Top 10 Fundraising Ideas to Help You with Your CAUSE!
* Simple letter writing – If you are doing something through a school or club, letter writing is ideal. You can use a professional letter head from the organziation you are affiliated with, give a short introduction about yourself, about your cause, why you believe in raising the money necessary, and what you will be doing with it. Also offer a follow up and remember to mention you are grateful. Such letters can be sent out to family, neighbours, friends, local business’, co-workers, even some larger companies. There are endless oppurtunities.
* The famous bake sale – Perhaps design a bake sale with a twist? Incorporate a theme or run it over a holiday. Remember to keep your costs down so that you make a profit, and make sure you have a great location. Advertise! Tell everyone you know, and encourage people to come out and support you. Don’t limit yourself to mom’s secret brownie recipe. Think cheap food items like hot dogs, or smoothies too (very low cost to make)
* Skit Night – Get your group together and choreograph a skit night. Again, you can run with a theme, or you can do stand up comedy, live music, whatever talents you can bring together. The bigger the group the easier this is to do, but even if there’s only one or two of you, this is still do-able. You can either charge a small fee at the door and ask for donations, or simply ask for donations. Again, advertise! Tell eveyrone you know so they come out and support you
* Contact local bands – At one time we had a connection to a local band. They offered to play for us and we agreed on sharing the profits. This night became a big success
* Have a intramural one day athletic leauge – Get some teams together to sign up for a one day leaugue at your local field. Each team has to pay a certain amount. It’s all about having fun!! Try to get something donated as the winning prize – perhaps a gift certificate to a local cafe or restaurant
* CLEAN! – this is easy, quite fun, and everyone can do it! If you are on a campus the best thing to do is go door to door, knocking on apartments and dorms and offering to clean in exchange for a donation – tell them what you are raising money for – Roll a vacuum around with you, grab a bottle of windex and arm yourself with a sponge! This has also proven to be really really successful
* Art Show – somewhere inside we’re all talented artists. Get your group together and have everyone paint or draw a few prints. Advertise your art sale to the local community and consider even having it as an auction. Art can sell for quite a bit, especially if its good. And if you have the time to do this, its excellent
* Car Wash – the standard good old car wash. Works every time!
* Yard Sale – we ALL have things piled up that we wont ever use again and we know we want to get rid of. Instead of throwing it out or giving it away, use the items to have a yard sale. All the profits can go directly to your cause.
* Holiday Sale – If its Valentines Day think candy-grams. If its Christmas think secret santa’s. If it’s summer, think a balloon drive with little messages to brighten peoples day! Whatever it may be, design a drive! We had a candy drive for valentine’s day where we delivered candy-grams with personal notes all across campus. Each candy gram was $5 and we ended up selling several hundred!
Bottom line: Brainstorm, and have dedication to the end goal. Hard work always pays off. These ideas are not only beneficial to raising the money you will need, but they are FUN and a great way to get to know your group, and yourself.
