What are effective fundraisng events to raise money for charity?

Question

I am trying to raise money for our local lodge and non-profit groups in my community. We have done the raffle thing but I am interested on having bigger events to raise big money. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Maybe an auction, or sell something.

My husband is in the service and when he was deployed there was a local artist who made up prints of an eagle standing over and guarding American troops. The small prints (no frames included) went for $75 each and the large ones for $150. They sold very well. Maybe you could try something along those lines.

Last month, the spouses group held a pie auction to make funds. Of course, we were using commanders and first sergeants, so maybe you could have CEOs or Presidents, or the mayor, etc. Each person had their own pie and the audience bidding started out at $25 per pie. However, there was a twist. The person (the commander or CEO, etc.) could bid on their own pie as well. And if they won, they could choose to throw it in anyone's face who bid on them. Some of the pies went for a few hundred bucks each and everyone had a great time.

Good luck!

Answer 2

I have done several fundraising events and over time have found a few of the following fun and raise $.
The best are family oriented events. Hold a small carnival with a bbq and music. Most people will donate their time. Merchants are usually good about donating items for a chinese auction.
I have had a bachelor auction at an event where we had food,raffles, 50/50 (start the 50/50 weeks ahead) and music. I put together a picnic basket with two dinners, some gift certificates and a bottle of wine. Each bachelor came with the basket. I went to the recruiters office and grabbed a couple of those guys in uniform, a paremedic and a guy who was in his seventies. We made $1500 in about 45 minutes.
I have had pony rides, a gambling table and a pig roast. At the pig roast we had all those and a raffle, music. We had a guy come set up a real teepee. There were probably 650 people throughout the day. We made about $20,000 from 2pm-10pm.
The best thing you can do no matter what you decide is to advertise with your local paper and radio. Normally if you ask they will reduce the cost or do it for free. also make up posters to put in local business. Good luck and if you need anymore ideas, email!

Answer 3

You do not state which country you are in.How big is big?
As you are in a Lodge you have the use of a hall. How about holding a Country and Western dance with or a, dinner. A new year party. Any sort of party.
A quiz evening, e.g. who wants to a millionaire could become who wants to win a cuppa. It could become a national/international annual competition. there are groups all over the country all over the world that participate in quizzes.
As you are in a lodge, hire out the hall and have a jumble sale, with space for chairs and tables so people can have tea and cake and home made sandwiches and pies,(Yummy) to raise funds, the outlay will be minimal as you have the hall, get your friends to prepare the food and drink,. for the day
Hire out your local cinema, as long as you know you have enough people to buy all your tickets, and get your mayor to contribute, and also, to come along and give a speech before the film starts.Bingo evening with tea or supper, or both included. Possibly you could get some funding from the National Lottery for good causes.Please always remember. It is not your money, so make sure you can gain more money for your causes than your lay outs before you go ahead with anything. Whatever you decide, takes organisation, delegation and co operation of all involved in running a successful charity event. Advertising in your local paper, where i am they never used to charge a fee for charity, also your local radio station or national dependant on how big your event is. Also advertise on teletext and oracle if you are in the U.k. or sky.
I hope all your non profits groups are registered charities,
to all christians i wish merry christmas. To all the jewish people I wish you happy chunukah. and a healthy and happy new year to one and all.
Why not ask established lodge members. They must have experience too?

Answer 4

Benefit concerts are usually good. When it's for a good cause, most bands won't have any problem donating their time as it also gives them more exposure. Solicit businesses and local (and even national) celebrities for items to raffle off and/or give as door prizes. You can also hold a 50/50 drawing and sell tickets during the concerts. Check with local radio stations to see if one of them would be willing to help out with it. I put one on last year and got a great response from an area radio station. They not only promoted it for free but their most popular DJ also came. All we had to do in return was name them as a co-sponsor by putting their logo on the flyers. Keep in mind though that it normally takes a couple of months to put together. I did mine in just over a month but that was definately an exception due to the cause and circumstances. Plus, the first band I approached had already talked about doing something so when I asked them, they were more than happy to help.

An organization I belong to also has canisters around town at high traffic places such as gas stations and popular restaurants.

Maybe some sort of dinner, like mentioned above, with an auction giving people the opportunity to bid on "jobs for a day" where they could do a job around town for the day. (radio dj, newscast person/weatherperson, mayor, etc.) Or you could tailor it to your town and what's popular.

Answer 5

Have a banquet with quality entertainment. Charge $50/couple for a good meal and good singing. Encourage area businesses to donate a product or service that could be auctioned off during the evening. It could be either a silent auction or by a regular auctioneer. Items can range from a time-share condo week to a gift certificate for a massage or haircut. The wider range of value the better. The event needs to be promoted well. Local radio stations will air it as a public service announcement. Local papers will publish a press release. Get the message out to area churches to put in their bulletin. Good luck.

Answer 6

How about some kind of run/walk/other athletic event?

If it's for a lodge how about a casino night? People could pay and get play chips and play money and whoever has the most money at the end of the night can win prizes that have been donated.

Have some kind of theme night where local businesses get involved. Where I live does something called "Taste of the Tier" and local chefs offer tastes from their menus. People pay a fee to get in and there's a silent auction, mostly for things like dinner for 2 at restaurants, etc. It's a great way for restaurants to advertise (they pass out looks of take-out menus at this event) and it's a fun night out. Get local bands or volunteer groups to provide music and any local celebrities, like radio and TV personalities, to MC or be a part of the event. At the taste event we have a "Men Who Cook" contest where local male "celebrities" (ie, the local weatherman, the mayor) have a cook-off. It's pretty fun and it raises a lot of money.

Answer 7

Here are a few ideas:
Hold a "Homeless Experience" dinner - you have a local private school, church, charity, etc. set up a "soup kitchen". Donors give whatever donation they wish and they then get to go through the lunch kitchen for a meal. I even did this to enrich the experience : I had the donors come to a room first that was full of used clothing. They had to put on a used clothing, then they had to be interviewed, then they went through the "soup kitchen". They group was then addressed by leaders of various agencies (sharing info on what they do and those they serve). This is just an idea. Once we did this with teens - they spent the night in the clothing and slept in sleeping bags outside of a church. A police officer asked them to move in the middle of the night (he pulled up in the squad car and said "all of your homeless people must move on". The group moved to a different area down the street. In the morning the "homeless youth" waited outside the church as church members looked at them. They sat in the service (which addressed volunteerism and homelessness) then had a sack breakfast after having to ask a "vounteer" for one. This raised quite a bit of money and after the first year we had many many more teens interested in the "Homeless Experience". They had to pay a fee to participate (their donation) then they did fundraising themselves.

Simple gallon jugs placed in local businesses with attractive labels on them - where people can drop their change - can work if you have volunteers who can distribute the jugs and collect them.

If you have any "celebrities" in town you could ask them to eat dinner and sing a few songs. You set up a dinner buffet at a church - the celebrities attend and eat with the large group - and then they perhaps sing a song, talk to the group, etc. We had a person (country music) play his guitar and sing to the group. We sold dinner tickets.

You can get students who are in art classes to each donate a work of art for the fundraising. You find a place to display the art for one evening. Have a few highschool musicians play music, serve snacks and have the "art gallery sale". Believe me - parents will pay a good amount of money to charity to purchase their child's artwork. Even ask art teachers to donate something they have created and auction these off.

Come up with a symbol for a charity and then talk a local fast food chain into selling the paper copies to their customers (we used a picture of a house to raise money for a shelter - for each dollar the burger restaurant taped one "house" on their wall). This partcularly works if you connect with someone who owns a few restaurants.

One county is using my idea: Donate a Dollar - get a Kiss.
The schools are doing this one. If a student donates a dollar they get a hershey's kiss. The class that donates the most money gets a certificate and the school with the most money raised gets a glass sculpture of a Kiss.

That is all I've got right now.

Answer 8

Um, i think you can try out concerts by local high school students- make sure that they can really sing or play an instrument well. Try stand-up acts or a drama that has been daringly written by kid. Call in a local celebrity who doesn't have to check his/her schedule to say yes, lol, that was a joke. Make someone host the show- make sure he/she has a good sense of humour. Pass out flyers through people supporting the event, and paste poster legibly wherever bills are allowed. Graphiti on privately-owned walls through comissioned artists can also work. Good luck with the event.

Answer 9

Finding a way for fund raising events for charity, My family and I used to have plate sales whenever one of our kids was planning on getting married, one of our daughters would print the tickets to sell and the rest of the family would each take ten tickets to their place of work, and they not only sold them but they would take more of them because the plates would consist of bar-b-q-meat with all the trimmings including bread and drink, we usually would raise more than three thousand dollars and we would give it to the newly weds to help them buy whatever they needed. We always told the people for what the money we were raising was for and you know, they usually said that if they went out to eat it would cost them more then what they paid for the ticket. I can tell you more but, it would take a whole page to inform you on the ways you can raise money for your cause.

Answer 10

black african american edu.