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Other Great Fundraising Ideas
Sell Cookie Dough
Selling baked goods is a time-honored tradition of fundraising, especially for little kids, but sometimes a bake sale just won’t cut it! Instead, try a product fundraising campaign where your team sells cookie dough or other fun goodies to your supporters.
Your supporters get to take home their products and decide when and how they want to eat them, and your fundraising cause benefits!
If cookies aren’t your thing, don’t worry. There’s a whole world of things that you can sell to fundraise, including chocolate bars, popcorn, lollipops, and fruit snacks. Choose your favorite treat and get selling!
50/50 Raffle
50/50 raffles are simple and extremely low cost. To prepare, all you’ll need to buy is a roll of raffle tickets. If your kids’ school or club has a parents’ evening, that’s the perfect time for the raffle.
To organize the raffle, ask event attendees to buy the tickets, and then after the drawing, the winner takes home half of the proceeds and the organizer (that’s you!) takes home the other half.
As a giving incentive, make sure to display how much money is in the growing pot! Just remember that like other raffles, 50/50s are best used to supplement fundraising events. And the more people who participate, the bigger the pot!
Trivia Night
Test your supporters’ wits with a trivia night. Partner with a local restaurant, bar, or coffee shop to have some fun and raise some funds. The location should be determined by cost and if kids are attending.
You can collect donations throughout the night, and depending on where you host, the restaurant might be willing to split the night’s proceeds with you.
Make sure your questions are catered to the expected skill level of your crowd (kids, young professionals, etc.), and pick an emcee who will keep the night light and fun.
Cook-Off Fundraiser
Are you a talent in the kitchen? Do you have a lot of friends and supporters who love to cook? A cook-off fundraiser might just be your ticket to success. You can even host it at your kids’ school.
Have participants enter their culinary creations into a contest, judged by event attendees. To vote, ask attendees to deposit a donation in their favorite food’s donation box.
At the end of the competition, tally everyone’s donation collections and the chef with the most money wins. To maximize participation, be sure to promote, promote, promote! Depending on their age, the kids can be the chefs or tasters or both!
Recipe Book Sales
Selling recipe books is a great fundraising idea because it’s affordable to set up and allows you to ask for donations in exchange for a provided product.
Put together a cook book with the best recipes that you and your supporters have. Then, sell the book within your community. Your kids can get involved as sales people for the books!
Depending on your budget, you can either have the book professionally bound and delivered or you can do a digital version of the book for free on the computer that’s emailed out. Its appearance is less important than the quality of the recipes, so curate only the best!
Karaoke Night Fundraiser
Partner with a local bar (no kids) or restaurant (kids attending) to host a karaoke night to raise funds for your cause. Get the equipment donated and be sure to promote the evening in advance. Put up signs in your kids’ school and tell all other parents.
To fundraise, charge a cover for the night and encourage attendees to vote for their favorite “acts” with their dollars.
You can also make arrangements with the restaurant that’s hosting to split proceeds and/or set up food and drink specials. If the bar/restaurant plan doesn’t work out, you can always host at a community center.
Teachers in Jail
“Teachers in Jail” is a great fundraising idea for kids and schools. It’s a free fundraiser that centers around competition between classrooms. It’s a big hit with kids of all ages!
During the fundraiser, students in each class raise money. If the collective total of a class reaches a certain threshold, the teacher then gets put in “jail.”
“Jail” simply means students get a free period and a break from class. What kid would pass up that chance for a free period? Prior to the fundraiser, be sure to recruit a team of teachers and students to work to throw each teacher in “jail.”
Shoe Drive Fundraiser
To hold a shoe drive, your organization can have your community donate their gently used (or even new) shoes to an organization like Funds2Orgs. We all know your children’s growing feet mean you’re constantly buying new shoes for them!
Funds2Orgs will actually come and pick up the shoes, weigh the shoes, and pay your organization based on a price per pound.
Once Funds2Orgs has collected your shoes, they then sell the shoes to small business owners in countries such as Honduras and Togo with the goal of encouraging local economic growth. Plus your kids’ outgrown shoes don’t go to waste!
Car Wash
If its spring, summer, or even early fall and you’re looking to host a classic fundraiser, a car wash might be just what you need. If your kids are young, you’ll want more parent involvement, but high schoolers should be able to run a car wash with minimal supervision.
As most people know, to host a car wash you’ll gather the supplies, set up shop in a high-traffic parking lot, and offer car washes to passersby.
To fundraise, you can either ask for donations for your handy-work or you can charge a small fee per wash. Either way, make sure you’re early to set up and put promotional flyers around the community, like your kids’ schools.
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