Fundraising Projects
The first step is to check within your own community to see what fundraising projects are available. Many grocery stores and restaurants have programs in place to help groups like yours out. For example, you may be able to link your members’ savings cards to your charitable organization and receive a portion of their purchases back as a donation. Restaurants often allow you to set a fundraiser night at their location and receive a portion of sales back. Others will allow you to sell coupon books or savings cards on behalf of their establishment.
Raffles are good fundraising projects at annual luncheons or other events. Local establishments are good sources for obtaining items to raffle off. They will often donate samples, gift certificates, merchandise etc. If you have a newsletter or a website, offer to give them free advertising as an incentive for a donation.
Of course there’s the old standby of catalog sales to meet fundraising goals. While many people shy away from going door to door selling merchandise, they may be open to emailing their family and friends. In addition to providing your members with catalogs and order forms, provide them with an easy to forward email advertising your fundraiser. If you have a website, be sure to provide a link to it, along with easy payment options such as PayPal.
Golf tournaments are lucrative fundraising projects but be prepared for a lot of work. You can sell hole sponsorships for $100 a hole. If you sell all 18 holes, you’ve just raised $1800. You will need members to go out into the community and sell these sponsorships as well as obtain signage for each hole. You will pay the golf course a certain fee per golfer which will be covered by the golfer’s fees. Be sure to charge enough to cover the golf course fees, cart rentals, lunch or dinner and a healthy profit margin. If you can get cases of soda or water donated, send a volunteer out in a golf cart loaded with a full ice chest and sell the drinks to the golfers. When the golfers check in, sell raffle tickets, mulligans (free shots) and 50/50 board tickets. During lunch or dinner, hold the raffle and call off the numbers on the 50/50 board. The final number left on the board wins the pot and splits it 50/50 with the charity.
Garage sales are a great way to clean out the closets and raise funds. After the sale, call your local thrift store to come take the leftovers. Another fundraising project is to hold an eBay-athon. Encourage members to sell a few household items on eBay during a particular time period and donate their earnings to the charity. If your organization has a PayPal account, they can even specify that the buyer pays directly into that account.
No matter what your club chooses to do as a fundraiser, be sure and post it on your website, email the info to all members and encourage them to forward to their contacts, provide your members with flyers, catalogs and incentives to get involved.
