Fund Raising Ideas: Finding The Best Ones For Your Non-Profit

Fund Raising Ideas: Finding the Best Ones for Your Non-Profit


On the surface, finding fundraising ideas is easy. Get together a group of co-workers or co-volunteers into a brainstorming session, and you will likely get a list of ideas ranging from jumble sales to door-to-door selling to a direct mail campaign. Type in “fund raising ideas” into any Internet search engine and you are likely to get thousands of hits, ranging from bake sale ideas to companies offering fundraising opportunities.

It is not simply a matter of picking an idea, any idea.

To be successful at fundraising, you carefully need to consider which ideas work well for your group. Choosing the wrong ideas is disastrous: you will waste time, money, and effort to get little or no financial return and the failure to raise funds may well ruin the morale and motivation of your group. Getting out of the financial hole left by a bad fundraising campaign can also be quite difficult, especially for small non-profits.

There are a few things that separate a good fundraising idea from a bad one:

• Cost of getting going should be what you can afford to spend

• Good use of resources and talents

• You have enough people power - or can get enough for it

• It is a theme-appropriate idea for your group

• It is appropriate for the size of your group

• It does not require expensive resources you do not have

• It is likely to appeal to donors

• It gives added value to your donors - your donors will feel that they are getting something from the experience

• It will bring in the required money.

You will need to consider these requirements against every idea you consider making sure that you are choosing a fundraising idea with some legs.

However, to save time, you may want to find fundraising ideas by starting with this list rather than starting with brainstorming. On a piece of paper, note the following:

• The purpose of your organization

• How much money you are willing to invest into fund raising

• What resources you have that can help - even small resources such as someone’s car can be a big help when fundraising for your group

• How much money you need - and when you need it by. Be sure to note whether you need money only for a specific project or whether you need to raise money on a consistent basis.

• How much time you are willing to expend on fund raising

• Who do you expect money from?

• What sort of time frame do you have for the fundraising? Is there a specific thing you need money for? Do you need a specific amount by a specific time?

• What is the money for?

Based on this simple inventory, you can start weeding out potentially bad ideas and can start focusing on the possibilities right away. This will get you actually fund raising sooner, and with less hassle. With your fund raising goals in mind (and these goals are what you are determining by answering the above questions), you can easily tell which ideas can contribute to your goals and which are unlikely to be a help.

It may be useful to consider the many ways that non-profits raise money for their programs and groups:

• Lotteries and raffles: Ticket sales for games of chance are quite high and many non-profits are finding that people are willing to pay large amounts of money for the chance to win a fabulous prize. Many larger non-profits routinely raise money in the millions of dollars by having companies donate prizes such as cars and homes and then having donors pay one hundred dollars or more per ticket.

Donors like the fact that these raffles and prizes often have good odds and great prizes. However, many areas have laws about lotteries and gambling, so before pursuing this idea be sure to check the laws in your area.

• Sales. Selling products is easy and inexpensive to set up. You can easily organize sales by asking people to donate things and then selling these at a profit. You will need a space to store donated items, volunteers to sort and sell items, and a place to sell the items.

Sales are a good way to generate fundraising money for a short-term project, although some groups have success in hosting regular sales that contribute plenty of money continuously. If you are able to find a location that will allow you to make sales regularly, you can often host sales each week. One advantage of sales is that there are many types that your group can organize:

• Gardening Sales: If your group has a green thumb or a green theme, you can sell seedlings, seeds, bulbs, or other items for people’s gardens at an outside sale. In many cases, volunteers can raise plants on their own or get plants donated from gardening centers or other people’s gardens. This is a popular sale theme in spring and early summer, when many people are starting to work on their gardens and are looking for plants.

• Craft sales: If members of your group like creating crafts - knitting, sewing, wood crafting, then creating a craft sale to sell small created items is often a good way to raise money. Craft sales tend to do especially well in tourist areas during the summer and in all locations before the holidays (when people are looking for items to buy others). Many small craft items can be made quite quickly, and it is often best to try to make lots of smaller items for such a sale along with a few larger items (such as quilts).

• Children’s Sales: Selling items specifically for children - such as toys. Children’s clothes, and children’s books - can be a good way to draw people and donors for a children or family-related non-profit. These sales are often quite popular because many people like to buy things for their children without spending a lot of money. In many cases, items can be donated by stores or donated by volunteers. Volunteers will need to check carefully to make sure that all items are in good condition, however.

• Bake Sales: Bake sales are quick to organize and inexpensive to set up. All a group needs to run this type of sale is some people willing to bake some items and a small area to sell the items. It is important to choose a good place for a bake sale. This is the sort of sale your group will want to organize at some event (such as a picnic) since few people are willing to travel out of their way to buy baked goods.

A bake sale can bring in extra fundraising cash, though, if you set up your sale someplace where people already are. If you are organizing a bake sale, you will want to set up sign-up sheets so that your sale has several varieties of baked goods. In general, volunteers should be encouraged to make baked items that are finger food. Baked items that are very gooey or require a fork to eat are often too fussy for many bake sales.

• Book Sales: If you live in a town that has a college or several used bookstores, you generally have the buyer base to hold a book sale. Book sales can bring in plenty of fundraising money, because many book fans are enthusiastic about reading and will gladly buy books in larger quantities.

Plus, many people are attracted to book sales because the book prices are so much lower than the prices at book stores. You will need to find book donations by appealing to the public and will want to set prices fairly low in order to attract lots of buyers.

Fund Raising Ideas