So my youth group is trying to raise money. Earlier today (well, yesterday by now, but whatever) we had a pop can drive. Eight of us participated, and after 4 hours of walking, driving, and getting turned down, we had $100. :smack:
That sucked. It will be split between the eight of us for $8 and 1/3. I could have scheduled an extra hour at work and gotten three extra bucks.
So my question is: What is the best fundraiser idea you have done, seen, thought of, or even just stole? Cause we seriously need some help.
Our church youth group use to have them. Like a readathon, walkathon, you get people to sponsor in the car wash. From 1 to 20 cents a car. We would put a cap of 200 cars on the day of the car wash. Or they could sponsor a flat amount.
Find a location where a lot of cars go past and has good entrance and exit. Someone will have be out on the sidewalk with signs advertising it a free car wash, and be willing to explain why there will be no charge.
Have an line up spot. As a car comes up someone with a clipboard with numbered line paper to make a note of the car model or license. Keeping track of how many cars are washed. It is also a good idea to have a bucket here, some people will insist on making a donation. Have a line set up where cars can pull side by side. You need a hose person, washers, and dryers. Car gets hosed down, washed with car soap and rags. After it is completely washed, the dryers dry the car. The windows also get cleaned and dryed.
Someone has to keep track of what is being done. keeping the right number of washers and dryers. Making sure that everything moves smoothly. Making sure the hose man did not carry over to the dry cars. Directing cars to the best placement for washing.
You also kneed a large supply of rags, and dry rags. If necessary someone making trips to have the rags washed and dried. The youth group was about 40 Jr Hi and High school student. The first year it was hard to get 70 cars done. One year we did over 250 cars.
The most successful fundraisers ever done by any of my kids in school were selling Butter Braids. Everyone wanted them, and once they had them, they wanted more and were willing to pay for them. They’re frozen, so you can buy a lot. (There is no unfrozen option.)
The second most successful was a car wash. I don’t think they did it like Snnipe’s–I think it was just so much per wash ($5 or something).
The least successful was a pizza sale. They made the pizzas themselves, under the guidance of a successful con man. They were horrible. They didn’t have to be. Now it did make some money, but unlike the Butter Braids, nobody would have ever ordered these pizzas again.
They also had a thing where you could bash an old car with sledgehammers. $2 a bash, or 3 for $5 (or something like that). This had to be done off the school grounds and there were all sorts of disclaimers.
Call your local grocery store and see if you can bag groceries for donations. TheKid used to do it for her youth group and on an average day they would bring in $700.00+ in a 6 hour shift.
Waaaaaaaaaay back in 1971, our high school choir was raising money to participate in a choral competition in Rome. In 10 weeks, we raised over $33,000 and by far the most profitable were the two car washes. We set up in the bus lanes at the school and the weather gods were smiling on us that November - it was actually mild both weekends. We had a vacuum station, the body wash station, and the windows station - I don’t recall if we dried the cars or not. But most of the choir showed up to work, and we did a LOT of cars.
I think the second most profitable was the spaghetti dinner, but I don’t remember the details because I wasn’t part of that one. I expect the ingredients were donated and the school let us use the cafeteria for the dinner. Would that even be possible today?
If Dunkin Donuts is available in your area, check into their “community cup” program. Our local Little League just raised $8,000. in about a month with moderate effort and no investment required.
I don’t get it. You were “fundraising” for your “youth group” but you each got a cut? Sounds like you were “picking up cans” for “money.” Which as you’ve noticed is a waste of time unless you’re homeless/jobless.
Look around at your neighborhood/town. What’s missing or needed? If its kind of quiet/boring have a social event like a spaghetti supper or a battle of the bands. If people are busy/stressed, offer services that save them from a chore (like carwashing, lawnmowing etc). If people are kind of poor offer something inexpensive and fun, like doughnuts or candy or small fun toys.
If you have local club sporting events like little league, soccer club, hockey, etc. that are too small to operate a food stand, set up a stand selling coffee and water and soda on their game days. The margin on water is criz-azy; buy it at 10 cents a bottle at costco, sell it for $1 and people think its reasonable! Coffee also sells really well on cool mornings.
Thank you, that sounds great! . . . Except we have about 10 of us going, and on any given day only 8 can make it because of work, school, etc. We might be able to get the local (catholic) high school to volunteer, but that would still probably only get us up to 30 kids or so.
I am going to see what I can do… after winter, cause frozen cars sounds like a disaster
Seriously though, thank so much for the idea. I really like the idea of not charging to get your car washed and having sponsors!
My flying club ran the beer booth at the county fair. Made enough to buy 3 airplanes (over several years). Airplanes were significantly cheaper back then. Also that was when the drinking age was 18 and insurance requirements were less stringent…
The women’s group at my old church did a “No Bake Sale”. That’s where you don’t have to make or sell anything; you simply donate the amount of money you would have spent on the ingredients, and/or the finished items themselves.
I’ve also seen variations like “No Car Wash”, “No Cocktail Party”, etc.
I’ve run countless school fundraisers. The most profitable, for the effort and investment, is a car wash. But don’t suggest a price! Tell “customers” that “any donation is fine.” Most people give $10-$15. Parents, neighbors, anyone with a connection to the organization, often give $20 or more.
You will only get a couple cars all day, if at all, that give $5 or less.
And use social media! Make sure all participants, and the church, send out tweets and Facebook updates in the days leading up to, and all day the day of.
A 9am to 3pm car wash should bring in well over a grand.
Spaghetti dinners; we do them at church and through the local firehall now and then. The secret to taking it from a good event to a great event is NO SET PRICE - just a basket for donations. We did like $6 per meal and stuff and they usually made like $300-$500. We did away with the price and the next one cleared $1100. Yeah - some people ate three bowls and kicked in a buck. But most of the people would toss a ten in before eating and often another ten or twenty on the way out the door.
We have a chain of hardware stores much like Lowes in the states and they offer community groups to do a sausage sizzle out the front, they supply the stoves etc and you the snags, bread and cans of soda.
We regularly raise $2 to $3,000 each time and I have used it for scouts, basketball and a cancer fundraiser.
We also have done it at the local fair, Aus Day festival, car club meetings etc etc…
So trick is find somewhere where lots of people congregate and set up a simple hot dog stand.
Similarly, a local group here holds an annual pancake breakfast. And my brother’s father-in-law participates in a chili cook-off through his local Masons lodge. But the OP mentioned that his group is only eight to ten students, so they’ll need to find something that works with such a small group.
The local Lutheran Campus Ministries group made $7,000 on a trivia night this weekend. But the ticket prices probably brought in only about 1/3 of the total. The rest came from a massive number of raffles, drawings (a lot of gift cards from local restaurants), door prizes, auctions (generous donations from local merchants), refreshments and outright cash donations.
