Ideas For Fundraising Activities

Ideas for fundraising activities are plentiful, as anyone can see by looking in their local newspapers or perusing the Internet, whether it is a church, school, or other nonprofit organization that needs to raise money. The ages of the members of the organization will help to determine the kinds of activities that will be involved, as will the number of volunteers one can rely on to help. Another top priority is the amount of money the group needs to raise. Generally, that goal is the first thing known because there is a specific something that needs to be paid for. Whether it's a new church organ, school playground equipment, or transportation for a trip somewhere, the specific funds needed is usually known.

Where youngsters are involved, selling something door to door is acceptable, and there are quite a large number of items that can be included in the ideas for fundraising activities. Food is usually good, and if it appeals to the buyer's sweet tooth, it's even better. Cookies and candy are universal favorites. Adults like things like gourmet coffees or gourmet nuts as well, so they might be considered. Sometimes the pleasure of the purchase is in the future, as with cookie dough. Another item that buyers must wait to enjoy are flower bulbs. The anticipation of spring flowers is a pleasure a great many people enjoy, and they will purchase bulbs for that purpose.

Simply asking people to come enjoy a meal is one of the more popular ideas for fundraiser events. If it becomes an annual event, people will return year after year to enjoy the turkey dinner, spaghetti, or whatever. That kind of fundraiser usually takes serious organization and a great many people to pull it off, so it will depend on the size of the group whether this will be a viable option. This is often combined with a silent auction of items people are likely to buy, and that will boost sales considerably. Ideas for fundraiser events are most successful if they are fun.

Product sales don't have to be limited to food or flowers. Ideas for fundraising activities could include magazines. Since some of these are published for everyone--children and teens, young adults, families, and older adults--there are titles that will interest most people. Another currently popular item that sells well is the household candle. Fragrant candles are especially popular during the holiday season, but many are appropriate year round. Some give the impression something good has just come out of the oven, while others are pleasant floral or outdoorsy scents. They can be found in so many stores that it's easy to see that a lot of them are being purchased, and that is the primary reason they are included in ideas for fundraiser events. Candles, of course, give off light as well. Christians will remember the Biblical references to a different kind of light. "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness." (John 12:46)

When there are plenty of young people to recruit, one of the ideas for fundraiser events might be a car wash. A few adults can supervise youngsters who will do the work. As long as the event is held on a well-trafficked street, and advance publicity makes the public aware of it, this can raise a lot of money. Another choice among ideas for fundraising events that would require youth and young adults to participate is to have a walk-a-thon or bicycle relay to raise money. Sponsors who could be asked to pay per lap or a flat fee could be the source of considerable sums of money.

Age wouldn't matter at all if one of the ideas for fundraising activities were a yard sale/garage sale. Advance notice needs to be sent out to those people who might be donors of sale items, with all the pertinent information about when and where to drop off things, what items would be accepted (and which would not), and the date of the event itself. Then enough people should be recruited to tag and sort items, and a group to actually make the sales, and someone to keep track of the money throughout the day. It is complicated, but with organization can be quite successful.

When children are involved in carrying out the ideas for fundraiser events, the adults in charge must be certain the ground rules are very specific. They need to know what to say to potential customers before and after a sale, and how to respond when there is no sale. Keeping track of the money collected should be the job of an adult supervisor. Most adults have trouble saying "no" to a well-mannered child who is selling something for his or her school, scout troop, or other youth group.

When the organization is just adults, different guidelines are required, but still need to be included in the ideas for fundraising activities. Organization is the key to success, so once the fundraiser has been chosen, a precise plan needs to be made, and the details distributed to everyone who will be part of the event. When everyone knows exactly what his responsibility is, things run smoothly.

Online Fundraising Ideas

Online fundraising ideas can be compared to the sands of the seashore; they just seem to be almost too numerous to count. Many companies that want to sell their products are eager for your committee that is tasked with being the fundraiser engine for your particular organization to choose their method of selling. Many candy and cookie companies have the same methods of raising money, probably unique to one company decades ago, but finally adopted by one another as they were deemed successful. Today there are so many cool and fun online fundraising ideas for getting more money into your organization's coffers that it will take some really thorough research and lots of lively discussion around the committee table to finally decide on the right one for your purposes. There are many ideas out there on how to raise money, but there is one universal principle that seems to permeate most all fundraising chairperson's minds: the easier the better. The less stress, the fewer details and the less mess are certainly the dream and goal of most which are tasked with raising money for some organization.

Getting on the Internet and finding online fundraising ideas is certainly the easy part. Deciding on what kind is, of course the biggest challenge, so if you are a fundraising chairperson who must come with ideas, first consider who is on your committee with you. There is a committee, isn't there? Look at each person closely and ask yourself if each of those persons has the moxey to ask other people for donations because those are the kinds of people you will want helping assist your efforts for certain kinds of fundraisers. Asking people for donations can be hard, and you only want people who are cut out for that kind of work to be on your committee. Even if you are selling frozen cookie dough, the committee has to be filled with people who would ask Vladimir Putin or Simon Cowell to buy frozen cookie dough.

Once the chairperson knows they have a great team of hungry wolves backing him or her up, then the choice of what kind of fundraiser to choose is easier. The hungrier the wolves, the more elaborate the online fundraising ideas can be considered and the more profit can be anticipated. Let's take the case of the parent's band committee that must raise twelve thousand dollars for new band uniforms. The twelve people on that committee are absolute tigers when it comes to their kids' band experience and those old rags they are wearing will not cut it for the anticipated trip to the Rose Bowl parade in fourteen months. Checking the Internet for online fundraising ideas, the committee has decided on three incredibly intricate projects including a celebrity golf tournament, a cow pie raffle and car smash night and a rubber duck regatta. These very huge projects, each of them a nightmare in terms of volunteers and logistical planning, can be handled because of a very strong committee who will go out and actively seek financial help from major players in town.

But the young mother who has been asked by her preschool to raise twelve hundred dollars for a spring bus trip to a dairy farm and lunch out afterwards is not only afraid to ask her grocery clerk to double check a price for her, but the two other ladies that volunteered to help her won't even buy toilet paper if there is anyone in the checkout line behind them. So fundraising is going to be a whole other issue for these three ladies. In this case, our timid three ladies found on the Internet some online fundraising ideas that were definitely non-confrontational. The most promising was going to be an online auction which would picture a number of donated items from various parents to be bid on and sold. The best way would have been to go to merchants to ask for donated objects or services, but these ladies were a little too, well, shy to ask. Another of the online fundraising ideas gleaned from the Net was to put up a board in the main hall of the pre-school and place on it things that a person will give and take for various goods and services. For example, one woman decided to give twenty five dollars for a meal fixed by another family from the preschool and another woman pledged ten dollars a week to a parent who would drop her little girl off on the way home each day.

But online fundraising ideas using the Internet can be quite creative. Take the two women who wanted to celebrate their turning thirty by taking the annual polar bear plunge in the town's lake. Wanting to raise money for breast cancer, they began blogging and asking for donations, saying that for two hundred dollars they would wear their original prom dresses, for three hundred they would add a tiara and for four hundred the clothes actually got skimpier. The ladies raised a lot of money that way, but all the bids came in online. The power of the Net when someone can harness it is a powerful tool for fundraisers to use. So both using the Net to actually raise funds and using it for gathering ideas is a great way to get people motivated and excited about the fundraising challenge. Making money for a good cause is exciting, but heaven's angels get excited for a different reason: "Likewise I tell you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." (Matthew 15:10)

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