Title IX and Booster Club Fundraising: How Booster Money Counts

What Title IX Requires in School Athletics

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bars discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Its athletics regulation, 34 CFR 106.41, took effect on July 21, 1975, and applies to interscholastic, club, and intramural athletics.

Equal opportunity in K-12 athletics is measured in two ways: whether the school meets the athletic interests and abilities of its boys and girls (participation), and whether boys’ and girls’ teams receive equivalent benefits, opportunities, and treatment. Booster money mostly affects the second.

The regulation and the Department’s 1979 Policy Interpretation list the program areas compared:

• Equipment and supplies
• Scheduling of games and practice times
• Travel and per diem allowances
• Coaching and academic tutoring
• Assignment and compensation of coaches and tutors
• Locker rooms, practice facilities, and competitive facilities
• Medical and training facilities and services
• Housing and dining facilities and services
• Publicity
• Recruitment and support services

The Policy Interpretation was written for colleges, but it states that its general principles “will often apply to club, intramural, and interscholastic athletic programs.” Equivalent means “equal or equal in effect.” Identical treatment is not required, and differences that come from the nature of a sport (football equipment costs more) can be justified. Disparities that come from who raised the money cannot.

How Booster Money Counts

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has stated the rule plainly in two documents, and at least one state education agency gives districts the same instruction:

The 2023 K-12 athletics resource. In February 2023, OCR published Title IX and Athletic Opportunities in K-12 Schools. It says schools may accept voluntary support from booster clubs, parents, and others, but those donations cannot justify discrimination. If booster clubs support only boys’ teams, the school must ensure girls’ teams receive equivalent benefits, opportunities, and treatment, and failure to do so may indicate a Title IX violation. The resource cites a federal court decision, Daniels v. School Board of Brevard County (M.D. Fla. 1997), holding that a public school must provide equal opportunity even when its booster clubs raise more for one sex’s teams. As of October 2026 the document no longer loads on the Department’s website, and BoosterClub.org could not confirm whether it has been formally withdrawn. The 1979 Policy Interpretation, which the Department’s website still describes as current, and the athletics regulation remain the framework.

A 2020 resolution letter. Resolving a complaint against Framingham Public Schools in Massachusetts, OCR wrote that a district must provide equivalent benefits and services “regardless of the funding source(s),” that it considers benefits provided through private funds, “including booster club funding,” together with all other benefits, and that where booster clubs assist only teams of one sex, “the district must ensure that teams of the other sex receive equivalent benefits and services” (OCR letter, March 3, 2020). The complaint involved a boys’ ice hockey program supported by a parent-run booster fund with its own donation website and events, and alleged that the boys’ coaches received supplemental pay from the booster club and alumni. The district resolved the complaint by agreement. OCR notes that a resolution letter decides one case and is not a formal policy statement, but its reasoning matches the K-12 resource.

State guidance. Washington’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) tells districts that outside funding and donations “are acceptable, so long as they do not result in disparities,” that “by accepting a particular donation, schools are obligated to ensure that it does not result in a disparity,” and that a school must correct any inequity a donation creates, even with its own funds. OSPI also recommends a consistent system for tracking booster club donations (Washington OSPI (external site)).

The practical meaning: a district cannot answer an equity complaint by saying “the boosters paid for that.” It must match the benefit for the other sex’s comparable teams, decline the gift, or redirect it.

What Districts Watch

Comparisons are made team to team (baseball and softball, boys’ and girls’ basketball) and across the program as a whole.

Districts Increasingly Require Disclosure

Districts and state athletic associations are asking booster clubs to report what they spend, by team, so equity can be measured.

• Kentucky. A state regulation, 702 KAR 7:065, makes the Kentucky High School Athletic Association the state board’s agent for interscholastic athletics and requires it to audit member high schools for Title IX compliance, report the results to the state board each year, and make an annual written certification of Title IX compliance by each school and its superintendent a condition of membership (Kentucky Legislature (external site)). The association’s Title IX annual report includes Form T35, an “Actual Expenditures - Program Comparison Chart” that lists each sport’s equipment, travel and per diem, awards, and facilities spending in separate “School” and “Booster” columns.
• Tennessee. State law requires every school support organization, including booster clubs, to file a statement of total revenues and disbursements with the director of schools before the end of each school year and to get approval before scheduling fundraisers (Tennessee Comptroller (external site)).
• District policies. Many districts require booster clubs to submit spending plans to the athletic director and to route purchases for school teams through district approval. See School District Fundraising Policies and MOUs.

How a Booster Club Stays in Step

1. Before the season, give the athletic director a spending plan broken out by team.
2. Route every purchase of equipment, apparel, travel, or facility work for a school team through the athletic director’s approval.
3. Before funding anything major for one team, ask how the district will provide the equivalent to the comparable team.
4. Never pay coaches directly; any stipend goes through district payroll. See Paying Coaches, Instructors, and Contractors.
5. Keep the books by team so actual spending can be reported in the district’s format.
6. Report actual spending by team at year-end.
7. Accept that the district may decline or redirect a gift, and plan for it.

Single-Sport and All-Sports Clubs

A single-sport club can reduce risk by contributing part of its proceeds to a general athletic fund the district or an all-sports club allocates across teams. Whatever the structure, decisions follow the approved budget, never which team’s parents raised the money (see Fundraising Rules for Booster Clubs).

Beyond Athletics

Title IX covers every education program, not only sports. The detailed comparison framework above was built for athletics, and most music, theater, and academic programs are coeducational, so disparities are less common. A club that funds single-sex activities of any kind applies the same principle: benefits funded for one sex invite the question of what the other receives.