Funding for Nationals

[aren2008]

This year is our school's (division B) first year of doing Science Olympiad, but somehow we made nationals. We did not expect this, so we did not do fundraising throughout the year.

So far we have asked some local business and are planning on hosting a raffle, but I fear these may not be enough. For schools that have gone to nationals in the past, how did you fundraise?

[Galahad]

First off, congratulations on making nationals! It's a really great experience and your hard work has paid off. My High School team was in a similar situation for 2019, where they didn't expect to go and as a result had a hard time finding funding. What they did was do a lot of intense fundraising (food tickets and whatnot), but primarily get local businesses to sponsor them. Stuff like having their logo on your team shirt is something that can be done.

Another option is to go the GoFundMe route. We had that and it raised $5000. Being from Hawaii, this didn't even cover airfare to New York, but it greatly reduced the costs for our team members. Community support is what got us to that number, and it helps a lot for people to just post it. At the end of the day they still had to fork up a good amount, but they were able to get the cost down by more than half if I remember correctly.

Best of luck to you and your team! It's an amazing accomplishment to get this far and I hope you guys can make it!

[aren2008]

Thank you so much for your reply.

Our team has mainly been reaching out to banks with varied success. Generally, what type of businesses donated to your high school team?

[Galahad]

Local businesses, especially those that are community oriented (mom and pop shops), are very likely to want to support. Getting their town “on the map” and having their local middle/high school represent them at the national level is important to some of them. It’s also great to support these businesses as well as they’re what really makes your community so strong.