Turn Playoff Season Into Payoff Season For Your Cause

Year-round bracket fundraisers for every major sport — collegiate and professional. Participants pledge per round or per game and reclaim money for correct picks — the rest goes directly to your cause.

Start a Fundraiser Join a Fundraiser

🟢

Active Fundraisers

✅

Completed

📋

Brackets Filled

💰

$2.2k

Total Pledged

❤️

$2.0k

Raised for Causes

🏆 Tournaments

Active and upcoming tournaments — start a fundraiser or get ready for the next one!

NHL PlayoffsProfessional Hockey • 2026Upcoming

NBA PlayoffsProfessional Basketball • 2026Upcoming

Start a Fundraiser

How It Works

Works with any sport, any tournament, all year long

🏢

Verified Nonprofits Only

Organizations verify their IRS nonprofit status through their EIN. We check it against IRS records so donors know their money is going to a real, verified cause.

💰

Choose Your Pledge

Participants choose to pledge per round (later rounds worth more) or per game (flat amount per correct pick). A hold is placed on their card for the full amount.

🏆

Pick Your Winners

Fill out your entire bracket before the tournament starts — pick who you think will win each matchup, all the way to the Championship.

🎯

Reclaim for Correct Picks

Every correct prediction reclaims a portion of your pledge. The better your bracket, the less you donate — but the cause still wins!

📊

Compete on the Leaderboard

See how your bracket stacks up against other participants. Track your rank and correct picks in real-time.

🧾

Tax-Deductible Receipts

After the tournament, download your tax receipt with a full breakdown of your donation for your records.

💸 How Your Money Flows

Full transparency — your donation goes directly to the charity.

You pledge & pick your bracket

An authorization hold is placed on your card for the full pledge amount. No charge yet.

Correct picks reclaim your money

For each correct prediction, a portion of your pledge is reclaimed. The better your bracket, the less you pay.

Your donation goes directly to the charity

When the tournament ends, only the net donation is charged. The money is sent directly to the nonprofit's bank account via Stripe — it never sits in a BracketFund account.

Simple 3% Platform Fee

BracketFund charges a flat 3% platform fee on each donation — no hidden tiers or surprises. Donors can optionally cover this fee so 100% of their pledge reaches the cause.

Stripe processing fees (~2.9% + $0.30) apply separately.

Every Sport. Every Season.

We support brackets for major collegiate and professional tournaments year-round.

🏀College Basketball

🏈Football Playoffs

⚾Baseball Playoffs

🏒Hockey Playoffs

⚽Soccer Tournaments

🎾Tennis Grand Slams

Don't see your tournament? Request it and we'll add it!

🔄 Why the “Reverse Pledge”?

Our model flips traditional fundraising on its head — and here's why it works better for everyone.

🎯

You control your budget — no surprises

With BracketFund, you set your maximum pledge upfront. An authorization hold locks that amount in, but you're only charged for the picks you get wrong. Your budget is known from the start — regardless of what happens in the tournament.

📈

It actually raises meaningful money

Let's be real — most bracket picks are wrong. In a traditional model where you only pay for correct picks, very little money would flow to the cause. By flipping it — pledging the full amount and reclaiming for correct picks — fundraisers generate significantly more for their cause, because the vast majority of picks across any tournament will be incorrect.

🎉

Win or lose, everyone has fun

Every correct pick feels like a win — you're getting money back! And every wrong pick? That's money going to a great cause. It turns the entire tournament into a no-lose experience — you either save money or help make a difference.

We Run the Pool — So You Don't Have To

Running a bracket pool is exhausting — checking scores, calculating payouts, collecting money. BracketFund handles all of it. We set up every tournament bracket centrally. Your organization simply picks which bracket to use and creates a fundraiser around it. Want to run the Men's and Women's tournaments? Just create two separate fundraisers — each with its own pool.

🏟️

We Build the Brackets

BracketFund creates each tournament bracket centrally — your organization just selects the one you want and starts fundraising.

📡

Game results are pulled automatically from API-Sports, a leading real-time sports data provider. No manual scorekeeping required.

🔒

Brackets Lock Automatically

Picks are locked at the scheduled tip-off time. No one can change their bracket after the tournament starts.

💰

Payments Settle Automatically

When the tournament ends, every pledge is recalculated and charged automatically — no spreadsheets, no chasing money.

✉️

Ready-Made Invites

Each fundraiser comes with a pre-written invite you can copy and paste into an email or share link. Just send it to your network and watch participation grow.

🔔

Automated Notifications

Participants are emailed when a bracket they signed up for goes live, and they automatically receive a tax receipt when the tournament concludes and funds settle.

“Isn't this gambling? Am I allowed to use this as a Non-Profit to raise money?”

Great question — and the short answer is no, this is not gambling. Here's why:

The key legal distinction:

Gambling requires a prize — something of value that goes to the winner. With BracketFund, no participant wins money. There is no prize pool. Correct picks simply reduce how much of your pledge is donated, and all collected funds go entirely to the nonprofit's bank account. No money ever flows from one participant to another.

❌ Traditional Bracket Pool

✗Participants wager money
✗Winner takes a cash prize
✗Money goes to other participants
✗Outcome determines who profits
✗Classified as gambling in most states

✅ BracketFund

✓Participants pledge a charitable donation
✓No cash prize — you compete for bragging rights
✓All funds go directly to the nonprofit
✓Correct picks reduce your donation
✓Leaderboard ranks the best brackets
✓Charitable pledge model, not a wager

Think of it like a pledge-a-thon:

BracketFund works the same way as a walk-a-thon, swim-a-thon, or read-a-thon — well-established nonprofit fundraising models. In a walk-a-thon, donors pledge per lap and the walker's performance determines the final donation. With BracketFund, donors pledge per bracket and the accuracy of their picks determines the final donation. The structure is identical — only the activity changes.

Ready to Make a Difference?

Whether you're a nonprofit looking to raise funds or a sports fan supporting a great cause, BracketFund has a tournament for you — all year long.

Get Started Free