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Creative Fundraising Ideas for Non Profit Organizations


There are many 'non profit' fundraising ideas. Being a non-profit organization, one always has to think outside the box and test new methods of raising money.

Top 'Non-Profit' Fundraising Ideas

Non-profit organization is not an easy assignement but a noble cause, every single day, non-profit organizations are fighting for survival. Without a proper source of cash, unlike regular many regular beneficial organizations, non-profit organizations are expected to survive, prosper and function without a proper income source.

Are you in the non profit business and do not know how to manage your organization, how to deal with your expenses, keen to try raising money but stuck to know where how and when?. You are working on a truly worthwhile cause and the organization depends on your decision to accept the challenge or run away.

Being a winner and accepting the challenge is the reason why you are here on this page and, for your information, we have many fundraising ideas to help you get started. We have listed some of those that have worked over the years. Take a look at our unique fundraising ideas on this website.

The website has a collection of exciting, workable, fun and fresh ideas! These unique ideas are successful and can be well implemented to support your goal to raise money.

Take a look at the best fundraising ideas for non-profit organizations:

Non-profit organization badly need money and as there is no regular source of income. One has to have excellent ideas to raise money to support your organization. With these fundraising ideas, you can succeed to raise the necessary money required to help your organization prosper.


  • Candy bar fundraisers
    Festive seasons are the best time to raise funds. Festivals like Halloween and Valentine’s Day are the time to increase your revenues by helping people who are interested to celebrate with candy treats at home or gifts for their dear ones.

    This strategy works all year but it works best before these holidays. Parents are expected to have candy treats at home for all the ghosts, witches, and goblins in costume and also help people who are in need of supportive gifts.

    Take an initiative to sell these candies which helps people to save their time and energy and avoid rush hour shopping at the supermarket.

  • Pizza fundraisers
    Pizza is one of the most popular dishes and most folk all around the world like and fall for the pizza treat. Use this strategy and add in a twist to make it a unique fundraising idea. You know who are the lovers of pizza? Yes - your target should be a big School, colleges or universities.

    Once you know who you should reach out to, team up with the most popular pizzeria in town. Ask them for special discounts since you’re going to be buying in bulk. Tell them that it’s for a good cause and there’s a good chance that they’ll agree to it. (And it will help them to get a lot of publicity). Make a deal with them that if someone from the college or university calls them for delivery, they need to tell the caller that someone’s going to knock on their doors and sell pizza.

    This works out best on weekdays as the most students are at dorm rooms, cater to the needs of the students, sell them at their doorstep. Since they will have no time and prefer someone coming to their doorstep they’ll be more than happy to buy from you.

  • Discount card fundraiser
    One of those fundraising ideas that are win-win, this is best suited when you are in a large group and this may sound complicated but an easy option to make some funds.

    Get affiliated with big business especially the supermarkets are a great choice. Set up a special account for your group and take a deal from them to discount on products as you are referring clients. It makes sense for the business to tie up with you.

    Ask the business to give points, you accumulate points that can be converted to cash and the business gets a lot of new customers.

  • Donate a car
    This is an unique idea (which I have seen in action). It's a classic win-win-win situation. Are you keen to know how this works?.

    Make an agreement with a local dealer who can loan the car for display and willing to sell a car to you at a discounted price. In return, it advertises the dealer’s information.

    Now set up a raffle. Plan a strategy to sell tickets and to display the car. Employ people to sell more tickets and give them booklets and be sure to get your calculations beforehand to make sure that you earn substantially more than the selling price of the car. Once the raffle is done, pay for the car and award it to the winner.

    The dealer’s happy. and the winner is also happy. As an alternative, you can also find people who are willing to donate their old cars for free. Believe me, there are a lot of people out there looking to take back precious garage space. You’re basically doing them a favor by taking their clunkers off of their hands.

Creative Non Profit Fundraising Ideas

Depending on the structure and membership of any organization, how they raise funds can vary. Being a professional fundraiser you should have charitable objectives and a clear mission statement.

Many organizations have developed over the years using these strategies and you can be creative in writing down your own strategy with your team effort - evaluating the strengths, weakness and opportunities in your organization.
There are many examples but we have listed few here for your understanding -
  • A local church derives it's income from its congregation
  • A small charity that has income from a wide variety of sources including rental, membership, an occasional bequest and government grants
  • One large charity which benefits cats has over 50% of it's income from bequests.
None of these are necessarily right or wrong, it's just how they have developed over the years and shows the emphasis of their fundraising campaigns.

Non-Profit Fundraising Ideas

The key to success in any fundraising companies is to get funds from several places, rather than just one. And also keep in mind to apply for grants at local Trusts & Foundations, but also approach local companies for match-funding (they match your donations dollar-for-dollar), as well as the more traditional fundraising routes.

As a charity or non-profit organization, gaining goodwill will enable people to consider match funding or even sizeable donations. And also use the strategy of companies that are eager to publicize themselves. Take a look around - who is in need of advertising? - and use this knowledge to reach out to such companies who are eager to pay that extra money to fund your organization.

If they think that this is a large and important project and if they feel they will gain publicity for giving to it, they're far more likely to write that check. And it is always just as important how much you have achieved in reaching out to companies than how much money you acquire.

If you can get one small funder on board to help you, this makes a lot of difference while approaching organizations for larger sums. And also make sure to approach a small funding organization, then raising a similar sum yourself can help show others your own committment.

Recommended Resources

Storytelling for Grantseekers: The Guide to Creative Nonprofit Fundraising. If you need help on writing a grant proposal but not sure how to write and have no training, this book is designed to help you to overcome the hurdles commonly experienced by fundraisers.

Car donation: Sometimes people don't only want to donate money, they also prefer donating items such as their used vehicle particularly when they've just replaced it with a new car.

Beyond the Bake Sale: 100 Innovative Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits - Everyone knows the fund-raising value of traditional bake sales and car washes, this works well for many groups, This book lists 100 ideas which will suit your group perfectly.

You might choose one idea and add elements from another to make it fit your needs, or you might combine a few for a super-sized event, the goal is to get your organization excited about new, fun ways to raise money.

Golf Tournament Events: Take a look at how you can create a well-known, well-sponsored annual event that will draw crowds and raise funds.

Fundraising Companies in the USA & UK

There are thousands of companies that aim to help you with your fund raising efforts. Take a look at some directories that you can use -

Fundraising Directory: From A to Z, list of Apparel to Trees & Wreaths browse through the bank of ideas.

EveryClick.com : an easy to use ecommerce site that can help raise $$$ or ���'s for your charitable organization. This has been useful for the noble causes like Cancer Research, Diabetes & Hospitals.

FundraisingWeb : best fundraising resource which has a comprehensive directory that allows you to browse by State, Country, fundraising ideas and products