk into the park and see quickly what has been done with the money they raised will make them more willing to work.

Third thing is one of the most important but hardest to do is find some parents you feel that you can trust. You cannot do all this by yourself and you will need help. This group of parents you can trust can do wonders for organizing other parents into doing things. Be careful because there WILL be parents who will try to become this person so they can try and influence your decisions or stab you in the back.

Fourth realize that all parents will fall into one of three categories. Small group will chip in and help no matter what and no matter when. Be careful because some of them might have ulterior motives but usually they do it because it needs to be done. Great group to work with if they are doing it for the right reasons. There will be another group about the same size as the first group that does nothing. They will never help on anything and sometimes not even dome to the game. Don't let them stop you or get upset at them. They're not going to change no matter what. The biggest group will be the parents who won't take charge but will do whatever you ask of them. This is another group that is great to work with.

Fifth when you create the booster club find someway to maintain complete control but let the parents make decisions. It's tough thing to balance but if the parents get complete control of the club then you are actually at their mercy but you also don't want to be in charge of the whole thing because you don't have enough time.

I got a few more things but have to head out to practice right now. I will add more later when I get home later tonight.

Congrats on the new job.

I would not start a booster club. I would raise the money myself using the players and parents and put the money in a school account. This way you have control on how the money is spent. It will avoid situations such as your team needing a new batting cage, but the booster club want to buy the team travel shirts.

As for ideas on raising money, search the site as there have been several topics on fundraising.

I am wishing you all the best in you new adventure.