Charity sports pool hosting

Yes. There are several sports office-pool platforms that offer some form of payment tracking or fundraising support. The key distinction is whether you want to track donations and contributions without the site handling money, or have the site actually collect payments from participants.

For an office pool that raises money for a charity, team, school, or other cause, I'd start with these options.

Best options to investigate

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1. ChooseASquare

(Best for squares fundraisers)

Supports office football squares, participant sign-ups, payment-status tracking, and fundraising through a configurable share of the pool. Participants can pay the organizer directly through Venmo or PayPal, or use cash or checks. The platform does not hold the money.www.chooseasquare.com

Best for: Super Bowl pools, workplace competitions, and team fundraisers.

Visit ChooseASquare

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2. OfficePoolGames

(Best for charitable fundraising)

Its Fundraiser Edition is designed for organizations raising money through sports brackets. Features include suggested donation amounts, sponsor tiers, thank-you messaging, automated scoring, and exportable supporter data. It charges a flat platform fee rather than taking a percentage of funds raised.officepoolgames.com

Best for: March Madness, schools, PTAs, nonprofits, and booster clubs.

Visit OfficePoolGames Fundraiser Edition

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3. OfficePools

A traditional sports pool manager with a built-in Paid checkbox for administrators to track which participants have paid their entry fees. The platform does not collect or manage the money itself.www.officepools.com+1

Best for: Season-long hockey, soccer, and similar pick'em pools where you need a payment ledger.

Visit OfficePools

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4. Sports Pool HQ

Supports hosted sports pools and paper-pool tracking, with participant lists, entry tracking, and paid-status records. It explicitly does not process, hold, or transfer money.sportspoolhq.com

Best for: Office football or basketball squares and tracking who has paid.

Visit Sports Pool HQ

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5. Football Madness Pool

Offers customized, hosted football pools. Its service lets the organizer collect participant contributions directly using payment methods such as Venmo, Zelle, or cash; the organizer remains responsible for collecting and distributing the money. Published pricing is $75 setup plus $350 per season.www.footballmadnesspool.com+4

Best for: Custom NFL survivor pools and larger recurring groups.

Visit Football Madness Pool

Quick comparison

Sources: provider feature descriptions.www.chooseasquare.com+4

My recommendation

• For an office pool with a charitable contribution built into each entry: Start with ChooseASquare.
• For a school, nonprofit, or sports-team fundraiser: Start with OfficePoolGames Fundraiser Edition.
• For an ordinary sports pool where you mainly need a roster and a paid/unpaid ledger: Try OfficePools or Sports Pool HQ.

One important consideration: these platforms generally leave actual money collection to the organizer. If you need automatic payment processing, receipts, a running total of donations, and a record of each participant's contributions, confirm those specific features before committing.

One question to narrow it down

What kind of pool are you organizing?

1. Which sport or pool format?

NFL football / Super Bowl squares

March Madness / NCAA bracket

Season-long pick'em or survivor pool

Multiple sports

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2. What is the money for?

Charity, school, or team fundraiser

Prize money paid to winners

Office social fund or group expenses

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3. How should contributions work?

Online collection and tracking in one place

Track who paid and how much; accept Venmo, cash, etc. separately

Donation tracking with receipts and reporting

[Find the best fit]

Hosting a bracket challenge tied to charitable donations typically works best through one of two setups: using a dedicated fundraising/donation platform integrated with entry rules , or pairing a standard robust bracket manager with an external fundraising tool.runyourpool.com

Options and strategies for setting this up include:

• Givebutter
  • How it works: Givebutter is a popular free fundraising platform built specifically for non-profits and community campaigns. Organizers frequently use it to run "Battle of the Brackets" style fundraisers. You can set custom ticket or entry prices (e.g., a $10 donation equals one bracket entry), track campaign fundraising goals in real-time, and collect donations via major payment methods, Venmo, or PayPal with low/transparent transaction fees.
  • Best for: Direct end-to-end fundraising where money goes straight to a registered 501(c)(3) or cause, though you will need to manage the actual bracket picks externally or link out to a pool site.givebutter.com
• RunYourPool (Fundraising Mode)
  • How it works: RunYourPool is a premier platform for managing custom tournament brackets, pick 'ems, and sports pools. They feature dedicated Fundraising Pools designed for charities, schools, and non-profits. The platform handles the leaderboard, scoring, and participant pick submissions seamlessly. However, RunYourPool does not process donations directly ; instead, they provide a dedicated space to link your external donation page (such as GoFundMe, Givebutter, or a direct nonprofit portal) so participants donate before or while submitting their picks.
  • Best for: Flawless automated bracket scoring and professional pool management combined with a linked charity donation link.runyourpool.com
• The Hybrid Method (ESPN / CBS Sports + Donation Link)
  • How it works: You can set up a completely free private group pool on mainstream platforms like ESPN Tournament Challenge or CBS Sports . Then, pair it with a trusted crowdfunding link (like GoFundMe or Classy ) pinned in your group's message board or announcement email.
  • Best for: Zero platform fees, familiar user interfaces for participants, and maximum flexibility.

If you can share which sport or tournament you are building a bracket for (such as March Madness) and how you want the funds collected (e.g., straight to a registered charity vs. pooled by you to distribute later), I can recommend the most seamless setup workflow.

I found several platforms that combine bracket-style competition with charitable giving. My top recommendation is Thropic Games if you want to host your own customizable challenge, or BracketFund if you want a traditional sports bracket where donations are built into the gameplay.

The best fit depends on whether you want participants to make voluntary donations, pay a charitable entry contribution, or vote for charities through a bracket.

Best platforms to consider

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1. Thropic Games

(Best for custom challenges)

Thropic lets you create challenges such as brackets, predictions, and trivia, connect them to a charitable cause, and share a link with participants. It also advertises payment handling, payouts, and a live leaderboard.www.thropicgames.com+1

Best for: Companies, nonprofits, sports communities, and branded fundraising events.

Visit Thropic Games

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2. BracketFund

(Best for donation-integrated brackets)

Participants submit a sports bracket and pledge a donation. Correct picks reduce the amount they ultimately donate, and the remaining funds go to the charity. It offers a leaderboard, donation receipts, and a stated 3% platform fee, plus payment processing fees.bracketfund.com

Best for: March Madness and other sports tournaments where the charitable contribution is part of the game itself.

Visit BracketFund

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3. Office Pool Games

This platform offers branded online contests and a nonprofit fundraising edition. It advertises a flat platform fee for fundraisers and says organizers keep 100% of the funds raised. Confirm the precise fee and donation workflow before signing up.www.officepoolgames.com

Best for: Organizations wanting a polished, branded bracket experience for employees, customers, or supporters.

Visit Office Pool Games

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4. Giving Madness by Millie

This is a slightly different take: companies create brackets of 16 nonprofits, employees vote on matchups, and a donation pool is distributed among charities according to their progress. It also integrates with Slack and supports email communications.www.givingmadness.com+1

Best for: Employee engagement, corporate philanthropy, and campaigns where the charities themselves compete in the bracket.

Visit Giving Madness

Which one should you choose?

One important distinction: some platforms make donations part of the bracket mechanics, while others use a separate donation page or distribute a company-funded pool. Those workflows aren't interchangeable.

My recommendation: Start with Thropic Games and BracketFund. Before committing, confirm whether participants can choose their own charity, whether donations are optional or required, what transaction fees apply, and whether you can run a private challenge with a custom leaderboard.

One question that would help me narrow this down: What kind of bracket challenge are you planning to host?

• A. March Madness / college basketball
• B. A bracket for a different sport or tournament
• C. A company-wide or employee charity challenge
• D. A custom bracket where participants compete and donate to a cause of their choice

If you mean a hosted sports-pool/bracket platform where the organizer can run a charity challenge, collect donations, and get usable donation/receipt records, the field is fairly small.

The strongest fit

BracketFund is the one I found that explicitly combines the three requirements in one system:

• hosted bracket competition
• charitable pledges/donations
• automatic tax receipts
• donation funds sent directly to the nonprofit
• downloadable receipt after the tournament
• no participant prize pool—the donation amount is determined by bracket performancebracketfund.com

There is an important distinction with CBS/RunYourPool-style setups: they can host the competition very well, but the charity/payment/receipt layer is usually separate. For example, Comfort Cases currently uses a donation page to collect the money and issue the receipt, then sends participants instructions for joining its CBS bracket.Comfort Cases

If by “receipt exports” you specifically mean an organizer/admin can export a CSV of donors, amounts, dates, receipt numbers, and charity information, I would narrow the list further: I can research that exact requirement and give you a feature-by-feature comparison of 5–10 platforms, including fees and API/CSV capabilities.

Most mainstream consumer sports pool hosting sites (like ESPN, Yahoo, or CBS Sports) are built purely for entertainment and do not natively handle direct financial donations, legal compliance, or tax receipt generation for charities. Instead, running a compliant charity bracket challenge usually requires combining a dedicated sports pool manager with a peer-to-peer fundraising/donation tool, or using niche platforms designed specifically for social-good wagering and fundraising.

The landscape breaks down into the following solutions:

• March Melee Pools (March Melee Pools ): Offers dedicated features explicitly for charity sports pools and March Madness/football contests. They allow you to route a percentage or all of the pool proceeds directly to vetted 501(c)(3) organizations with auditable transaction logs. However, for official individual end-of-year tax receipt exports, you typically rely on the direct 501(c)(3) charity’s processing receipt system rather than an automated export directly from the bracket page.marchmeleepools.com+1
• Dedicated Fundraising Platforms + Standard Brackets (The Hybrid Approach) : The most legally robust and common way organizations run these is to host the bracket picks on a standard platform (like RunYourPool or CBS Sports ) while routing all entry fees through a dedicated non-profit fundraising platform that natively handles receipts and exports (such as Zeffy or Funraise).
  • Zeffy (Zeffy ) is completely free for non-profits and automatically generates and exports custom IRS-compliant tax receipts for participants paying an "entry fee/donation".
  • Funraise (Funraise ) offers robust bulk donation receipt generation and spreadsheet/PDF exports for tracking contributions.zeffy.com+1
• Corporate / Internal Platforms (e.g., Givelify) : If you are running an internal company or organization challenge, some workplaces use custom models or platforms like Brackets for Charity where there is no monetary buy-in, and the corporate entity issues the lump-sum donation receipt directly to the winning charity on behalf of the participants.givelify.com

If you'd like to narrow this down, let me know:

• Is this a public fundraiser or a private office pool?
• Do you need official 501(c)(3) tax-exempt receipts for the participants, or just an accounting log of where the money went?

I can recommend the exact step-by-step workflow to set it up.