Photos [1] [2] by Gerd Altmann and Aquilatin, respectively
Swim teams, especially summer and high school swim teams, run on tight budgets. Because they are largely volunteer-run and mostly non-profit, swim teams often find it challenging to provide quality swim programs for their community – at an affordable price – while staying financially afloat. For some teams, the total price of SwimTopia can look daunting, but due to its great features that make fundraising easier, SwimTopia pays for itself and actually helps you raise more than ever before.
Sponsorships
Unlike other swim team software platforms that place ads on teams’ websites, with SwimTopia, you have total control over who your sponsors are and how their ads look. You also get to keep 100% of the sponsorship dollars. SwimTopia websites are a blank canvas to display the names and logos of your team sponsors, giving local companies broad exposure to a large segment of the community.
SwimTopia offers customizable sponsorship categories — allowing you to decide how big or small the company logo will look, whether to include a link, and more. You can have an entire page of sponsors, or you can display your sponsor logos in a sidebar or a footer (or both!) shown on multiple pages. And with SwimTopia, no external advertising distracts attention.
Being able to show local businesses your SwimTopia website, where their logo and link will be prominently displayed, is a great incentive for them to sponsor your team. Businesses get the benefit of broad exposure not only to your team members but also to members of visiting teams through your website.
Many SwimTopia teams sell sponsorships to parents on their team who are local business owners. It’s a win-win for the swim team and the swim family, as the family is happy to support their kids’ team while building relationships and gaining exposure with other swim parents.
Another way that many of our teams raise funds is by selling sponsorship levels to families who wish to support the team but don’t necessarily have a business to promote. By making your team’s sponsorship levels a “merchandise item” in your SwimTopia team site, and including them on your team registration form and in the team store, swim team families can easily add the sponsorship to their family registration or spirit wear purchase, whether they have a business or just want to support the team.
A swim team website with SwimTopia can take your team sponsorship program to a whole new level!
Merchandise
SwimTopia has partnered with SwimOutlet to make it really easy to fundraise for your team through a SwimOutlet team store. SwimOutlet team stores offer teams a % of all sales back in the form store credit or cash. After creating a SwimOutlet Team Store, simply drag and drop the SwimOutlet Snippet anywhere, on any page, enter your team store name, and your team parents can easily buy the gear they need, while the team raises funds.
Not only does SwimTopia make it easy for you to source team gear while you fundraise through SwimOutlet, but we also let you sell anything else you want to directly through your SwimTopia website. Maybe you want to create sponsorship levels as mentioned above, or do a donation drive, or sell yard signs. All that is possible through SwimTopia. Your SwimTopia website allows you to sell merchandise, sponsorships, or donations during registration and all season to your members, and provides access to easy reporting tools that help you order and distribute your items. Having an online team store allows you to offer items to those folks that forget to buy during registration, or decide later they really want more team gear, or are ready to make a donation.
While structuring your merchandise program, thinking “outside the box” can help generate more sales. Rotating in a different item each year, like a yard sign, a cooler bag, or pajama pants, can add that “collector’s edition/must-have” factor to that item. With small markups per item, SwimTopia pays for itself, and leaves your team with fundraising dollars to spare for other swim team expenses.
One last thing to think about when assessing the price/value of your online team management solution…
When thinking about the price of SwimTopia, consider giving a dollar value to the time you — the swim team administrators and lead volunteers — spend running the team. Think of this calculation as a different take on the expression “the time value of money.” 🙂 We all know that in most organizations 20% of the people do 80% of the work, and swim teams are no different! Swim team administrators spend hours and hours managing their teams during the season, plus more before it even starts. SwimTopia helps reduce the time that head volunteers spend on managing the team by streamlining processes and improving communication with their team. We think your time is valuable, and the price of SwimTopia is a small price to pay to get more time to enjoy your kids during the swim season.
