Fundraising Ideas
The ideas presented here are a varied selection of ideas. Find the best ones for your situation, interests and skills, time of year, and number of participants. There are ideas suited to individuals, families, smaller groups, larger groups and everything in between. Some require more work and prep, others are rather simple.
- Everyone loves food
- Bake Sale - Tie it to an event, rather it be a sporting event or church wide meeting to increase your audience. Auction, silent or otherwise, can increase profits as well as oppoesd to putting set prices.
- Church-wide spaghetti dinner. Instead of charging for tickets, ask for donations for better returns. Try to have as much of the food and paper goods donated to reduce costs as much as possible. Add in an auction of sorts for extra income. This takes a lot of participation, but can be a huge payoff.
- Pancake breakfast. Krusteaz has a 7lb bag of pancake mix at Sam’s Club. This company is great as they will donate the cost of the pancake mix back when used for a fundraiser. Details printed on the bag. Makes 180 pancakes. Try to get juice, coffee and syrup donated. Applebees Restaurant chain also does Saturday morning pancake breakfasts for groups. Contact and book a date early. Larger group needed.
- Sell homemade goods
- Bread baking. One family had to stop taking orders after receiving 80 requests at $10 a loaf.
- Cheesecakes, Pies, Pastries. Those that are extraordinary in the kitchen could sell baked goods by order. One skilled person sold her cheesecakes for $40 each.
- Quilts or similar. Larger items like these can be raffled off instead of sold individually.
- Be sure if planning on making large quantities to pre-sell and only make what you have orders for to minimize loss.
- Food resell and coupons
- Pizzas - Find a local pizza place that will sell you pizzas at a discount allowing you to resell at a profit. One family found a place offering pizzas for $5 that they could resell for $10 each.
- Sonic discounts - Many locations offer coupon books at no cost that can be resold for $5 each.
- Coupon books from other locations. Ask around, many other businesses will offer coupon books for the purpose of fundraising.
- Krispy Kreme offers a fundraising option. Be sure to contact them for more details.
- Get out and work
- Car Wash - Donations work better than fixed price. Takes a group, but can be lots of fun on top of raising funds.
- Offer church members to shovel snow, rake leaves or other yard work to help raise money.
- Servant for a day - Youth can be auctioned off for a fee at a church event to perform misc. tasks for the winning bidder.
- Wash windows for businesses in exchange for donations.
- Some groups have cleaned busses for their local children's hospital. Find a need and fill it in an effort generate revenue.
- Sell stuff
- Sell Lollipops - Setup in a high traffic area and sell Tootsie pops/candy bars/etc for whatever change/cash people want to donate. Definitely a lot more work for little return.
- Garage sale - Ask church family for sellable items and price the smaller items as donation only to increase income.
- Magazine sales. Answers in Genesis offers Answers magazine for Christian churches and groups.
- Flowers
- Flower Sales - One church had an abandoned field full of daffodils. They went and picked them, put them in bundles with curling ribbon, and sold them door-to-door. Some chose to make a simple donation instead of purchase the flowers.
- Carnations/flowers for Mother’s Day – find a store who will sell at cost (one group used Kroger grocery and got a good discount when purchased in bundles of 25). Wrap each flower in a plastic sleeve and tie with ribbon (also donated) and sell to different groups for Mother’s Day. Tips: pink is best or white. Get buckets of water to deliver them in (Kroger also donated some black buckets).
- Potted plants – fall mums, poinsettias, spring baskets. One group found a local nursery that sells in bulk and allows them to resell the plants for profit.