Upon seeing FungoMan, whirling its wheels and hearing the sound of baseballs firing in all their glory, coaches at every level of play express their appreciation for such a tool, but quickly disqualify themselves from ever affording one.

Some FungoMan-users have shared how they were able to raise funds for their program, despite their small size or small budget. Their creativity and tenacity inspires us, so we're sharing their successful resources with you, and hope to hear many more.

1. Hit-A-Thon

This awesome idea combines pledges and hitting into a super fun event the whole community can get behind. 

Operating similarly to a walk-a-thon, the hit-a-thon capitalizes on the players' networks of relatives, friends, and neighbors to make a pledge or donation. Pledge amounts can be calculated either per completed hit or longest distance hit, with each participant getting a certain number of pitches, or contributors can choose to donate a fixed amount.

DoJiggy is a great software for collecting funds and managing fundraisors. They suggest planning a hit-a-thon in conjunction with another event, which tends to work really well to increase attendance.

For example, host the hit-a-thon on team picture day when parents, players and friends are already gathered together to take team and individual photos for the season. After photos are taken, teams go to "hitting lanes" where every player hits several balls from a tee. Coaches record the longest distance batted on the player Hit-a-thon pledge card. This distance is used to calculate distance pledges.

For older kids, a hit-a-thon could be run where each participant receives a certain number of pitches and pledges are collected for completed hits. After the hit-a-thon concludes, gather parents, family and friends together for a season kick-off BBQ event.

For more check out DoJiggy for more resources!

2. Golf Tournament 

Golf Tournaments are another excellent and engaging way to fundraise. On average, golf tournaments fund raise around $5,000.

For example, patron sponsors {individuals and corporations} can have the option of sponsoring a single golfer at $125 or sponsoring a team at $1,000. 

Golf Registrations offers a simple, straightforward advice and software to help you organize such an event.

Also, check out Tee Times for more on the in's and out's of golf tournaments!

3. 100 Inning Game

The 100 Inning Game is a relatively recent tradition in the game of baseball started by the Boston Men's League in conjunction with Curt Schilling's charitable organization called Curt Pitch for ALS. JUGS Sports has a great blog on how to quickly raise over $3,000 with a 100-Inning Game.

Here are the basic rules:

1. Pitchers will feed baseball machine, then field their position.
2. Each team hits for nine outs, clearing the bases after every three outs.
3. Pitchers get to hit. If a batter has two strikes on him, and then hits a foul ball, that batter is out.
4. Set up a protective screen in front of baseball machine. Any batted ball that hits the screen is a "do-over."
5. Use leather baseballs. Have at least four dozen available.
6. After the game is over, make certain you tell your players to "collect that cash!"

Players will play 100 innings. Each player must play at least 2-1/2 hours in the game, and each player must get ten sponsors to pledge 10¢ per inning. The team is pledging 10¢ x 100 innings, which is ten dollars.

If thirty players have found ten "dime sponsors" each, your team will have raised $3,000. (The average amount raised by 93 teams who played 100 inning games in 2003 was $3,744. So, a goal of $3,000 is very realistic.)

For more, you can find JUGS Sports blog here.

Here's the link for a 100 Inning Game Fundraiser Pledge Form that you might find helpful.

4. Snap! Raise

This online fundraising company has helped many schools and organizations to raise large amounts of money quickly and painlessly. 

Using a simple interface, it takes about 20 minutes to setup, and streamlines the collecting, campaigning, and promoting process all in the Snap! platform.

"We blew away our original $5,000 goal and raised $9,000 with Snap in a couple Weeks! The kickoff process took only 20 minutes and was super simple. " -Tigard High School, Boys Basketball Team

Watch their video explanation of what Snap! Raise is all about here.

These are non-affiliated companies/ideas that customers have used or are using to buy their program a FungoMan. Discover financing options on FungoMan for your program!

Feel free to comment below with your fundraising success stories!