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Fundraising Ideas


The 4 greatest fundraising ideas curred from the most successful fundraisers, organizations, blogs, and groups available.

There comes a time when you would need to raise funds for a cause; this could be medical, personal, project, political, or even natural events, etc. In any case, you will need great fundraising ideas on how to make the most of your fundraising project or campaign in order to attract more donations. In this article, we aim at giving you the best fundraising ideas that can help you raise funds easily and quickly for a genuine cause that affects your life in one way or the other. We have also published a detailed article on fundraising tips that you may like to go through if need be after going through these fundraising ideas


1. Decide which category or type your fundraising idea belong


Fundraising could be fun but also challenging especially when you are thinking out the best way to start and how to communicate your information to the intended audience. In this case, it is best to sit back and think really of what category or type of fundraiser you are trying to create. This is important because the category of fundraising you choose will determine so many things such as the language to use, the mode you should communicate the idea down to how to come up with the best title for the fundraiser. Here are some of the categories, or types you should look at, each having their own list of ideas.

These ideas are a summary of a long article taken from this page [wildapricot] if you don’t have time like me; you can get all the ideas here in a summary list and can relate the rest. We have organized them to give you a hint of all the good stuff that can energize and grease you for a successful fundraiser. 

Categories of fundraising ideas

i. Quick Fundraising Ideas
  1. Prepare a well-reasoned script and make donation plea phone calls from people on your contact list.
  2. Consider an emailing campaign: a thought-provoking email campaign for fundraising could come in handy especially from people who value email conversations
  3. Offer to help for an eminent need (e.g washing for an overtly busy friend, picking their kids, assisting on obvious tasks that need more hands, etc.)
  4. Use envelopes to distribute your cause. A well-prepared cause in an envelope for the busy bosses or colleagues could land you some cool change.
  5. Sell event tickets (if you have any event coming up closer to you, get to the organizers and offer to distribute their tickets for a nice stipend)
  6. Sell Gift-Cards: Partner with a website that specializes in fundraising through gift cards. Through their website, you can buy a supply of gift cards that you then sell on to your supporters at face value. Whenever they use their gift card to pay, your charity automatically receives a donation of up to 10% depending on the retailer, without the person using the card having to pay any extra.
  7. Share donation forms (try house to house donation form sharing and inscribe the cause appropriately so people know why they are donating)
  8. Use Gift-Wrapping or Awards-wrapping fundraiser (most people give back when they receive an award for an achievement or a gift for a cause, use this approach to solicit for donation)
  9. Contact a fundraising platform, organization, an expert, or a successful fundraiser and genuinely ask for their advice and experiences
  10. Consider Crowdfunding use the online fundraising mediums to communicate your message and get the funds you need. 
ii. Contest Fundraising Ideas
  1. Use pet animals content (e.g. Cutest pet animal could be a brilliant idea)
  2. Organize a gaming competition
  3. If you have a skill, challenge others and put a price, or award, invite others and do the needful
  4. Organize a pay per view event in your area
  5. Organize a sharpshooting event and invite the best players in the game
  6. Organize a cute baby content and a pay to vote from your network of friends and colleagues
  7. If you live near waters, organize a water event
  8. Organize a weight-loss challenge and have the organizer pay for every ton of weight lost by participants
  9. Organize a photographic contest and invite the best artist to come with their collections and receive venue fee
  10. Get craft men together for the art
  11. Consider a dancing competition on a  pay-per-view donation
  12. Organize a reality show and have viewers pay to vote for the best performers
  13. Consider a birthday pool
iii. Ongoing Fundraising Ideas
  1. Call for sponsorship (got a great idea, reach out to sponsor and narrate your story)
  2. If you have a website where you sell or offer services for free when buying or checking out on a service or product, ask for the change
  3. Is your idea an exciting one? Use a pay-to-register style
  4. Take out some items you wouldn’t need and recyclers will come calling
  5. Do a car donation program for your wealthy friends to bring in those they are no longer using
iv. Event Fundraising Ideas
  1. Open House (Collaborate with a local landmark or venue that isn't normally accessible to the public, and arrange a day when visitors can get a guided tour. You can sell tickets, and also offer a concession stand.)
  2. Organize a play (look round for thrift stores, and amateur dramatics societies for a showcase, and you can sell tickets to raise funds)
  3. County Fair (be part of an upcoming event by partnering with organizers and use the opportunity to raise funds)
  4. Relay (consider organizing a relay event)
  5. Reverse Raffle (sell ticket with wining prices)
  6. Organize an art auction in your community
  7. Organize a baking event
  8. Do bowling for some bucks, 
  9. Consider cakewalk
  10. Organize a community car wash
  11. Consider hosting a movie night or movie on the lawn
  12. Do a community yard sale
  13. Organize a craft show
  14. Happy hour with a drinking event may be a good thing to consider
  15. Consider pop walk, dance marathon, dunk tank, educational clinic, or clothing swap
  16. Host a discussion (organize a discussion group within your community)
  17. Organize a pancake breakfast
  18. What about pool party
  19. Do a dinner party auction
  20. Organize a hiking day event
  21. Consider a pop-up picnic
  22. What about a spa day, traveling dinner, living room social, singles charity night, world record attempt party, treasure hunt
  23. Take advantage of a community cleaning day
  24. Try a golf tournament
v. Fundraising Ideas For Kids
  1. Invite parent and children for a lego night and charge the entrance fee
  2. Petting zoo could be a cool event for kids
  3. What about carnation sell
  4. Organize play events 
  5. Call with for breakfast with a popular character
  6. Children love candy why not lure them with one
  7. A reading, painting, and Santa event won’t be a bad idea either
  8. Try a sleeping contest event
vi. Mega Fundraising Ideas
  1. Organize a golf tournament
  2. Try Bear, Wine, food, and popular drinks festival
  3. Do a fashion show
  4. Throw a house party
  5. Throw a live concert
  6. Organize a carnival
  7. Try casino and gaming night
  8. Launch a charity theater event
  9. People like poker tournaments try one
  10. Boardgame tournament
  11. Video game tournament
  12. Throw a newlywed game night party
  13. Movie industry night party
  14. Call out dancing stars
  15. What about running a car show
  16. Hot air balloon festival may not be a bad idea
  17. Try community or regional food festival
  18. Talent shows could be another great way to raise funds for both organizers and sponsors
  19. A football tournament could be a great idea
vii. Online Fundraising Ideas
  1. Text-to-give (get a good company that can help carry your idea via text-messaging for donors to respond with donation)
  2. Facebook Ads could land people on your page easily and convert them to your network of donors
  3. Crowdfunding [AmtelWebWunding] is a great place to raise fund (we provide the simplest way for people to donate to your project or cause online)
  4. Do social media challenge
  5. Social media blitz would make sense as well
  6. Try the amazon smile program
viii. Raffle Fundraising Ideas
  1. Do a 50 / 50 raffle
  2. Consider spa day raffle
  3. Do limited ticket vehicle raffle
  4. Vacation raffle
ix. Fundraising Sale Ideas
  1. Consider the charity calendar
  2. Succulent sales (You can either sell the plants directly with a small markup or have volunteers report them into interesting objects (plastic dinosaurs or teacups are sure to be a hit) for added visual interest)
  3. Prepackaged food sale will not be a bad idea
  4. Sounds funny but Rubber Wristband Sale could be a good idea because kids just love them
  5. Do customized T-shirt sales (with titles of recent events, popular figures, or places)
  6. The chocolate sale will be good to give a shot
  7. Use greeting cards to send donation message
  8. Get popular figures to sign some dedicated books and use them to source for fund
  9. Organize a memorial
  10. Organize your community recipes into a book to sell
  11. Try community coupon book
  12. Christmas three sale won’t be bad
  13. Do a VIP packing sale where it is permitted
  14. Print and sell popular photographs
  15. Have people donate to have their names engraved on bricks and wall in popular places
  16. Organize a farmers market booth
x. Unique Fundraising Ideas
  1. Organize singing telegram (call popular singers to grace the show and charge an entrance fee or sale tickets)
  2. Organize meals with celebrities (don’t try Cristiano Ronaldo, he is expensive), haha! Just kidding! 
  3. Taste great meals with the best chefs in town (think about it yourself) 
  4. Renew house numbers painting with some good colors and have the community pay you for it
  5. Organize an eating challenge
  6. Organize a youth day
  7. Throw a tea party
  8. Go for VIP tours if you are privileged 


2. Go for fundraising ideas that worked in the past and could work even now.



From number one, we went through some cool fundraising categories that are available and some great, and cool ideas under these categories ranging from your favorite fundraising ideas, to personal, quick and easy, inexpensive, free, creative, and fun, online, and big money fundraising Ideas.

Now the question is how you do combine all of that to create your own successful campaign? It turns out that you may not have had enough; here are more great fundraising ideas that have proven success records;

The ideas below are summarized from this website [blog bonfire]

  1. T-shirt fundraisers (Customized T-shirts offered for donation can hardly fail)
  2. Collaborating with a local restaurant to bring in friends to eat and cash out. It is a kind of mutual partnership id you have the friends
  3. Use a peer to peer fundraising strategy (get faithful friends to organize and create fundraising pages for you and share to their friends, colleague, family members, and loved ones on your behalf)
  4. Pledges challenge (a fundraising project that is willing to be patient enough for pledges get the bigger share), throw in the pledge challenge and have people fulfill them willingly through their generosity 
  5. Send letters (emotional letter for that matter and have your handwritten signature to it, make the language in the latter appealing to the addressee)
  6. Try selling used books (if you are like me, I don’t go for the rush, give me the old book and I will give you some idea)
  7. Buy earlier and sell your sit at an event
  8. Teach at an organized community class and get funded
  9. Organize a craft fair
  10. Teach baking online and solicit for a donation from your students if you can
  11. Use online giving sites (you can literally search these sites in Google and decide which to use)
  12. Set up and online free services but have your donation button hanging there.
  13. Set up and manage a personal donation page
  14. Auction online
  15. Do donors research (lookout in your immediate community for people for love to give and you could make a lucky landing)
  16. Look for corporate sponsorship (If you are in a society where ideas are highly valued, things will be easier for you here, just look for the perfect sponsors for your ideas)
  17. Call the community for a fundraising auction (With the proper planning you can achieve your goal here.)


3. Check every resource you can find related to your cause including those that are not


Finding inspiration and transforming it into a written idea could be a daunting task; what can however improve your chances of hitting the right target is reading all the resources you could find. If the fundraiser you are planning to organize is not an urgent even nor an emergency, you could take months of planning and reading up all the necessary resources you may require for the success of the fundraiser.

That being said, there are still more ideas summarized from this website [causevox.com]

  • 10,000 steps challenge (where organizations are willing to pay for this challenge, you can fire up your group for it.)
  • Book launch (have you just written a great book and wanted a donation for it, call for an occasion )
  • Discover a charity cause and ask for a donation for the cause
  • Host a special event in a popular museum if you have one close
  • Create a viral challenge and share on social media to stir a donation spree 
  • Babysit somebody for a donation
  • Think about a fantasy football event prospect
  • Organize and make your project public and take advantage of both online and offline crowdfunding
  • Coffee donation (offer coffee for some cents)
  • Print and share fundraising cards
  • Make lottery scratch cards
  • Organize a learning lunch for locals
  • Go even more social with jeans day
  • Have a handy donate now button anywhere you find space
  • Throw a sponsorship challenge
  • Throw in overwhelming statistics to support your cause
  • Organize and ice-cream social day
  • Sale flowers on holydays
  • Grow some beards to support your cause and inspire donations


4. Visit websites and blog articles that publish fundraising ideas 



Virtually any idea you may think of relating to fundraising ideas, someone somewhere has written about it. Some have a long list of dedicated articles that may take hours to digest but is generally worth it at the end of the day. Here are some of my favorite sites with the greatest of fundraising ideas: The list is arranged in order based on search engines ranking

  1. https://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/2018/08/17/fundraising-ideas#quick
  2. https://blog.bonfire.com/fundraising-ideas/
  3. https://www.causevox.com/fundraising-ideas/
  4. https://www.classy.org/blog/fundraising-event-ideas-raise-money-cause/#battle-of-the-bands
  5. https://funds2orgs.com/unique-fundraising-ideas-guide/
  6. https://blog.fundly.com/fundraising-ideas/
  7. https://www.qgiv.com/blog/fundraising-ideas/


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