Somebody volunteered, and now you are running a booster club. Maybe it is a new program with nothing behind it, or maybe you inherited one where the previous board left no trail. Either way you are looking at a season that starts in a few weeks and a list of things you did not know existed.
This is the order that works. Not everything at once, and not in the order it feels urgent.
First, decide what the club is actually for
Booster clubs drift when nobody wrote down the purpose. Are you raising money for equipment and travel? Providing volunteers the program cannot run without? Both? The answer determines your budget, your calendar, and which arguments you will have in February.
Write one sentence. Read it at every board meeting. It will settle more disputes than any vote.
The four things to set up before the season starts
The legal basics
An EIN, a bank account in the club’s name, bylaws, and whatever your district requires to fundraise on its behalf. Unglamorous, and every one of them blocks something else until it exists.
The family roster
Every family in the program, with a contact who actually reads messages. Build it once, in a place the club owns, and never rebuild it from a sign-up sheet again.
One channel that reaches everyone
Pick the single place where schedule changes go, and tell every family that is the place. A club running on three channels is a club where someone always misses the bus.
The season calendar and the money
Every event, every deadline, and every payment families will owe, listed before the first week. Deadlines you discover in October cost more than deadlines you planned in August.
Get the Booster Club Startup Checklist
Everything to set up before the season starts, in the order that avoids blocking yourself. Free, one page.
Recruit volunteers by asking for something specific
“We need volunteers” gets nothing. “We need two people at the concession stand on the 14th from six to eight” gets filled. Parents are not unwilling, they are unwilling to sign up for an unbounded commitment they cannot picture.
Post the specific slots, let people claim them, and send a reminder the day before. That is most of volunteer management.
Do not build your fundraising around one big event
A single annual fundraiser means one bad weather day can wreck the year. Two or three smaller, repeatable efforts are less exciting and far more survivable, and they spread the volunteer load across more families instead of exhausting the same six people.
Your first year’s real job is to leave the second year’s board something to start from.
Set up the handoff on day one
This is the part first-year boards skip and every second-year board regrets. Put every account in the club’s name, not a parent’s. Keep the roster, the payment history, the vendor contacts, and the fundraiser results somewhere the club controls. Add a second officer as administrator on everything.
You are going to rotate out. The question is whether the club keeps what you built.
Where Kannect fits
Kannect gives a booster club one place for the roster, the season calendar, parent announcements, trip payments, fundraising, and volunteer signups, starting at $23 a month billed yearly with a 7-day free trial. Announcements reach every parent who opted in through push notification and email, and paid events carry a 2% platform fee with nonprofit donations at 0%.
And because the club owns the account rather than a volunteer, next year’s board inherits all of it by having their names added as admins.
- One home for roster, calendar, payments, fundraising, and volunteers
- Announcements that reach every family, with no algorithm in between
- A public page so new families and local sponsors can find your club
- Records that survive the board handoff instead of leaving with it
Start the season with the list, not the panic
The full setup list in the order that keeps you unblocked, from EIN to first event. We’ll send it now.