100+ Successful Fundraising Ideas
You have decided to work on fund raising project and have no time but passionate to work on some great cool ideas, check out our indispensible “100+ Do-It-Yourself Fundraising Ideas” below, with tips on how to raise money for starters in fund raising.
Over 100 ideas are listed below that should give you plenty of ideas on how to choose a fundraising idea, action plan and how to run a successful campaign. The list also gives you ideas depending on the specific occasions and your need to raise funds.
Whether the fund raising activity is for you, your church, charity, PTA, middle or high schools, Christian kids groups, non-profit group, scout troop, youth ministry or sports club, make good use of this guide and, using the knowledge of this resource, I am sure you will succeed in what you are doing.
Guidelines for New Fundraisers
Deciding and working on fund raising is a noble cause and it makes a person feel good about themselves because they're contributing to a good cause, but there are many other reasons. You may be raising money for your favorite charity, your church, your school, a business or any number of other things. Make sure to have clear goals with the money you have targeted to raise from your fundraiser.You should also have a clear time frame for achieving this monetary goal. Some fundraisers only last a day, but there are plenty of others that are ongoing, over a period of time.
- First and foremost question yourself and decide and be sure to know why you want to become a fund raiser. Just as important as the cause, what will you get out of the fundraising?
- Write down your goals and have a vision to know how much money you want to raise with your fund raising.
- Make an action plan to set clear deadlines and a vision plan to achieve your monetary goal
- Take lots of preparation time for yourself
- Organize and plan everyone’s action plans to best achieve your goal
- Plan your expenses. Being a 'professional' fundraiser, it is better to figure in the costs ahead of time. Many people fail simply because they didn't take the time to calculate what the costs were going to be beforehand.
- Being a fundraiser you have to run your campaign with a business mentality, so create an income and expenditure budget and try and stick to it.
- Remember it isn't how much money you make. It is how much money you make after expenses are taken out of the total.
- Checkout all your costs including maintenance costs, advertising costs, material costs bnecause what you are left with after spending is as important than getting the funds.
- Print the fundraising ideas list below to plan and start working on your fund raising ideas.
- Get motivated and make sure you reward yourself and the people who are helping you in the fundraiser, so that they work at beating the other members' totals
- Don't ever treat your fundraiser as a job. Think of it more as having fun.
- Competition is necessary in any oraganisation, helping team members to compete between themselves without hurting anyone leads to a successful and more interesting fundraiser.
There are many ideas and we think we can help by sharing some of our ideas. Please feel free to share your unique fundraising idea that you'd like us to add to the list - Feel free to with details of your suggestions.
100+ Do-It-Yourself Fundraising Ideas
- Annual Dinner Dance or Party
- Annual Event – dance/fireworks/New Year party, etc
- Annual Subscription/Membership
- Art Sale or Auction
- Auction of Promises
- Bad Hair Day
- Balloon Races
- Balls & Dances – mid-summer, Valentines Day, New Year or Christmas
- Barn Dances
- Beetle Drive
- Bingo
- Boot Throwing Competition
- Bucket or Street Collections outside stores and in shopping malls
- Burns Night Celebrations (Scottish population)
- Cake Bake
- Car Boot sales
- Car Wash
- Carol Singing
- Celebrity Speaker Event
- Challenge Events
- Charity Stall for Sales of Second Hand items
- Cheese & Wine Evenings
- Chess Competition
- Christmas Card & calendar sales
- Christmas Fair
- Clay Pigeon Shoot
- Clothes Swap
- Coffee Morning
- Concerts
- Cookery Book
- Cookery Demo or Themed Food Evening
- Country Walk or Ramble
- Craft Fair
- Crazy Golf Match
- Disco
- Donations
- Duck Races
- Easter Egg Hunt
- Face Painting
- Family or Portrait Photo
- Fancy dress party
- Fashion Shows
- Fetes
- Fifty Fifty Sale
- Film Premiere – sponsor or show a new film
- Fireworks Display
- Flower Arranging Demonstration
- Football Match or Tournament
- Fun Runs
- Garden Parties
- Generous Giving from Wealthy Individuals
- Gladiators - It’s a Knockout
- Golf Events
- Grants from Fundraising Bodies & Trusts
- Helping Hand service – offer to cut peoples grass, walk their dogs or look after their home whilst they’re on holiday, asking for a donation in return
- Horse Racing evening
- International Evenings – themed evenings, Italian, Indian, Australian, etc
- Just Giving – use Facebook to let your friends and family know all about it
- Karaoke Evening
- Litter Picking (Sponsored)
- Love Grams for Valentines Day -take orders in advance, on the day deliver a card & candy or card & single rose to each person's dorm room. People may order these for that special someone in their life, but also sometimes for friends. You can make a reasonable amount of $$ , just make sure that you buy the cards and candy in bulk and charge a fair price
- Mile of Pennies
- Mufti, Dress Down or Non-Uniform Day
- Murder Mystery evening
- Music Quiz
- Mystery Tour
- Open Garden Events
- Paintballing
- Pancake Day party
- Parachute Jump
- Plant Sale
- Playstation party – get your mates to bring their PS2 & PS3’s round and charge everyone to play the different games
- Poetry Competition
- Pub Tournaments – e.g. darts, Skittles, darts, pool, cards
- Quit It – give up chocolate /smoking / etc for a week / month
- Quiz Night
- Quizzes
- Raffles. A fifty/fifty raffle is where tickets are sold and half the proceeds go to you. All you have to do is sell the tickets and the winner of the raffle splits the total amount with your group. The lucky winner receives 50% of the amount of ticket sales and your group gets to keep the other 50%. Most people are happy to buy raffle tickets, most ages are happy to sell them.
- Rambles
- Readathon - ideal for primary schools, students get sponsored for every book they read or just a flat donation for pupils that just need to be encouraged to read
- Run a Marathon
- Salsa Night
- Santa Letters writing
- Santa's Grotto
- Scavenger Hunt
- Sell Christmas Gifts
- Seventies Night / Disco
- Singing Telegrams – ideal for birthdays or as a one-off fundraiser for Mothers Day. Ideal for students, call your mother and sing the song of your choosing for a small charge.
- Sponsored Anything
- Sponsored Head/Hair shave
- Sponsored Silence
- Spring clean your wardrobes and sell unwanted contents on eBay
- Spring Flowers & Hanging Baskets – Demonstration & Plant Sale
- Stocks (ancient stocks with people paying to throw sponges soaked in water at the miscreants. Great if you can get the mayor and a few other personalities to take part)
- St Patrick's Day supper (Irish population)
- Strawberries & Cream Tea party – at Wimbledon time. Also how about hand dipped chocolate strawberries as a student graduation or end of exams event
- Talent Show
- Ten Pin Bowling
- Tennis tournament
- Treasure Hunts
- Trips & Outings
- Unwanted Gift Sale – perfect after Christmas
- Used Stamps
- Wine Tastings
- Salsa Night
