Premier International Tours Offers Easy
Fundraising Ideas to Help Teams Pay for Their Trips

So providing easy fundraising ideas and even assistance to teams that visit a tournament site is often a good idea. In fact, Mike Stebbins of Premier International Tours, which specializes in taking youth soccer teams on overseas trips, believes it can make the difference between a team signing up for a trip or simply wishing they could and clicking away.

"A typical trip of ours can cost over $2,000 per player," he says, "so it's important for us to show interested teams that this is not an unattainable goal. Teams really can raise all the money they need for a trip through one or all of our fundraising programs and, of course, we want to do all we can to help them succeed."

Premier International Tours offers three easy fundraising programs for teams wishing to take one of their trips. The first is a raffle where the company provides a grand prize of a round-trip air fare for two to either Paris or London. They also provide all the raffle tickets, which are then sold by individual team members with the team keeping 100% of the profits. A team can typically raise up to $500 per player from this fundraising program.

Another one of Premier International Tours' fundraising programs involves players sending individual letters to businesses and people they know asking for donations. The letters are easily generated on a team page that is set up for the purpose. And can be sent either by mail or email.

There are four levels of sponsorship and donors are recognized on a team page that is hosted at Premier International Tours' website. Donors are also updated throughout the tour with news of scores, team activities and photos.

Finally, there is an online team store where teams can have their logos placed on one of six different products and donors can purchase those products online with a portion of the proceeds going to the team.

There are, of course, countless other easy fundraising ideas, from organizing a soccer camp to the old stand-by of a team car wash. Some fundraising ideas are focused on individual players and families, with proceeds going into an individual player account, while others are team affairs.

Stebbins believes it is important to have a mix of both so that at least some of the team's fundraising activities involve every player, even those whose families could comfortably write a check for their portion of the trip.

"Fundraising is actually an important part of the team-building process," he explains. "There will always be some players who sell more raffle ticket or solicit more donations than others. That may be out of financial necessity or just personal drive. But it's important that every player feels involved in fundraising so that they feel a certain "ownership" of the trip."

That's why a team yard sale or a car wash, which may not be the most efficient fundraising activity, is still a worthwhile exercise because it involves the entire team.

Whatever fundraising activities a team undertakes, it is critical to keep good financial records. Separate family accounts are a good idea, even if you also have a team account for more general expenses.

With a little forethought, plenty of hard work, and help from your tournament or tour operator, fundraising can be an important and rewarding part of a team's tournament experience.

Premier International Tours specializes in organizing soccer tours and soccer travel to Europe and South America for various soccer clubs throughout North America. For mor information about their services, you can visit www.premierinterantioanaltours.com, call (800) 724-6076 or email Mike Stebbins at mike@premierinterantionaltours.com