60+ Fundraising Event Ideas for Nonprofits

Travel Raffle

You’ll need some great contacts to pull off a travel raffle. But, if you do, one of your lucky supporters will be setting sail (or taking off) on the vacation of a lifetime.

Get your staff together to dream up the perfect getaway. You want the trip to be so enticing that anyone who hears about it will be rushing to enter the raffle, yourself included!

For the prize package, you’ll definitely want to secure airfare and wonderful accommodations for two. Seal the deal with included tickets and coupons for activities to fill out the winner’s travel itinerary.

Work with a team to secure the various trip items as in-kind donations. It’ll take ingenuity to complete the prize. Struggling to find donated plane tickets? See if a frequent flyer will donate her miles. Having difficulty booking a hotel? Ask around for a donated vacation property.

Once the package is finished, set your raffle ticket price and start advertising. You can host a reveal party to pick the winner’s name, or fold the raffle into another fundraising event.

Golf Tournament

Charity golf tournaments put the fun in fundraising. Sunny weather, beautiful scenery, and bountiful funding.

For your golf tournament, you’ll need:

• A great course to play on.
• A date that usually has good weather.
• A committee to help attract sponsors and participants.
• In-kind donations for event day needs, like golf balls and drinks.
• Plenty of promotions.
• A plan for the closing ceremony and awards.

You can sell tickets to individuals, but twosomes and foursomes will be easier to place. Let local companies or community groups sponsor a set number of foursomes (gold level sponsors receive two foursomes, for example).

When the big day finally arrives, make sure you have systems in place to handle registration efficiently and get everyone out on the course as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Wrap up the day with an awards ceremony and a brief presentation about the cause behind the charity and what the new funding will accomplish.

5K Walk/Run

Charity Auction

Oddball Events

Trivia Tournament

School-Wide Yard Sale

I Won't Come Down Until...

Talent Show

School Lock-In

Haunted House

Alumni Happy Hour

Alumni Happy Hour

Alumni Networking Dinner

Student Variety Show

Student Variety Show

Throwback Thursday Dance

Campus Carnival

Philanthropic Pub Crawl

Speed Dating

Date Night Auction

Date Night Auction

Online Petition

Jail and Bail

Virtual Road Race

Virtual Bake Sale

Viral Video Challenge

Skills Clinic

Obstacle Course

Heavy Lifter Helpers

Bowling for Bucks

Bowling for bucks is another way of saying bowl-a-thon. They work well as sports fundraisers because they’re active events that appeal to all skill levels, from competitive experts who own their own shoes and bowling balls to those that prefer to bowl with bumpers and spend a lot of their time at the alley’s concession stand.

Both ends of the spectrum and any level in between will enjoy your bowl-a-thon. The funds will partly be made up of donations via entrance fees and other miscellaneous contributions, as well as money raised through the participants themselves.

Like with any a-thon, have competitors collect donations and pledges up until the event using the peer-to-peer, or crowdfunding, fundraising method.

Participants can set up their own crowdfunding pages to keep track of all of their donations in one singular location that easily feeds back into the main fundraising pool for your club.

On top of the functionality, the page is shareable via social media and email to maximize awareness through seamless promotion.

Donors can give a set amount prior to the event or they can pledge a certain amount per game bowled or games with scores over a certain number, whatever arrangement the participant is comfortable with.

Get the bowling ball rolling soon!

Wacky Sports Tournament

If you’re an athletic organization, it’s a given that your members and supporters are into sports. Why not capitalize on that passion for your fundraising efforts?

Tempt donors with a unique opportunity to play a sport they likely wouldn’t have the chance to enjoy anywhere else, like Quidditch or canoe jousting. The event will appeal to their competitive natures and allow them to use their athletic abilities in a novel way.

The first step to pulling this one off is to make sure you have all the right equipment to play the game.

With sports that are a little more off-the-wall, it’s easy to improvise.

For example, if you were hosting a Quidditch match, you would need broomsticks and athletic balls of varying types and sizes. Or, if you’re really tight on funds, you can ask participants to bring their own gear.

1. Charge individual participants an entry fee and pick teams the day of, or
2. Have full teams sign up and raise money by fundraising online.

To increase your efforts, put out donation buckets where spectators can make bets on the winning team. Reward the team who gets the most donations with a pizza party after the tournament.

Hoops for Hope

With hoops for hope, your supporters can show off their basketball skills all while raising money for a good cause!

This event is best held as part of a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

In the two or three weeks leading up to the event, individuals can share their personal donation pages on their social media sites.

Friends, families, and other peers will donate by pledging a monetary amount for each basket made. For example, someone could pledge $5 or $10 per basket.

For this one to work, you’ll need:

• Lots of basketballs.
• An available basketball court
• A buzzer.
• Volunteers to keep the time, record the number of baskets made, and collect balls for the participants.
• The help of excellent peer-to-peer fundraising software.

During the event, each supporter will have a set time limit to make as many baskets as possible. The more baskets they make, the more money they’ll raise!

If you want to heighten the (friendly) competition and incentivize your participants even further, offer a prize to the person who makes the most baskets.

Work-a-Thon

Have the young people from your organization offer to help finish odd jobs for those in the community.

Volunteers can:

• Mow lawns.
• Rake leaves.
• Walk dogs.
• Help cook meals.
• Clean up around the house.
• And complete any other odd jobs donors can think of.

You can host the event as a one-time only day where all the volunteers are available, or make it a fundraising event series and offer up workers every Saturday for a month, for example.

Ensure that those outside of your organization’s network learn about the event as well, so you have the largest donor pool possible. Speaking of pools—pool cleaning is big in the summer work-a-thon market!

Have your volunteering workers not only collect donations on behalf of their services, but also seek out pledges for hours worked. You’ll be creating a wonderful cycle of community service.

Pop-up Restaurant

Where do you go when you don’t feel like cooking after a long day’s work? Do you pick up fast food on the way home? Stop in at the local pizza shop? What if you could pick up a home cooked meal and help your church raise money at the same time?

You can with a pop-up restaurant fundraiser.

Organizers should pick a busy weeknight, like Thursday when there’s more work the next day and people are already tired from the first half of the week, and cook a meal to sell for an affordable price.

Your biggest cost is going to be the ingredients, but if you buy in bulk you’ll more than break even in no time.

The meals can either be premade and easy-to-heat, like roasts and casseroles or freshly made and ready for serving, like hamburgers.

Fancy might be fun, but it isn’t universally appealing and easy to cook in bulk. Cook meals that a 75 year old and a 12 year old would be glad to eat. Think home-style and traditional.

People will be lining up to have dinner taken off their hands! And with these events, you can host them over and over again with new food each time.

Wreaths and Wrapping

Santa has his elves, and your community will have your volunteers. Set up shop outside popular stores during the holiday season and offer your wrapping services. To put the icing on the gingerbread house, sell wreaths as well.

Either charge a minor fee for the wrapping or wrap for free with a prominent donation jar.

People will be thrilled to get their gift wrapped before they even leave the parking lot, but they’re going to expect quality, so recruit your most gifted cutters, folders, and tapers. Even though the stick-on-bows are tempting, come up with a few standard ribbon designs beforehand so that your team can quickly tie them.

Gather an assortment of paper options and ribbons for your customers to choose from.

As far as the wreaths go, try to get them partially donated or buy in bulk to cut costs. Sell them on the day of your wrapping station event, but don’t limit yourself to that day.

Wreath sales are a mobile endeavor, so sell, sell, sell, until you’re sold out.

When the holidays finally arrive, your wreaths will be on doors, your wrapping under trees, and your donations already working towards more great things in the new year.

Caroling for a Cause

This seasonal fundraiser is a must every December. Your church probably already has groups that go caroling. Incorporate fundraising into the mix and you’re all set.

Caroling is more about having fun and spreading the holiday spirit than it is about pitch-perfect singing. So don’t worry if your caroling group is lacking in the vocal department. Charisma can certainly carry you.

Promote the fundraiser to the neighborhoods that you’ll be visiting beforehand so that residents can be prepared.

Stepping outside of the traditional door-to-door caroling model, offer up your singers for carol-grams. Interested parties can send your carolers to various friends and family with specific song requests. Charge according to how many songs they want you to sing.

It’s a lot of fun. You’ll get sent to spouses’ offices, restaurants, schools, and all around town, spreading holiday cheer wherever you go.

Scratch Card Sunday

This one’s easy: right before you pass around the offering plate, simply provide volunteers with a lottery style scratch card that has 8-10 scratch off symbols on it.

When collection rolls around, participants will scratch their cards and donate the sum of whichever numbers appear. Most participants will love the opportunity to give, but just make sure they’re clear on the rules before they do any scratching!

Luckily, this type of fundraiser is also very affordable. You can order cheap customized lotto scratchers online, or see if you can recruit an artistic volunteer to make some for you.

Depending on your results, scratch card Sunday can be a one time event or a monthly recurrence.

Scratch Card Sunday

Pictures with Santa is the perfect fundraiser for parents and kids alike.

Kids will enjoy getting to meet their favorite holiday character, while adults will love not having to wait in long mall lines to capture their holiday memories.

Have a volunteer from your church dress up in a beard, red suit, and Santa hat. You’ll also need the volunteer services of an expert photographer with a good camera to provide the congregation with high-quality, professional-level photos.

Schedule the event for a weekend near the beginning of December, and find a good place to set up a photo booth. For maximum authenticity, decorate the booth with faux snow, candy canes, and other decorations from the North Pole!

Set a donation amount that each family must pay to get their picture taken with Santa.

To raise even more funds, you can also offer to print and frame photos or burn multiple images onto a CD for families to take home with them.

Additionally, make sure you have a way to accept credit card donations in the likely event that congregation members won’t be carrying cash.

Night at the Museum

There’s just something exhilarating about seeing someplace you’re familiar with from a new vantage point. For one special night, open the doors to your museum for a big fundraising blowout under the stars.

Your museum night can be a black tie formal affair or have more of a behind-the-scenes feel for families.

The route you take in terms of the audience is going to control the sorts of activities you have planned. A formal affair might have an auction and a five-course meal, whereas the family-geared event could have more educational and interactive experiences.

Rather than a solo event, consider partnering with other local museums to make it a larger scale night for greater numbers of people. Those who might not have ever considered visiting your museum will be drawn in by the occasion.

If you’re looking to take a risk, have admission be “pay as you wish.” Sure, you’ll get less than you might have charged in some cases, but other times you’ll see major contributions from patrons that are grateful to have had the option.

What are you waiting for? Switch your closed signs to open and join in your city’s nightlife scene for a very special evening!

Local Artists Auction

An art auction consisting of work donated entirely by local artists is great for the art museum hosting the event and the culture of the surrounding community as well.

The event will foster relationships between local artists and the museum, showcase new talents, teach the public about what’s happening right in their backyards, and promote the museum itself, all while raising money.

Curate the event and display the pieces like you would any new exhibit. Invite members of the community, including your museum patrons. Your patrons can even help promote the auction themselves.

At the auction itself, highlight the artists’ stories when discussing each piece of art. People will be more inclined to bid if they feel connected to the work. Have museum staff on hand to offer advice and thoughtful discussion of the work on display.

You want the evening to appeal to a museum regular, while still being accessible to a first-time patron.

The auction is there to raise money, but the event is about promoting local artists and building sustainable relationships with the members of the community.

Family Fun Day

Once monthly, host a family fun day fundraiser. Aim for a day like the second Saturday of every month so that parents and children can attend together.

These are family fun days, but they’re geared towards the kids. They should be educational, but by no means boring. If your museum is an art museum, teach painting classes. If your museum is about the history of your state, let the kids dress up from different time periods and act out momentous events.

Outside of the activities, design tours geared towards children. If you handle field trips, your tour guides will already have the script.

When planning the day, think back to the ten year old version of yourself. Would you have been more interested in learning about the emotion behind an impressionist painting or practicing sculpting with clay?

The parents might be bringing their children for the educational opportunities, but the kids won’t be interested in anything remotely like school on a Saturday. Appeal to both parties with entertaining activities that have educational undertones.

Once a few families find out and attend, word will spread, and your monthly program will be packed.

Happy parents who discover your museum through this fundraiser could be high-quality donation prospects that you might not have otherwise found. Use the family day to initiate donor cultivation with the parents while the kids are playing.

Galas

Museums were made for galas. The beautiful art is its own theme and decor. People host everything from weddings to proms in museums, so if you already have the location, you should be taking advantage of the venue.

Some of the most glamorous events of the year happen at museums. The Met Ball comes to mind.

Your gala should be a glitzy black tie affair. It can be themed around one of your permanent or visiting exhibits, but make sure that the people in attendance know what cultural efforts their money is funding.

For instance, you can sell tables and offer tiered corporate sponsorships.

Success takes planning — way, way, way advanced planning. Begin early and form a staff and volunteer committee to get everything that you need accomplished.

When you’re early in the planning process, you’ll need to do some projected budgeting to make sure your event won’t cost so much that it detracts from the donations. The fundraising component has to be your first concern. Try to keep expenses low by securing in-kind donations and sponsorships. You’re already ahead of the curve with your venue set.

You'll also need to plan how you're going to raise money during the event. Many fundraising galas incorporate charity auctions just for this purpose. In contrast, you can host a fundraising raffle using in-kind donations from sponsors as prizes.

To make the entry process quick and simple, use a donation kiosk; guests can give with their credit cards. 

However you decide to raise money during your event, make sure your volunteers and guest speakers can show guests just how easy it is to give!

Cobweb Scavenger Hunt

Chances are, if your supporters are museum patrons, they love history and looking at beautiful, old artifacts.

Take this passion outside of your doors by hosting a cobweb scavenger hunt that challenges teams to find a series of historical landmarks throughout your home city. Scope out the streets beforehand to find some hidden gems, so everyone will have to search a little to find all of the stops on your list.

Participants can join by paying a small entrance fee. You can also encourage groups to create online donation pages where people can make pledges for landmarks found. For example, someone could pledge $5 for each landmark team members locate.

The day of the event, give each team a printed list of destinations and set a time limit. The more locations they find, the more money they raise, so encourage teams to maximize their efforts by splitting up.

Each time they find a landmark, have them take a selfie in front of the location with their phones. If you want to raise even more awareness, request that they share these selfies on their social media pages.

Heighten the stakes by offering the winning team a prize. The friendly competition will be so fierce that they’ll be knocking down doors all around the city!

In-House Competitions

Who doesn’t love a little healthy competition? And what about healthy competition for a good cause? That’s even better!

Allocate a set amount of time for the fundraising period and divide your office into teams. Marketing versus sales! I can hear the trash talk now.

Depending on your office’s current makeup, you can split the teams according to departments (like the epic battle I’m picturing between marketing and sales); or, try mixing and matching staff to create groups that don’t get to work together as often or know each other as well.

Who knows? Maybe the dream office fundraising team is the perfect combination of Jenny from IT, Luke from sales, and Vivian from accounting?

As far as donating the funds, you’ll have some flexibility. You can:

• Pick a charity beforehand.
• Have each team fundraise for their own charity.
• Let the winning team choose where the funds should be donated.

With any of the options, a worthy cause benefits and employee morale is sure to benefit, too.

The event can take place over a week, a month, even a few months. You can also piggyback onto a larger event at the close of the competition, like a local charity walk/run.

In order to keep all of the information and donations straight, set up a crowdfunding page for the competition and then let each team run a sub-page. The web platform will organize and track all the donations gathered, and it makes the campaigns easily shareable across email and social media.

Supervisor Rental

Do you know what’s far better than doing busy work or your own errands? How about having your supervisor do them for you?

Find supervisors willing to participate as fundraising incentives. Let them each charge for their time by the half hour or hour and set aside a day for the festivities.

When the day rolls around, employees can schedule their supervisors for various tasks. And if there’s competition for someone’s time, encourage a bidding war.

The tasks obviously need to be respectable and within reason, but have fun with it.

Is your car in desperate need of a scrubbing? Hand your boss a bucket and a cloth. Have you been meaning to file that huge stack of papers on your desk? Your supervisor probably has the skills to get the job done. What about those 150 envelopes that need stuffing? Your manager can fold with the best of them.

Whoever said money doesn’t buy power has never participated in a supervisor rental fundraiser!

Can Collection

If your office wants to raise money for environmental organizations, like land trusts or conservancies, in particular, a recycling drive is the perfect event for you.

This fundraiser is as much about cause awareness as it is about the money brought in.

Have employees work to gather as many recyclables as possible from friends, family, neighbors, and the like. If you want to broaden the scope of the event, you can even advertise the drive and hold a collection day for those in the community to drop off their items.

At the end of the drive, bring all the cans and goods to your local recycling center and exchange them for a cash reward. Then, donate the funds to an environmental organization of your office’s choosing.

Can drives combine a volunteer spirit with the practicality of straightforward donations. All good things for the environment.

Can Collection

Ah, the coveted front row of parking spots. Life is easier in the front row. Fewer steps in the rain, the wind, and the heat. You’re that much closer to your desk on those days when you pull into the parking lot on two wheels at 8:57am.

In parking decks, you don’t have to sit in end-of-day gate traffic. You’ll buzz out of the office, windows down, wind through your hair, tunes blasting on the radio.

With your own very special, premium parking spot, you always know it’s there, forever reserved.

As long as your office has reserved premium parking, it is the perfect fundraising incentive.

Host a car-themed trivia contest to determine the winner of the coveted spot. Charge an entrance fee to raise money and then let your employees go head-to-head to prove why they’re the best driver for the spot.

The winner keeps the spot for a month and then has to defend his or her title in a new round of trivia. Challengers have to pay to play, but the space holder gets waived entrance fees.

It’s the kind of event that’s silly fun, but something to look forward to monthly. And depending on the size of your office, you could raise quite a bit of money throughout the year. The charity of your choice will be grateful for that.

Embarrass the Authority

Embarrass the Authority

Weight Loss-a-Thon

Daily Indulgence Drop

Dollars for Dares

Flash Mob

50/50 Raffle

Tree Planting Party

Animal De-Stress Day

World Market

The Non-Event Event

Cause Week