Fundraising ideas

[Znoober]

Didn't know which section to put this question under, so this'll have to do. Does anyone know some good fundraising ideas? We need to raise about �3,000 in a year for an U14s rugby tour. We've thought of the usual ones - sponsored head shave, car washing, etc. Anyone got any different ones?

[apricot]

Download a quiz from the internet or make one up. Print sheets and people pay �1. I can make a quick �200 just running round the office in a lunchtime. A bottle of wine or chocs for a prize and everyone is happy. People just love a quiz. NB no the cash wasn't for me but a charity I was involved with.

[monty0703]

Perhaps you could get a local business to put up a prize (e.g. stereo, mountain bike??) and raffle that. The business could get free promotion from your raffle. Perhaps a local business would be willing to sponsor the team.

[woofgang]

An auction of promises...adults could contribute something they are good at...the kids could auction room cleaning or healthy food eating promises, i bet their mums would pay a bit for that....sell tickets to a non event this works best in busy communities where you charge people not to get dressed up and turn out on a saturday night, instead their ticket entitles them to slob around at home without feeling guilty. A slave auction...sell of the players, plus anyone else that you can rope in for a couple of hours slavery...doing whatever the purchaser requires provided its decent and legal...hope this helps

[Kit]

Get a restaurant to donate a free meal and arrange a specific (secret) date with them. Then everyone gives a donation to put their names into a blank diary, and whoever ends up the nearest to the date wins the grub.

[quattro]

If you all live fairly near to each other have a Safari Supper do a starter at one house a main course at another house and a dessert at a third house sold through tickets of course . Quizzes are great ways of raising money as everyone loves a quiz ,''Ironman'' competitions with darts,dominoes, pool being the sports ,and car or walking rallys where you have to find your way to a venue by working out clues on the way. If you use a social event as the basis for raising tour money you will have a load of fun as well.

[mickeymiller]

First of all, congrats on getting your fundraising started! Raising support for a worthy cause can be super rewarding. But obviously, if you're not an official non-profit, it can be really tricky finding a good way to build support for your cause.

One route you might want to consider: setting up a homepage for your group on a fundraising website. Having a group homepage online makes organizing and fundraising infinitely easier ... And though the majority of fundraising sites require you have official non-profit status, many good ones only require that you are a group - and will give you plenty of the tools you need.

For example, one good site is Meet Up (www.meetup.com), who allow you to fundraise directly to your account, and register a group without having an official non-profit status - and they cover groups around the world, while giving you some tools to do event management. But the tools they offer are a little limited outside of fundraising.

Another good option would be Empowered.org (www.empowered.org), a platform that also helps small groups fundraise and organize (regardless of non-profit status). They also work for international groups - and offer a fair amount of useful tools, like the ability to organize your group or to create volunteer activities and fundraising campaigns for more targeted ways to raise support.

Or you could always try to send up your own PayPal account to link to you directly to help you fundraise, but this is a little trickier and a bit inflexible.

Good luck getting started moving forward! Hope that helped.

[jickmagger]

Design your own mug and then get people to buy them before you order them. This way you know how many to buy and wont be left with boxes full of cups. My son's school uses this company http://www.schoolbears.co.uk/product/design-your-own-mug/ and they raise a lot of cash with printed mugs, personalised bears, water bottles etc.
Here is a huge list of other fundraising ideas: http://www.cafod.org.uk/Fundraise/Guide-to-fundraising/A-Z-of-fundraising-ideas