Korfball is one of the most welcoming, affordable sports you can play. You need a ball, two posts, a sports hall and a group of people willing to give it a go. The trouble is that even the simple things add up. Hall hire in and around Woking can run from £30 to £60 an hour, and a club training two evenings a week plus matches will spend several thousand pounds a year before anyone has bought a shirt, paid a referee or entered a league.
Then there are the extras that make a club feel like a club: junior coaching courses, first aid kits, new bibs, entry fees for tournaments, end-of-season awards, and a little money set aside so that no young player is priced out. Fundraising is not about chasing huge sums. It is about covering the essentials steadily, so that subs stay affordable and the club keeps growing.
Sponsored events work best when they are visibly korfball-shaped, because people are far more likely to donate to something they can picture. A few ideas that have worked well for clubs of twenty to eighty members:
Set up a simple online giving page, and remember to mention Gift Aid — it adds 25p to every £1 donated by a UK taxpayer at no extra cost to them. Ask players to share the page with family, neighbours and colleagues rather than just posting it once on social media.
Match days are your most reliable fundraising opportunity because the audience is already there. A table by the door with a cake stand, a tea urn and a honesty box can raise £40 to £80 at a single home fixture, and far more at a junior tournament where families stay for hours.
Ask each team to take a turn providing bakes, and keep a rota so the same three parents are not doing it every week. Add a 50/50 raffle, where half the ticket money goes to the winner and half to the club — it is easy to explain and people happily buy a strip of tickets. A second-hand kit stall works well too: outgrown trainers, spare bibs and gently used hoodies sell quickly, and it helps families on tighter budgets.
Woking has a strong network of independent traders, cafés, tradespeople and small professional firms, and many would rather support a local club than pay for general advertising. Approach them with a specific ask rather than a vague request for help.
Once a year, run something aimed beyond your existing members. A summer beginners' tournament with a small entry fee per team, followed by a barbecue, brings in players from neighbouring clubs and gives you a natural moment to recruit. A family fun day with a korfball taster session, a tombola and a bouncy castle can work well if a few members share the organisation.
Quieter options include a quiz night in a hired hall, a car boot stall, a sponsored walk along the canal towpath, or a winter social with a raffle. The key is to put one person in charge of each event, agree a spending limit in advance, and write down what you spent and raised afterwards so next year's organiser is not starting from scratch.
The most sustainable income is the money you barely notice collecting. Encourage members to sign up to an online shopping cashback scheme that pays the club a small percentage, and remind them each term. Round monthly subs up to the nearest pound and put the difference in a separate account. Run a monthly club draw with a modest prize, where the remaining funds build a steady reserve.
Sell a simple bit of club merchandise — a hoodie or a beanie — with a couple of pounds profit on each one. Charge a small fee for summer camps and holiday sessions rather than absorbing the cost. Individually these are tiny; across a season they can cover your hall hire for a month or more.
Whatever you choose, tell people where the money went. A short note saying "the £640 raised at the summer tournament paid for new posts and two coaching courses" builds far more goodwill than any appeal, and it makes the next ask much easier.
Woking Korfball Club shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on grassroots korfball and community sport in woking for readers across the UK.
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