FSFundraiserScout
Who runs this site: Fundraiser Scout is operated by the team at booster (booster.club). We rank our own platform on this site — scored with the same published rubric as everyone else, including the categories where we lose. Read our methodology →
Methodology · Updated July 2026

How we test and rank — in the open

One rubric, applied to everyone including the platform we own. Here's the whole machine: the weights, the protocol, the people, and the conflict-of-interest handling.

Who runs this site — the part most review sites hide

Fundraiser Scout is owned and operated by booster (booster.club), which makes one of the platforms we rank. We say this at the top of every ranking page, not in a footer, because you deserve to weigh it — and because we think the disclosure survives scrutiny: the rubric below is published, booster's weaknesses are printed in the same type size as everyone else's, and no platform on this site — including ours — can pay for placement. We never call this site "independent," because it isn't.

The rubric

Weights reflect what this market's own complaint record says matters most — fee surprises, donor-list resets, and what platforms ask of students:

Revenue durability30%

Does money compound or reset to zero? Donor-list ownership, recurrence, off-season coverage.

True cost & fee transparency25%

Published all-in cost including processing, tips, and prizes; flat vs. sliding rep-negotiated rates. Scored on transparency, not just rate.

Student data & pressure20%

Are minors’ contact lists required? Individual quotas? Door-to-door?

Coach & parent time15%

Setup, in-season effort, cash and product logistics.

Supporter value10%

What does the donor’s dollar actually deliver to the team?

The protocol

  • Fee verification: every fee claim is taken from a platform's own pricing page, press, regulator/BBB records, or dated third-party analysis — linked and date-stamped on the page where it appears, and re-verified quarterly.
  • Hands-on where possible: we sign up for each platform that allows self-serve access and document setup flow, payout mechanics, and support response. Where a platform is rep-gated, we say so and rely on documented user reports instead.
  • Scoring: each criterion is scored 0–10 per platform, multiplied by the weights above, and summed. Scores land in a compressed band on purpose — everything ranked here is a legitimate option for someone; the ranking is about fit and trade-offs, not winners and losers.
  • Badges: every ranked platform gets the category it genuinely wins ("Least coach effort," "Best free option") — including when that category is one booster loses.

Who writes this

Every scouting report carries a named byline — no anonymous "editorial team." The site's reviews are currently written by Scott Birnbaum (Co-founder, booster), which means the booster review is a first-party review and is labeled as such at the top of the page. Drafts are produced with AI assistance against our sourced research base; a named human verifies every factual claim, runs the numbers, and signs the page before it publishes. [Pre-launch TODO: author bio, photo, and credentials block.]

Conflict-of-interest rules we hold ourselves to

  • Ownership disclosed above the fold on every page with a ranking or comparison — never footer-only.
  • The word "independent" is banned from this site.
  • No pay-for-placement; no affiliate deals with ranked competitors; the "not a partner" note on every competitor card is literal.
  • booster's cons are published on its own review at the same prominence as every competitor's.
  • No fake urgency, countdowns, or invented social proof anywhere.
  • No review structured-data markup on our own product — self-serving rating markup is against Google's rules and we follow them.

Corrections policy

If any factual claim on this site is wrong or stale, email [email protected] with a source. We verify, fix, and log the correction with a date on the affected page. This inbox is open to the platforms we review — competitor pricing teams are its most qualified users, and we mean that as an invitation.