FlipGive Fundraising – The Key to Fundraising in Youth Sports Today?

If you could pay all of your Team Fees with your regular shopping would you?

Youth Sports is expensive and traditional fundraising for can be very uncomfortable, time consuming, and usually not worth the effort. FlipGive offers significant fundraising opportunity by just doing regular online shopping.

What is FlipGive?

Flipgive is an online shopping tool that provides a portion of the eligible purchase price back to the purchaser. In our case, we have a youth soccer team set up and use it to help our fundraising. FlipGive tracks all funds raised and connects those funds back to the individual player. So all funds raised by an individual player or people in the player’s network contribute to that player’s fundraising efforts.

How does FlipGive Work?

There are three main ways that you can use FlipGive:

• Earn Online or In-Store:  Shop through the app at over 600 brands and online stores, or earn cash from gift cards you can use in-store. 
• Find Places Nearby: Discover local restaurants and places nearby that can contribute to your team funding goal. 
• Accept Donations: Reach out to family, friends and anyone interested in helping your team, and share your donation link with them.

Downside of FlipGive

FlipGive is a great tool once you have it set up and it becomes a normal part of your online shopping practice. The biggest knock on FlipGive Fundraising is that it adds another step to every purchase. Some people won’t see the value of saving a few percent on their purchases to go through this extra step. Additionally, at times FlipGive may not have the best deal with regards to online shopping, so you have to watch the pricing. I wish it were as easy as just clicking on Amazon. I have found that the gift cards are the best use of FlipGive Fundraising. Using FlipGive Gift cards at merchants where you routinely shop is the best way to maximize usage. For my family that means Starbucks, Lowes, Home Depot, and Amazon. The first step is reading the rest of this post, it can save you hundreds of dollars over the next few seasons.

FlipGive will require someone from the Team to manage the account and get the rest of the team members signed up. I suggest designating the team manager or treasurer to this task and signing up via this code. (See this article on managing team funds).

How do Supporters use FlipGive?

Once a supporter has created an account, it is pretty simple to use FlipGive Fundraising. This post does not go through the “how to create an account” piece as there are good tools on the FlipGive Site. I recommend downloading the app once you are set up. Getting set up on the computer is easier, but daily use on the app is the better long term solution. I mainly use the gift card function and that is what I am going to show here. The two I use the most are Lowes and Amazon. Examples are outlined below.

Buying a Lowe’s Gift Card

When you open the app – this is what your home page should look like. Just type in what you are looking for in the “search” window and hit “Browse”

I typed in Lowes and when I hit “Browse” this is what came up.

It is asking me if I want to buy a gift card or shop online.

I selected gift card (a little secret though – buy your gift card and then go back and shop online through this process and you will get the full gift card percentage back and the 1% online shopping credit as well).

I selected the amount I wanted (We were doing a big DIY project in the backyard that cost me about $490.00 so I purchased the $500.00 card.)

Once the Card is purchased – you have earned the funds that go back to the team (tied to your player). The team made $15.00 from the purchase of the gift card, and the value of the gift card is still $500.00. So in essence you received $515.00 worth of purchasing power for your $500.00. If you go shop online and get that 1% savings, you now have $520.00 for that $500 spent.

I purchased some items online, but then had to go to the store to get things like Mulch and some large pieces of wood. After selecting my items, while in line at the check out, I opened the FlipGive App again and went into my gift cards. To find the gift cards, hit the little icon that looks like a person (marked in red below).

Clicking the person icon brings up your individual account. Select Gift Cards, marked in Red Below.

This brought up my gift card wallet and I then selected the gift card I had just purchased.

I clicked on my gift card (I am using an older gift card with no balance left on it for this example) and you can see the gift card number and the pin.

Hit the “Tap to Use” green button.

When you hit the “Tap to Use” button the gift card turns into a barcode that the cashier can scan. You then tell them your PIN number and the amount of the order is deducted from the gift card balance.

You leave Lowes having paid no cash, but booking that 2 – 3 % you earned by buying the gift card. That can really add up if you are doing a bunch of projects around the house (we have had a number of fixer upper this year and have used FlipGive at Lowes, saving me about $75.00).

Amazon Gift Cards

Amazon is even easier. You just buy the gift card (like we did for Lowes above) and then on your next purchase you insert the gift card number during your purchase on amazon. The entire amount of the gift card is placed into your account as a credit. Unfortunately Amazon only gives 1%, but it is so easy you are basically leaving that 1% on the table if you don’t do it. Over the course of a year that can really add up.

Please support our FlipGive team by creating your own FlipGive Fundraising account and use my team as a reference. (click here and sign up)

If you don’t have a team of your own, but are looking to adopt a team or player to support, please let me know. I will get you connected with a player on a local team that could use the support. (send me your email address or use this code “K3TW7B“when you sign up on FlipGive).