A Welsh football club is using Spond's Spot the Ball fundraising campaigns
A Welsh football club is taking its playing facilities to the next level with the refurbishment of its ground, thanks to a little help from Spot the Ball fundraising campaigns offered by the Spond sports team management app.
In total, Rhos FC has raised almost £3,000 from a series of successful Spot the Ball campaigns in the Spond app, with club supporters winning more than £750 at the same time. After kicking off with a couple of small campaigns to fund new kits, the club committee realised that the innovative all-digital fundraising platform would be perfect to raise cash for their much-needed ground improvements.
“We’ve used Spond to organise our different teams for around four years now, planning fixtures, taking payments and sharing messaging, so fundraising seemed like the next logical step,” said Dean Baker, chair of Rhos FC. “It only takes a couple of minutes to set up a Spot the Ball competition and every member – or parents if the member is under 16 – gets a personalised fundraising page to sell entries.
“We quickly realised that the Spot the Ball competition was really fun, and members have been competing to see who can sell more entries and raise the most money for the ground improvements, which are going to be hugely beneficial for everyone involved with Rhos FC. We’re now planning to run more competitions in the future to raise further funds for the club.”
Playing in the Neath Football League, Rhos FC has a proud history in the former mining community, with players ranging from development squads at the age of four right up to the senior teams. In 2020, Rhos became one of the first UK clubs to adopt Spond, and it is now used by every team at the club, making up 330 of Spond’s half million UK users.
“Of the hundreds of teams who have signed up for our Spot the Ball campaigns since they went live in January, Rhos FC has been one of the most active, and also one of the biggest earners,” said Trine Falnes, Spond CEO. “Spond offers a turnkey fundraising solution that eliminates all the tedious admin. Unlike a traditional fundraiser, Spot the Ball requires only two minutes to set up and manage, the only effort for the team or club is selling entries, and even that is super-simple thanks to the personalised fundraising pages sent to each seller.
“The Spond team is committed to helping our users survive and thrive in the post-Covid era, and our fundraising tool is an example of that commitment. We have an exciting pipeline of new features in the works, and we cannot wait to make these available to Rhos FC and other Spond users later this year.”
With many clubs having to achieve more with less in 2022, both in terms of finances and volunteer resources, Spond is doing all it can to make life as simple as possible for team coaches and committees, so they can save time on admin – up to six hours per week – and devote more energy to doing what they love. New features for 2022 included an availability tool, which allows players to indicate their general availability, rather than committing to a specific fixture, and in-play updates, which allow coaches and supporters to offer live text, photo, and video updates on a game, as it happens.
Dean added: “We run a tight ship at Rhos FC, and I think we would struggle to manage the club as well as we do without the support offered by Spond. It really does mean you can do more with less, which allows us to focus our coaching and admin resources where they’re really needed. We were already big fans of Spond, and the fundraising tools are simply the icing on the cake.”
With 1.5 million monthly active users, Spond is the award-winning free sports team management app that takes the hard work out of teamwork, saving 2.5 hours per week for the average team coach. The Spond app can be downloaded for free from Apple and Android, and fundraising competitions can be set up in a couple of minutes.