With every new year comes an opportunity for a fresh start – many individuals use the turn of the year to incorporate new healthy habits, or to lock into goals for the upcoming new year. As a coach, your sports team is no different – 2025 is the perfect time to lock-in to completely new fundraising opportunities and create effective fundraising habits.

Thankfully, that is what we’re all about there at Teamfi, our sole goal is to help coaches raise more and spend less on their yearly fundraisers so that their sports team can have the funds necessary to run a successful and sustainable program.

By now, as a sports coach, you’ve probably heard rumblings of a new type of fundraiser: the Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraiser (sometimes called Donate a day or Pick a Day). It’s a growing fundraising method that has proven to be successful for teams across the United States and is poised to become the most popular fundraising method in 2025. (Side note: If you’re unfamiliar with this fundraising technique, we’ve written a blog titled What’s a Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraiser? which serves as a great introduction.)

So, as your team turns the page on 2024 and looks to plan your 2025 fundraiser, here’s five reasons we think the budding fundraising trend of Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraisers will explode in popularity and be the top fundraising trend in 2025:

1. Calendar Fundraisers are incredibly cost effective

Not only will each fundraiser participant's fully sponsored (or donated) Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraiser raise $496 for your sports team, but you can run a fully digital and 100% free calendar fundraiser using Teamfi. Or, alternatively, if you prefer running a pen and paper version of the calendar fundraiser, we’ve created a free, printable calendar fundraiser template so that you can save the $5-10 it costs to buy one online and run one for completely free.

Either way, digital or pen and paper, you’ll be able to raise money effectively without spending the money on fees, templates or anything else – making it one of the most cost-effective fundraising methods out there.

2. Calendar fundraisers will help keep things fresh

One battle that sports teams can come up against with their yearly fundraisers is burnout from the community. This is especially common in smaller communities or school districts where multiple sports teams are fundraising at the same time, leading to community members to be asked to support 10+ sports teams.

The freshness of Pick a Date to Donate Calendar fundraiser can help your team overcome the dulling of your team’s yearly fundraiser and help combat the fundraising burnout from the community.

3. Calendar fundraisers create brand awareness & build anticipation

Another reason we think the Calendar fundraiser trend will gain a lot of popularity is because of its ability to keep your team’s brand top of mind for your community. Effectively, whether you run a digital calendar fundraiser or run one pen and paper style, your team’s calendars can serve as a billboard for your team, displaying your logos, team colors, and even listing important achievements or goals for the upcoming season. Using Teamfi, all of these calendar customizations come built-in and completely free of charge, allowing your team’s brand to really come to life through the calendar.

In this way, not only does a calendar fundraiser serve as a fresh way to raise necessary funds, but it also doubles as advertising for your team, creating excitement in your community and among friends and family about your team’s upcoming season.

4. Calendar fundraisers fosters community involvement and meaningful interaction

One of the more unique benefits to running a Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraiser is that it opens the door for fundraiser supporters to support each fundraiser participant in a more meaningful connection.

By donating days on the calendar that are meaningful to the supporter or the fundraiser participant (think birthdays, anniversaries, or other important dates), the fundraiser supporter is able to make their donation more meaningful than just the donation amount itself.

Moreover, because each supporter's name is signed on each day they donate on the calendar, their support for your team will be publicly on display for the rest of the community. This can help spur other community members to support your sports team, creating a positive feedback loop of fundraising support.

5. Calendar fundraisers are easy to start and have a quick turnaround time

The last major reason we think Pick a Date to Donate Calendar Fundraisers are going to be the major sports fundraising trend of 2025 is because of how easy it is to get one up and running. Using Teamfi, you can get your digital calendar fundraiser up and collect funds for your team in less than 15 minutes. The steps are incredibly simple:

1. Book a quick demo with our cofounder and we’ll show you how to use Teamfi and invite you to create your account
2. Answers a couple of questions to create your custom calendar fundraiser
3. Invite your fundraiser participants to join your newly created fundraiser
4. Press “activate” and let Teamfi do all the work for you to collect funds and keep track of each participant's fundraising calendar.

That's all it takes to get your fundraiser up and off the ground. Moreover, if using a digital calendar like the one Teamfi can provide, your fundraiser can be completed in around 2 weeks (most Teamfi fundraisers are), allowing you to get the necessary funds for your team in record time.

Now, if you opt to go the more traditional pen and paper route for your calendar fundraiser, it will add a bit of manual work to the process detailed above. Namely, it will require you to print out a paper calendar fundraiser template for each individual and hold a team meeting to pass them out so that they can start collecting sponsors for each day. Additionally, because paper calendars need to be physically presented to possible supporters to gain sponsors (in comparison to sharing a digital version via text, email or link), it does take more time to complete (usually 3-4 weeks).

Either way (digital or traditional), Pick a Date to Donate Calendars are super simple to get up and off the ground and can be completed in just a few weeks, making it an incredible fundraising option that we think will gain a lot of popularity in 2025.

Conclusion

There you have it, five reasons we think that calendar fundraisers will be the next big fundraising trend in 2025. Calendar fundraisers are cost effective, provide a fresh new twist, build brand awareness, foster community involvement, and are easy to start – making it easy to see why teams everywhere are considering this fundraising method for their 2025 fundraiser.

If you’re interested in running a calendar fundraiser with Teamfi, book a quick 15 minute demo with our founder, and he’ll show you exactly how your team can get started (you’ll leave that call with your Teamfi account already set up).

If you still have questions about Calendar Fundraisers, be sure to check out our complete FAQ guide to running Calendar Fundraisers where we answer all the most common questions we get from coaches. Additionally, you can always email us any questions you have and we’ll respond as fast as humanly possible.