Fundraising Help

First off, are you fundraising for a school, a school PTA, or a church? If so look at what they have done in the past and what was successful and what was not.

Query other parents, they may be sick of selling popcorn or food products for the 10th year in a row.

Ideas:

-When in Houston our school had a carnival last year but it didn't raise much money--it required a lot of organization and volunteers.

-A parent bought shirts with the school logo on them, donated them, and all sales of the shirts were 100% profit. Requires a parent to eat the cost of the shirts!!

-This year our school is selling frozen,braided pastries at $10 each ($5 profit on each). People aren't ordering a bunch due to the requirements to keep them frozen and that the parents have to go to the school during the day to pick them up (they have to stay frozen). Not a good one to sell for people who sell to family/grandparents that aren't in the local community.

-There is a wrapping paper company that numerous schools have used where I have lived. People usually like this one although the paper is a little pricey.

-Also there is a company that has kids color original artwork and then makes folded cards (think blank 'thank you' cards) for the parents to use year round.

-Our local professional basketball team offers money back to our PTA for every ticket bought to a certain game.

-Our local baseball team lets non-profit groups work the concession stands and earn profits. (Many colleges also do this).

-I know churches who 'pre-sells' chicken meals for super bowl Sunday and then spends all morning cooking the chickens on a big BBQ pit. Requires a big BBQ cooking team, but is a good seller for those who don't want to cook on that day.

-Pumpkin patches are at many local churches in Houston.

Try googling "school fundraising" "fundraising" or visiting some of the school sites (K12, GreatSchools, SchoolQuest, National PTA, PTO, Scholastic, local professional/semiprofessional sports etc) that give might give you information on school fundraising.

Good luck!

What kind of fundraiser are you looking to do? I own a green recycling company and part of the company is used cell phone fundraising. It is the easiest and very simple to do and all you are asking is that people turn in their used cell phones that they no longer use. It is very profitable and can bring in a lot of money. If that is not want you are wanting to do please let me know and I will send you some more ideas. I own a two companies and the other one is where I manage a figure skater and I am putting on events all the time to help her raise money.

Please just let me know if you would like more information and I will gladly help you out the best that I can.

Truly,

Ms. J. M. H.

I had to come up with fundraising ideas for a dog rescue group that I was helping out..What I did was just do a internet search for fundraisers..I came up with ALOT of ideas...good luck!

J.

Hello.
My name is Dr. Heather Wyant, Doctor and owner of Atlantic Coast Family Chiropractic here in Summerville. Our office hosts alot of fund raising events, and have alot of experience with this type of thing. If you would like to meet and talk about the most effective way of organizing and promotting your event, myself and staff would me more than happy to do so. Please call the office at ###-###-####.
Dr. Heather Wyant

First of all, congrats on getting your fundraising started! Raising support for a worthy cause can be super rewarding. But obviously, if you're not an official non-profit, it can be really tricky finding a good way to build support for your cause.

One route you might want to consider: setting up a homepage for your group on a fundraising website. Having a group homepage online makes organizing and fundraising infinitely easier ... And though the majority of fundraising sites require you have official non-profit status, many good ones only require that you are a group - and will give you plenty of the tools you need.

For example, one good site is Meet Up (www.meetup.com), who allow you to fundraise directly to your account, and register a group without having an official non-profit status - and they cover groups around the world, while giving you some tools to do event management. But the tools they offer are a little limited outside of fundraising.

Another good option would be Empowered.org (www.empowered.org), a platform that also helps small groups fundraise and organize (regardless of non-profit status). They also work for international groups - and offer a fair amount of useful tools, like the ability to organize your group or to create volunteer activities and fundraising campaigns for more targeted ways to raise support.

Or you could always try to send up your own PayPal account to link to you directly to help you fundraise, but this is a little trickier and a bit inflexible.

Good luck getting started moving forward! Hope that helped.

Did you have anything specific in mind? I'm a rep for Mia Bella's Gourmet Candles and we do fundraising. I just started working with Mia Bella so I'm not sure of how fundraising program works just yet. You live a ways away from me so if you'd like I can put you in touch with a lady that also sells Mia Bella in Myrlte Beach. But here is my website info so you can look at the candles we offer and if you'd are intrested I can put you in touch with my friend closer too you (and she knows about fundraising too). www.shariegraf.scent-team.com Let me know!
S.

S.