Team Kidney Moves: 8 Exciting Athletic Fundraisers

Team Kidney Moves lets you challenge yourself and test your strength while fighting kidney disease. Need help coming up with your next Team Kidney Moves fundraiser? Here are eight ideas to inspire you.

1. Hold a danceathon

Difficulty: Hard

Danceathons put the phrase "party until you drop" to good use! 

Here's how to hold one:

1. Choose a date and venue: Find a place with a good sound system and enough room to hold your desired number of dancers. 
2. Decide how long the event will go: Will your danceathon be eight, twelve, or twenty-four hours?! It's up to you and your dancers. 
3. Create a Team Kidney Moves fundraiser: Determine a registration fee and have dancers pay that through your fundraising page. Have dancers write “registration fee” in the comment section of their donation to help differentiate dancers from donors. Encourage dancers to share your fundraising page for additional donations.
4. Livestream: Connect your Team Kidney fundraiser to a live streaming platform like Twitch to collect donations in real-time.
5. Promote: Use social media, flyers, and word of mouth to spread the word. Encourage participants to do the same.
6. Prepare the event space: On the day of, prepare the space and ensure you have plenty of snacks and drinks to keep your dancers' energy up. 

Remember to have fun, be creative, and stay hydrated!

2. Throw a dodgeball tournament

Difficulty: Medium

Put your diving and dodging skills to use while raising funds to help us fight kidney disease! First, you'll need permission to use a community space, like a gymnasium or park. Then create your fundraising page for registration fees and recruit teams of six from local businesses, schools, or community organizations. Once the teams are set, make brackets and encourage them to make their own pages to collect donations. 

On the day of, provide refreshments to the players and sell snacks to the crowd for some added fundraising. During the event, take pictures and videos to share on social media along with the fundraising link. Ask participants to do the same. Once all the games are completed, announce the winning team and the total amount of money raised. 

3. Hold a community field day

Difficulty: Hard

Bring your neighborhood together with a fun and exciting field day!

Here's how:

1. Find a location: Choose a large, central area that can fit a large crowd.
2. Partner with local businesses: Partners can provide food, drinks, and prizes to make the event more enjoyable and help raise more money. 
3. Create unique games: Consider games your attendees want to play, like capture the flag, an egg relay race, or a tug-of-war. You can also set up a photo booth area with props and backdrops for people to take pictures. 
4. Offer incentives: Give winners sponsored prizes like restaurant gift cards, branded merch, or small toys.
5. Promote: Decide the ticket price and promote the event by sharing what games, food, and prizes are available. Share the Team Kidney Moves page for additional donations.
6. Day of: Sell tickets and have fun! 

After the event, announce how much money was raised, thank the participants, and transfer the funds to Team Kidney Moves!

4. Set up a frisbee golf tournament 

Difficulty: Easy

The hardest part about holding a frisbee golf fundraising event is finding and booking a frisbee golf course. After that, it's just a matter of determining how much to charge teams, promoting the event, and acquiring enough frisbees for everyone. For some added fun (and more fundraising opportunities), consider selling food and t-shirts during the tournament. 

At the end of the day, announce the winner, share how much was raised, and move the money to your Team Kidney Moves page.

5. Host a cornhole competition

Difficulty: Medium

Whether you're organizing a small-scale neighborhood competition or a big event with teams from far and wide, a corn hole tournament offers a fantastic opportunity to bring families of all ages closer, foster a sense of community, and raise awareness for kidney disease.

Follow these simple instructions to host your own: 

1. Determine the rules: Decide how you’ll eliminate people from the tournament. This could be single elimination, double elimination, round-robin, or a combination of all three. Need help deciding? Check out the American Cornhole Association (ACA) for guidance.
2. Choose a venue: Find a location with enough space for the cornhole boards and players. Secure the necessary permissions and choose a date and time that works well for participants and spectators.
3. Decide how you'll fundraise: There are many ways to fundraise during a cornhole tournament. You could charge participants, sell merchandise, or encourage people to do peer-to-peer fundraising with their own Team Kidney Moves pages. 
4. Find ways to create a festive atmosphere: Will there be music, games, or food? Brainstorm ways to encourage participation and bring in bystanders. You can also ask local businesses to donate items or gift cards to give away as prizes.
5. Promote: Use social media, local newspapers, and flyers around town to spread the word. 
6. Set up: Gather your cornhole boards, bean bags, and other necessary items for a day of fun in the sun.

After the tournament, announce how much money was raised and thank the participants for their hard work.

6. Hold a water balloon fight

Difficulty: Easy

This fun, community-wide event will surely be a hit. To hold one, find a large outdoor location and choose a date. Then set up your fundraising page and begin advertising on social media, local bulletin boards, and during other community events. On the day of, charge participants for buckets of water balloons and sell snacks or merchandise. Divide the participants into smaller groups and encourage everyone to watch as they "battle" it out. 

After all the balloons have been tossed, thank everyone for a fun day, share how much money the community raised, and don't forget to clean up all the broken balloon bits. 

7. Design a birding bingo raffle 

Difficulty: Medium

This unique fundraiser is perfect for nature lovers. 

Here's how to hold a birding bingo raffle:

1. Make the bingo cards: Create a list of local birds to put into a free bingo card generator, like Bingo Baker or My Free Bingo card generator. 
2. Find a location: Look for local wildlife preserves and choose two dates (a preferred and rain date). Pick a time–ideally early to give participants the best chance of making a bingo. Don't forget to provide birders with a time limit.
3. Choose prizes: Incentivise participation with prizes like coupons or a weekend trip. Completed bingo cards will act as raffle tickets.
4. Promote and sell tickets: Sell tickets at local parks, birding clubs, and online. Transfer ticket money to your Team Kidney Moves page.
5. On event day: Hand out the bingo cards, explain the rules, and have fun. 

When time is up, collect the cards, conduct the drawing, and hand out the prizes. If no one gets bingo, enter all participants. If only one or two people get a bingo, award them the best prizes and add everyone else's cards to the raffle. 

8. Host a community sports clinic

Difficulty: Easy

Are you a talented soccer, basketball, or football player? Share your skills with the community, no matter what sport you enjoy!

First, determine how much you'll charge for the clinic, set up an event registration web page, and determine where you'll hold it. Next, promote the event on social media, to peers, and at schools or local clubs. Once the event is finished, transfer the registration money to your Team Kidney Moves page and smile, knowing you've encouraged the next generation of players while supporting kidney disease awareness and education. 

Create your Team Kidney Moves fundraiser

Ready to take this inspiration and turn it into action? It's easy to get started.

Here's how to set up a Team Kidney Your Way fundraiser: 

1. Register
2. Personalize the page with your story
3. Add a photo to make unique
4. Share it with your friends and family

Interested in creating a ticketed or multi-member team fundraiser? Contact teamkidney@kidney.org for help