A sample board. Team names, colors, and donor names
shown are illustrative.
Football Squares is now live on GivingBlox. It's the 100-square board your supporters have seen taped to a wall in a break room or a concession stand for years, rebuilt as a fundraiser that runs entirely from a phone.
How it works
- A 10x10 board, one flat price. Set up 100 squares at a single price each. Type in the two team names, pick a color for each, and you're done. 100 squares at $10 each is a $1,000 fundraiser.
- Donors buy before kickoff. Share the link by text or email. Supporters can take one square or several, choose whether to appear as "First L." or Anonymous, and never need an account or an app.
- The digits are drawn after sales close. Each axis gets a random ordering of the digits 0 through 9. A square takes a period when its row digit matches the last digit of the row team's score and its column digit matches the column team's.
- You enter the scores. Type in the score at the end of each period you're tracking and the board reveals that period's result. Default periods are Q1, Half, Q3, and Final, and you choose which of them count.
Every square starts the same
On a traditional squares board, people sometimes look for the numbers they think will be lucky. Here, there are no numbers to choose from while squares are on sale.
The row and column digits are randomly assigned after sales close. Until then, every open square is equally likely to match a final score. That keeps the choice simple for donors: decide how many squares to support, rather than trying to find a better one.
There is no bad square
This falls out of the same design. Because the digits don't exist while squares are on sale, every open square is exactly as good as every other one. Nobody can cherry-pick a favorite and nobody gets stuck with a dud.
That's why the mobile flow leads with a quantity rather than a grid hunt: Take 1 square — $10, and the board assigns the squares. Donors who would rather pick their own can still tap open squares directly. Once the draw happens, they see their squares highlighted on the board with a live status for each one — winning right now, still live, or won Q1.
Prizes are up to you
Most groups should start recognition-only: no prize at all, just bragging rights and a reason to watch the game together. That's the default and it's the least work. If you'd rather offer something, you can declare a fixed cash amount per paying period, or award non-cash prizes like a signed ball or a gift basket.
Either way, the organizer sets and awards prizes directly. GivingBlox does not hold, manage, or pay out prize money. Any cash prize is paid separately by the organizer from their own funds, and the organizer is solely responsible for compliance with all applicable charitable-gaming, raffle, tax and licensing laws, and for all resulting liability.
A few practical notes
- No live score feed. Scores are entered by the organizer. Reveal is tied to your entry, not to a clock, so entering late doesn't break anything.
- Unsold squares belong to the organizer, so you don't have to fill the grid before you can run the board.
- It isn't only for football. The engine works for any scored game with periods — basketball, baseball, hockey. Team names are free text, so company leagues and alumni groups work too.
- Optional extras include a sponsor slot and a header image, plus reverse squares and a per-period re-draw. The last two are off by default, and leaving them off gives you the simplest board to explain.
Football season is the easiest ask of the year. Set up a board, send one link, and let the game do the rest.
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