As seen on. Cancer Survivors' Fund. The Committee for Missing Children. Childhood Leukemia Foundation. Firefighters Charitable Foundation. A focus on making profits from fundraising can encourage fundraising abuses, with donors unaware that their contributions aren't mostly supporting the nonprofit until it is too late.
Fundraising contracts protect the nonprofit and the fundraising organization, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office notes. Some of the most important items that should be included in a contract are the legal names and addresses of all parties to the contract; a description of the services to be provided and the financial responsibilities of each party; the use of any subcontractors; the fundraising organization's compensation; a requirement that the fundraiser use only material reviewed and approved by the nonprofit and that all solicitations and materials comply with state laws; specifics on the contract period and cancellation criteria; and a requirement that donor checks be made out to the nonprofit, not the fundraiser.
Located in the mid-Atlantic United States, Elizabeth Layne has covered nonprofits and philanthropy since , and has written articles on an array of topics for small businesses and career-seekers. An award-winning writer, her work has appeared in "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" newspaper and "Worth" magazine. By Elizabeth Layne. Regulations A nonprofit might hire for-profit fundraisers because it doesn't have a fundraising staff.
Referrals A nonprofit can find reputable fundraisers by contacting other nonprofits for referrals, especially such large nonprofits as colleges, hospitals and cultural institutions. But where to start? Start a GoFundMe. If you have strong convictions about an idea, use the power of the internet to raise the funds you need.
Crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe have become increasingly popular with inventors, entrepreneurs, and the general public in recent years. Angel investors provide capital for a business start-up in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. It involves using your own resources. This may mean pulling from your savings or taking out a mortgage on your assets. Like angel investors, venture capitalists provide capital to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that show high growth potential.
The difference is that they generally provide financing that often has higher rates of return instead of taking a share of the company. However, some may take an ownership share of the company. There are numerous microloan options for those looking for ways to raise money for business growth or expansion. Loans remain a core option for businesses because they usually come with fewer strings attached, shorter payment periods, and in some cases, medium to low-interest rates.
You can turn to the SBA grants programs, but keep in mind that they are highly competitive. Another way of raising money for a business through government assistance is through SBA lending.
Sell pumpkins and decorative gourds and corn stalks. To take this fundraiser to the next level, set up a hale bale or corn maze that pumpkin patch shoppers can pay extra to get lost in.
Your supporters will enjoy welcoming in the Halloween season with all of these fall-themed activities. A pumpkin carving contest can pair well with a pumpkin patch fundraiser or work well on its own. Simply charge each carver for every pumpkin they buy from you and set them up at a workstation with carving materials. Give your carvers an hour or two to carve their pumpkins, and then have their friends and family vote with their dollars for the best one.
You can even put the pumpkins into different categories. Get your supporters giving to your cause and decorating for Halloween with a Spookiest Door contest! Have your supporters submit pictures of their doors via email and then display them in an online gallery. Then your community can vote with their dollars for the spookiest door! Make sure you have a great Halloween-themed prize for the winning door decorators! Halloween is the perfect time for your organization to host a haunted house fundraiser.
Turn an old house, church, or school hallway into a scary, haunted setting and charge an admission fee to everyone brave enough to enter. Gather volunteers to dress up as scary characters to jump out at your visitors and scare them even more! Who has the best Halloween costume? Have your supporters compete in a costume contest by sharing a picture of their costume on social media and using a hashtag specific to your organization and contest. Next, have voters make their picks with a dollar or two on your website.
A fun and exciting way to raise funds is by hosting a murder mystery dinner. While this event does take some planning, it will be a night your guests will never forget! You can find murder mystery games online for your event. Then recruit guests to join the game as specific volunteers to figure out whodunnit. Have you ever had your car washed by a zombie?
If not, it might be time for you to try hosting a haunted car wash for your organization. Recruit volunteers to wash cars, and spookify your space for doing so. Hang up cobwebs and use smoke machines to set a scary mood for your customers. When your supporters come to your car wash, charge them per car and let them go through the wash. Dia de los Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead, is a holiday that originated in Mexico where families welcome back the souls of deceased loved ones and celebrate their legacies.
Host a Dia de los Muertos event during which your supporters share stories and memories of deceased loved ones. Ask them to sponsor your event and provide the materials your participants will need to make and write thank-you letters to local veterans. On the day of the event, have your supporters make and decorate! Thanksgiving dinners are quite the undertaking. From turkey to cranberry sauce and everything in between, people like to go all out when they cook for this special occasion.
Sell Thanksgiving foods, like frozen turkeys or pre-made dinner rolls and pies, to your supporters. Giving Tuesday is an international day of giving that takes place every year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. To get your organization involved in Giving Tuesday, all you need to do is join your local movement and use GivingTuesday on your social media posts.
Giving Tuesday can inspire people to get involved in service projects, drop off in-kind donations to your facility, or submit an online monetary donation. With Giving Tuesday, the possibilities are endless. Happy Hanukkah! Sell Hanukkah cards door-to-door to your supporters. To make them extra special, partner with a local artist to get special hand-painted or handmade cards.
Along with the cards, sell hot chocolate packets and warm cookies. This will help your supporters start off their Hanukkah celebrations right! Host a Hanukkah celebration and candle lighting for your congregation or support base.
Ask families to bring their own menorah and seven candles, or sell them at the event. You could also sell tickets for a Hanukkah feast before the lighting, featuring Hanukkah classics like potato latkes. Ask students from local schools to make handmade ornaments using whatever materials they want. While macaroni decorations and hand-cut snowflakes are usually standard, encourage students to be even more creative.
Although the decorations may not be exceptionally well-made, parents and other family members will have a ball bidding for them. To save people the hassle of standing in the long line in the mall to have a second photo op with Santa Claus, host your own Pictures with Santa fundraiser!
You can also sell hot cocoa and snacks to families. Just make sure Santa gets his milk and cookies! Everyone loves when carolers knock on their doors around the holidays. Find some volunteers who love to sing and practice a few carols together. Then, go door-to-door or stand in a well-trafficked city park and ask for donations while you sing. So many of us struggle to find time to shop for Christmas gifts, let alone to wrap those gifts. Set up shop at a local store and offer your gift wrapping services!
Shoppers will line up at your table after purchasing their gifts from the store. Have them pay a fee per gift and chat with them about your cause as you wrap their gifts and top them with a beautiful bow.
This fundraiser is a variation on the Gift Wrapping Service fundraiser. Before the holiday season gets into full swing, have members of your organization sell wrapping paper to their friends, parents, grandparents, neighbors, and anyone else who wants it.
For each roll of wrapping paper sold, a portion of the profits goes directly to your organization. For more fun, host a gift wrapping event at the end of the fundraiser where everyone can get together for holiday cookies, a holiday movie, and wrapping fun! Who has the ugliest sweater? Find out by hosting an ugly sweater party for your supporters. Charge an admission fee at the door and serve up eggnog, holiday cookies, and great tunes to dance to. Have attendees pay a little extra to enter the ugly sweater contest.
Your other partygoers can vote for their favorites with their dollars. Announce the winner at the end of the night and give them a great prize. Ask local businesses and community members to donate ornately-decorated Christmas trees to your Festival of Trees event. They can be themed or traditional, but make sure your tree decorators go all out! At your festival, supporters can walk around and see all of the trees. Then, interested individuals can participate in a silent auction to take one of the decorated trees home.
Sell hot chocolate and treats to bring in some extra cash! People can get stressed during the holidays. A Christmas tree delivery service takes some of the pressure off of families to get the perfect tree home. Why not help people out during the holiday rush and earn a little money at the same time? You can also offer a tree removal service once the holidays are over for more donations down the line. Get your supporters to channel their inner baker with a Gingerbread House Decorating Contest.
Have supporters pay a fee to enter the contest and get their materials. Then, host a night of building and decorating at your facility. Add to the holiday cheer by selling hot chocolate and treats. At the end of the night, have judges pick the best gingerbread house. Award the winner with a Christmas gift basket or a gift certificate to a restaurant in your area. Simply sell candy canes or other delicious candies to people who then write a message on a slip of paper attached to the candy.
Then, you deliver the candy gram to the lucky recipient! Holiday gift baskets are collections of goodies like baking mixes, treats, beverages, candles, and other fun items. Assemble some gift baskets of your own using donated items from local businesses, and then auction the baskets off to be delivered to deserving families in your community. Why not put a new twist on an old classic and host an online bake sale as a quick and easy virtual fundraiser?
Set up your online bake sale and post pictures and prices of the baked goods for all to see. When an item is sold, the baker will be notified and will pack up and ship the goodies. You raise money for your organization and your donors get something to satisfy their sweet cravings. A virtual 5K allows your supporters to complete a 5K on their own time. Simply give them a window of time in which to run or walk a 5K. Then have them report their completed 5K to your organization via email.
Once a supporter completes your 5K, send them a virtual medal they can share on social media or a t-shirt branded to your organization. If your organization is focused on the arts or you have supporters that have an interest in art, an online art class can be a great virtual fundraiser for you.
Ask a local art teacher or professor to teach a virtual painting, drawing, collage, or calligraphy class. Sell spots in your virtual art class and send out the livestream link to everyone who signs up. To make a little more money, save your attendees a trip to the craft store and sell bundles of art supplies attendees can use for the class.
You can even host a virtual auction as part of your gala. Email is a great tool for reaching your supporters quickly and pulling donations in through your online donation form. Then, issue a call to action for your supporters to give. Make sure you include a link in each email so your supporters can access your donation form easily. Consider theming your virtual trivia night. For example, you might have a decades trivia night or a pop culture trivia night.
Who has the cutest pet? Find out by hosting a virtual pet contest. Have supporters send in pictures of their pets and post them on your website. From there, you can have people vote with their dollars on who the cutest pet is. Be sure to send the cutest pet a new toy or a treat! A virtual concert is an easy fundraiser that can be a lot of fun for your supporters at home and help you raise big bucks for your cause.
Ask a local band or singer to donate a livestreamed performance to your organization. Encourage engagement during the concert by auctioning off a VIP chat with the band and taking song requests. Set up a Facebook fundraiser on behalf of your organization. This is a great fundraiser that you can keep going on a regular basis, as your supporters are likely already using Amazon frequently anyway! Digital downloads are popular for phone and desktop screen savers and art prints that people hang in their homes.
Ask local artists to create art related to your cause and donate it to your nonprofit. Set up the digital prints in a virtual store that your supporters can browse. A virtual talent show is a great place for your supporters to share their talents from the comfort of their own homes. Have your performers pay an entrance fee to participate and sell virtual tickets to your audience.
On the day of the livestream, make sure you do a quick tech run through so that the show goes smoothly. Enlist community members to serve as judges and give the talent show winner a fun prize.
Does one of your board members or parishioners have serious skills in the kitchen? Host a virtual cooking class! Send out the recipe for your dish a few days in advance so that everyone who registered can get the ingredients they need to follow along with the cooking class teacher during the livestream. Give your supporters a chance to learn about topics related to your cause by hosting a virtual lecture series.
For another lecture, you might ask a neuroscientist to speak about the importance of reading for brain health. For this fundraiser, choose an activity like lip syncing to a popular song or doing 50 pushups.
Record a few of your staff members or administrators completing the challenge and pick a hashtag that connects the activity to your cause. Then, share the videos and encourage your supporters to participate in the challenge and complete their own! You can raise money by encouraging each supporter that makes a video to donate a certain amount of money.
Virtual tours are great for organizations that own museums or historic landmarks. TED Talks are influential speeches people give on a variety of subjects. How your own virtual TED Talk Night by asking community members to share their expertise on a certain topic or to tell their life story. Sell tickets to your event and encourage people to ask questions in the chat feature during your livestream. Are your supporters sommeliers in the making? Host a virtual wine pull via livestream. Auction off different bottles of wine or have your attendees pay to have a bottle of wine selected for them at random.
This gives your supporters the chance to try something new and donate to your cause. One thing that bookworms love almost as much as reading books is talking about books. Host a monthly book club with your supporters. Ask a few of your major donors to host virtual house parties on behalf of your organization. During these house parties, they can talk up your cause and answer questions about your work before asking their attendees for donations.
If you have some bookworms in your community, try hosting a used book sale at a local office park or library. Advertise well in advance for individuals to bring their gently used books to the sale.
Instead of paying full price at a bookstore, they can pay a little less and help your cause. Have your supporters pledge to walk 10, steps a day for a certain amount of time a month, for instance and have their friends and family sponsor their effort. Participants can track their steps using a pedometer app and then collect pledges on your behalf. This is a great fundraiser to get people moving and giving. Have participants have all their recyclable cans and bottles and have a place for them to drop off the items.
You could even have departments compete to see how many cans and bottles they can recycle in a week. Food trucks are becoming more and more popular. Host your food truck fundraiser as its own event, or invite the truck to one of your other events to raise more. From tacos to burgers, ice cream to cannolis, there will be something for everyone, and your supporters will love getting their favorites from your office parking lot.
Host an event where everyone can enjoy some great wine while attracting support. Charge an admission fee to participate in your event, and have a sommelier lead the tasting. These might include a paper airplane toss, a coffee mug relay, an office chair race, or something outrageous like bubble soccer. Make sure to host an awards ceremony at the end to crown your champions.
Encourage office employees to let their hair down by participating in Crazy Hair Day. Have employees vote with their dollars on who has the craziest hair. This will not only motivate the employees to go over the top with their styles, but will also allow you to pull in money for your organization. Make sure the winner gets a prize. The premise of this fundraiser is simple. The most coffee-dependent and sleep-deprived workers will be willing to pay for an energizing nap in the middle of the day!
For this fundraiser, employees get together after work to enjoy drinks and appetizers. Partner with a local bar or restaurant and ask them to donate a certain percentage of their profits from happy hour to your organization. Encourage your employees to socialize and enjoy their refreshments by providing fun activities like trivia or karaoke during the event.
On hot summer days, hosting an ice cream social is the perfect way to raise funds for your cause and allow supporters to mingle with each other. Have them pay to register for the event, and celebrate their successful completion of the course by passing out medals.
This simple fundraiser gets employees to tap into their competitive side. Set up a game of musical chairs using office chairs and offer a fantastic prize. Each employee that gets out has to donate a few dollars to your organization. Participants can also pay extra to get back in the game and compete for the prize. Have employees donate to your organization to participate in a pajama day. Encourage them to wear their favorite pair of pajamas, slippers, and a bathrobe.
Employees love to bring their own unique flare to their workspaces. Put that creativity to good use by hosting an office decorating contest. Announce the date of the vote so your employees have enough time to bring in their favorite decor. Those not participating in the contest can vote for their favorite desk or office using their dollars. All you need is a few board games and card games.
You can also transform your game night into a tournament where guests can compete for a prize. Just charge a couple of dollars for admission to the game night. The Barter and Trade Fair is similar to a book swap. Participants simply bring items or services to trade. You can either charge an admission fee or charge per item or service that attendees bring to trade.
Appreciation grams work great for clubs, offices, churches, and schools. Not only can you raise funds, but you can also build camaraderie between your community. Try adding a piece of candy or another treat to make it even more fun! This fundraiser is more of a long-term commitment than a one-off event.
But it does have the potential to raise a lot of funds. Ask workers to sign up for your flag subscription service.
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