Does anyone have some original ideas, or at least ones which haven’t been used too often, for raising money for a charitable organization? And if possible, an idea that would also be fun, or more fun for the volunteers than the traditional, standing and begging, or selling raffle tickets?
So that’s the question. Even if you want to give your views on fundraising in itself, i’d be interested in reading them. Thanks.
Host a big Murder Mystery party. You can have dinner with it. Charge quite a bit for the tickets. They’re great fun.
I generally have one every year at my house. We all have a blast.
trisha
Here’s one you’ve never heard of: A car wash. 
Seriously, if the timing and location are right they can be very profitable. And a lot of fun, especially if the volunteers are young and coed.
Peace,
mangeorge
Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
Dance like nobody’s watching! …(Paraphrased)
I dunno. I always find carwashes kinda disturbing, esp. when what is being sold is not so much the car wash as much as the right to oogle the fourteen year old in the bikini. Never a daughter of mine . . . .
seriously, the best type of fund raiser really depends on two things:
How much money do you need to raise? Obviously, the answer is “as much as possible” but you probably have some goal in mind. This can shape the type of fund raiser you want. If you are looking to support a city soup kitchen, something that is only going to raise a few hundred bucks is hardly worth your time. But if you’re looking to help buy supplies for the fourth grade, it is a bit more appropriate.
How much labor can you provide? Is this a cheerleading squad with a weekend to spare or fifty church ladies with a weekend every month, or a University orginization of several hundred?
Seems to me that the optimal fund raiser would balence these two issues. If you need a lot of money and can count on little labor, it seems like a raffle would be the best choice. On the other hand, if you have a lot of labor a car wash or somthing might be a good idea.
How about… saving the pull-tabs from soda cans? Or you could raffle off a kidney.
What about a “best name” contest for the coming decade? Wet t-shirt contests are always popular, as are lingerie lotto tickets sold by scantily-clad in the prize females. The mind reels and the possibilities are endless.
Well one of the local Volunteer Fire Departments does a half and half raffle. Sell a limited number of tickets, say 1000, for $100 each. Giving you a pool of $100,000. You keep $50,000 and give away the rest; 20,000 for first 10,000 for second etc. I believe this VFD goes down to about 20 places the smallest winners just getting $150. You can promote it as pretty good odds and cash as the prize with the grand prize 20,000. Incidently this is a rather small town in a rural area yet they never fail to sell out their tickets. They do the drawing at their annual Fourth of July shindig. As to the legalities, my guess is you might have to get a permit from the state. Check with a lawyer.
To raise money we once raffled off the head of our organisation’s name change. That is, the guy had to change his name by deed pole, and the person who had bought the winning ticket got to pick the name. I am proud to say that I won that one (and it wasn’t rigged) and I had him change his name, bank account, driving licence, everything, from his old name to “Colour Television”. it only lasted a few months before he went through the whole process to change it back, but it was worth it and he raised over STG350 with it, quite a lot of money back then. it could have been worse, the other ticke I had bought would have changed his name to “Vindaloo Curry”.
It only hurts when I laugh.
Here’s an oldie but a goodie.
Go door to door.
At the first house:
“Hi, I’m with blah blah organization, could you donate an egg?”
At the next house:
“Hi, I’m with blah blah organization, would like to buy an egg for $1.00?”
At the next house:
See step one.
Enright3
Our local boy scout troop has picked up Christmas trees in return for a donation the week or two after Christmas. It’s seasonal and it’s hard work for a couple of days (and you need someone well-organized to put it together) but it’s been very lucrative.
Surprisingly, revenues didn’t drop off even after the city started picking up Christmas trees for free with the garbage pickup.
“And comb London’s teeming millions for him? Had we but world enough and time.”
Dorothy L. Sayers
Murder Must Advertise
You could ask all the pretty woman to donate their ovaries for auction.
Or just do what gets me every time, get the girl scouts to sell it. They are mini-terrorists in their green vests, big wide eyes and hopeful looks on their faces.
Thanks all!
Mangeorge’s “car wash” and Funneefarmer’s “half and half raffle” (but not for $100 per ticket) seem to be the best solutions for our particular needs – least effort for some return. The car wash, if done right could possibly be fun, or more enjoyable than taking your turn standing by yourself outside a mall entrance.
We have enough labor. The trouble is motivating it. We are all volunteering already, and it may be too much to ask us to do fundraising also. So the activity should be made to seem like fun.
As for the wet t-shirt contest et all, I don’t think this is the public image our organization wants. Though, I’ve heard, a mother hired strippers to do a show to raise money for her son’s sports team :o 
Thanks all!
Mangeorge’s “car wash” and Funneefarmer’s “half and half raffle” (but not for $100 per ticket) seem to be the best solutions for our particular needs – least effort for some return. The car wash, if done right could possibly be fun, or more enjoyable than taking your turn standing by yourself outside a mall entrance.
We have enough labor. The trouble is motivating it. We are all volunteering already, and it may be too much to ask us to do fundraising also. So the activity should be made to seem like fun.
As for the wet t-shirt contest et all, I don’t think this is the public image our organization wants. Though, I’ve heard, a mother hired strippers to do a show to raise money for her son’s sports team :o 
Secure a local school gymnasium and hold a “kids night out” on a Saturday night. Charge $7 and offer a pizza and pop snack. Run it from like 6:00 to 10:30 or 11:00 and have teenagers there to organize games and activities with the little ones.
Hold a “chili supper” before you school’s next basketball game.
Offer to run a “coat check” service for your local high school for basketball games. Charge .50 per coat and keep 100% of the proceeds.
Hold a walk-a-thon or bike-a-thon where the members or parents of the receiving organization collect pledges for miles that they complete.
Provide a weekend leaf raking service for donations.
I use this one with some modest sucess: we hold monthly meetings for the benefit of our members. At the end of each meeting, we ask the attendees to vote whether they liked or disliked the meetings. The twist is, you vote with money–one unit of currency equals one vote. Of course we tell them it goes to charity (in our case, to Habitat for Humanity). On the average, at meetings with 70-90 attending, we raise $50-70, so we raise about $250/year. It’s not a lot, but it takes very little effort, doesn’t draw money from your large fund-raisers, and you get to find out if they liked the meeting.
The other idea is a golf outing. Our organization clears $5,000 after expenses each year. It takes a lot of work for the first one, but each succeeding year gets easier.
My dad’s a member of the Knights of Columbus, and they raise money by doing things for other groups. For example, the local shopping district has several annual events each year. Because of the high volume during that time, the district charges visitors to park in a nearby lot. My dad’s KC group acts as money-takers and car-parkers during the event; their take is $1 of the $3 parking fee. For a 3-day event they can make about $5,000 to $7,000 dollars. This requires a group with at least 2 dozen members willing to put in some time on the weekend.
I recently encountered a raffle format that I thought was worth duplicating. Rather than have a single drawing, the sponsors (a VFD in a small town) had thirty – one for each day of the month. And instead of drawing the number themselves and never letting anybody but the winners know, they used the state’s 3-digit lottery number.
It was cool because ticket buyers had multiple chances to win, and they could follow along each night, rather than just buying the ticket and hoping for a phone call. The tickets sold themselves because of the neat format and unusual prizes.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
Well, I belong to a non-profit group that was always looking for fund-raising ideas. Our group is pretty small (around 20 members).
Originally, we had a booth at a once-a-year fair held in the area. We sold wine at the booth and made a small profit (around $200 or $300).
Then a couple of years ago a new lady joined the group and said “Why don’t we have a 5K/10K race?” Now that idea had been suggested before, and everyone thought it would be too much work. But we made it! It took around a year of planning, but we had a 5K/10K run that had around 300 people the first year, and 450 the second year. Now we are planning it as a yearly event. First year profits: $1400. Second year profit: $4000.
On the committee that did the work for organizing the race, we had about 5 people. It’s not as hard as you think!
You can e-mail me if you’re interested in more details on how we accomplished this.
By the way, what’s your non-profit group?
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Stendhal
If you’re still looking for ideas, here’s another: How about a free car wash?
The way you raise money is by getting the kids to find people to pledge a certain amount of money for each car they wash. If someone pledges 10 cents per car and the kids wash 50 cars, the pledge earns $5.
Plus, your organization looks generous to everyone who drives by and sees the signs proclaiming: ‘‘Free car wash!’’
A word of caution: Make sure the kids don’t put their sponges/washclothes on the ground. If dirt or small rocks stick to them, they will probably scratch someone’s car. Then you could have a lawsuit on your hands.
Good Morning Arnold,
Your non-profit organization of around twenty members with a committee of five people working on a particular fund raising idea raised over $1,000 in its first year. Sounds great! I’ll email you for more details. Talk to you soon.
Thanks to everyone for your ideas.