Fundraising for Discovery Student Adventures is enjoyable, rewarding, and easy. There are lots of great ways to fundraise for your trip and have a great time while you’re doing it. You can hold events, sell goods and services, get matching funds, and promote your events in all sorts of cool ways. Here are some tips and ideas to help you jumpstart your efforts and put the “fun” in fundraising.
Good luck!
The first rule of fundraising is always let potential donors know three things: who you are, the name of the program you want them to help fund, and how their donations will be used. People are more willing to be generous if they understand what they’re contributing to and why it’s a good thing.
Here are five things you can do to help make your fundraising efforts successful:
- Hold a fundraising dinner at a restaurant
Contact local restaurants to see if they’re willing to provide you a discount for quantity or a portion of the sales from a fundraising dinner at their establishment. Here’s how it works: They’re guaranteed a certain amount of business; you sell tickets to the event at a profit. Tip: Many people hate to cook on Monday nights, which is usually the slowest night of the week for restaurants. A restaurant proprietor may be more willing to cut you a deal on a slow night.
- Have an auction
Ask friends and family members to donate sellable items for an auction you hold at one of your fundraising events (pancake breakfast, spaghetti feed, etc.). People bid on donated items; you get the profit.
If you know someone who would make a particularly entertaining or effective auctioneer, enlist his or her help. A great auctioneer can work a crowd and facilitate higher bids.
- Hold a bake sale
An oldie but goodie. Never underestimate the power of baked goods to generate cash flow. Ask any good bakers you know (friends, relatives, etc.) to contribute items. Keep the proceeds.
- Hold a raffle
A raffle can be very effective as stand-alone event or as a fun activity that’s part of a larger fundraising event. The trick of course is to make the raffle prize something people actually want. It could be something big, like a cool mountain bike, or something small, like a great gift basket.
Price your raffle tickets accordingly. And be sure to have a predetermined limit on the number of tickets per prize. Also, sometimes businesses are willing to donate raffle items in exchange for publicity. Be creative in your search for raffle item donors.
- Host a spaghetti feed
Ask a local hall, church, or school to donate space for a spaghetti feed. (Hint: Your chances of success are greatly increased if you promise to clean up afterward.) Assemble your crew, whip up huge batches of spaghetti (it’s cheap and everybody likes it!), and charge a fee for each guest.
Be sure to advertise ahead of time, tell everyone you know, and get the word out. Sweeten the pot: Hold a raffle, give away a door prize, or hold an auction at your feed.
- Host a pancake breakfast
Same idea as the spaghetti feed, different carbohydrate. Get a local hall, church or school to donate space for your pancake breakfast. Assemble your team, and start flipping. Sell tickets, get the word out, and plan to hold a raffle, offer a door prize, or hold an auction at your breakfast.
- Walk
A walkathon is a good way for individuals or groups to earn money. Here’s how it works: You get people to sponsor you for a certain dollar amount (their choice) per mile. You walk on your set walkathon day. The more you walk, the more money you make. Bonus: You get in shape for your trip.
Sell Stuff
Have a garage sale
Get rid of stuff you don’t want and earn money for your adventure. Stage the sale with just your own stuff or organize a group of people to join in with theirs. Ask neighbors to contribute sellable items to the cause. (Just make sure they’re willing to take items back if they don’t sell.)
- Have a yard sale
Don’t have a garage? A yard sale is the same idea as a garage sale: Do it yourself or with a group.
- Sell stuff on eBay or Craigslist
Clean out your garage, your house, your neighbor’s attic—anyplace there’s sellable stuff that you or someone you know is willing to donate to your fundraising cause.
- Sell flowers
Buy flowers in bulk. Create bouquets to sell for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.
- Sell Christmas wreaths
Sell Christmas wreaths and/or garlands during the holiday season. Get people to sign up for their wreath or garland in advance.
- Sell stuff on your fundraising site
If you have a fundraising Web site or MySpace page, consider using it to list any number of items (think eBay and Craigslist) for sale.
- Create a cookbook
Collect and compile great recipes from family and friends. Create your own cookbook to sell.
Sell Services
- Do yard work
There’s always some dreaded yard work task that every homeowner has been meaning to do but hasn’t yet: weeding, raking, mowing, pruning, scooping dog poop, etc. This is a permanent market niche with never-ending demand. Offer your services in return for cash.
- Shovel Snow
A great way for cold-climate fundraisers to make money. Come winter, everybody wants the snow shoveled off their steps, walk, driveway, etc. But nobody wants to go outside and do it. Consider that fact a money-making opportunity for you.
- Rake leaves
Who says money doesn’t grow on trees? In the fall there’s never a shortage of leaves to rake and bag. But there’s always a shortage of people who want to rake and bag them. Another seasonal money-making opportunity.
- Get in touch with your inner elf
Before the holiday season, send letters or emails that offer your neighbors and friends your Santa’s Helper Services at a reasonable rate: gift wrapping assistance, post office runs, etc. Be sure to include your contact information and specific days and times you’re available.
- Walk a dog
Know any dog owners? Of course you do. Offer to walk their dogs for them on a daily or weekly basis for a reasonable fee. Up-sell opportunity: Dog poop yard cleanup for profit.
- Pet sit
Feed the neighbor’s cat while they’re on vacation. Feed your uncle’s fish while he’s out of town on a business trip. Lots of people have pets. Lots of people need a reliable pet sitter like you.
- House sit
If you know a friend, family member, or neighbor who’s going out of town, offer to house sit. This could include such things as watering plants, feeding pets, picking up the mail, turning lights on or off, re-parking cars (to make the owner’s absence less conspicuous), or just generally checking to make sure their house is okay while they’re gone.
- Babysit
Are you good with kids? Offer to babysit for friends, family members, and neighbors. Maybe you know some parents who would appreciate having a standing “date night” once a week or once a month. You’d be surprised how many parents wish for such a thing but never get around to setting it up. Opportunity knocks.
- Wash cars
This is a great fundraising activity for groups or individuals. Drive-through car washes cost as much as $10 or more a pop. You could wash a car for less than that and still make lots of money.
Individuals: offer to make car wash “house calls.” Your bucket, soap, sponge, and drying towels; their driveway, hose, and water. Groups: Find a church or gas station willing to donate water and parking space for your group car wash.
- Recycle
Some states have deposit refunds on bottles and cans. And many recycling stations pay for things like recycled aluminum by the pound. If your community offers either opportunity, consider doing a can and bottle drive to make money.
Two weeks before you plan to collect, go door to door and tell people when you plan to pick up cans and bottles; also consider providing bags to them if they’re willing to save recyclables for you to pick up.
- Dispose of old Christmas trees
Get family and friends to sign up for your Christmas tree disposal services ahead of time. When pricing your services, be sure to account for whether your local dump or refuse transfer station takes “clean green” items, like Christmas trees, for free or at a discount.
And don’t forget the cost of transporting the trees. Ideally, you’d set pick-up day, have a pickup truck or van, and take as many trees at once as possible at once to save time, fuel, and dumping expenses.
- Donate used cell phones
Create a school or neighborhood collection drive for old cell phones. Check out Phoneraiser.com (“You send us phones. We send you cash!”) They offer cash for used cell phones (and other items, such as used inkjet cartridges) and even pay for the cost of shipping.
- Create a cookbook
Collect and compile great recipes from family and friends. Create your own cookbook to sell.
Sell "goblin insurance"
Every Halloween season, windows get soaped, trees get toilet-papered, innocent Jack-o-lanterns and apples that should have been candy bars get smashed into pulpy heaps on front steps, walkways, walls, and cars. Goblins go bad. Stuff happens. Somebody has to clean it up.
Here’s how “goblin insurance” works: For a set fee, you agree to clean up any mess that gets made on someone’s property on Halloween night (or the night before). Like any insurance, maybe they’ll need it, hopefully they won’t.
Two essential considerations: 1) Make sure buyers understand that this is about cleaning up messes, not repairing vandalism. 2) Be very clear that this is not “protection money,” as it were. Meaning, you are in no way suggesting that they either buy your goblin insurance or you will TP the cherry tree in their front yard. In short, you are not working for the goblins.
Partner with Businesses (Matching Funds)
- Make shopping pay
Check out www.igive.com. You can register your fundraising cause to have a portion of the proceeds go to it when you, your friends, and family members shop online through iGive. The iGive network includes more than 700 famous brand names (Gap, Home Depot, Nordstrom, etc.).
- Get corporate matching
Ask local businesses if they’d be willing to match all or a percentage of the funds you raise.
- Discover the power of gift certificates
Many businesses are very generous when asked to donate a gift certificate to a fundraising auction or raffle. After all, it’s advertising for them and it gets people into their stores.
- Leverage Amazon.com
Amazon also offers a service that’s comparable to eBay or Craigslist. Check out the ‘Selling on Amazon’ link on their home page (“List items for free and sell to millions.”)
Promote Your Fundraising Efforts
However you raise funds, make sure you let potential donors know who you are, the name of the program, and how their donations will be used. People are often willing to be generous if they understand what they’re contributing to and why it’s a good thing.
- Create a Web presence
Create a fundraising Web page or MySpace page and email the link to everyone you know.
- Post on YouTube
Post a fundraising promotional video on YouTube and email the link to everyone you know.
- Post on MySpace
Post your fundraising appeal on your MySpace page.
- Email, IM, text, and Twitter
Use the power of modern communications to promote your fundraising efforts. Got an event coming up? Promote it via email. As the event draws closer, remind people with instant, messages, text messages, and “tweets.”