Spring Fundraising Event Ideas Needed

K.,

Our church youth group does a spaghetti supper and silent auction every spring to raise money for their Choir trip. While I can't tell you exactly how much they make, I do know they have been very successful. They get a ton of donations from the neighborhood vendors and retailers as well as the church members. Many members donate the use of vacation homes, boat rentals, ski trips. The youth often donate babysitting, errands, work around the house and some of the young adults donate full meals like gourmet fajita dinner for twelve, stuff like that. Our pastor is an avid golfer and always dontates a round of golf with himself. The church donates 2 reserved front door parking spaces for a full year that always goes for almost $1000.

I'm sure if you call my church they will put you in touch with someone who has worked on this committee and can help you get going. It's Wilshire Baptist Church on Abrams Rd. at Mockingbird in Lakewood.

Good luck.

Fundraisers get so old with kids selling stuff all the time. I know your venue is different. It should be FUN not a full time JOB.

I refuse to allow my daughter to go door to door selling things no one needs. When she brings things home from school to sell, we just write a check and send the forms back to school empty. I have found that some of the teachers involved in the selling do get kickbacks because last year I asked a specific group about donating vs selling and I was told..."We happily accept donations but she cannot win one of the prizes unless she sells $300 worth of the goods". That alone tells me there is some back door stuff going on.

My personal preference..........I will write a check and be done with it. A fundraiser is more apt to get a lot more support from me if they simply ask for a monetary donation.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I know this is not what you asked but there are people like me out there that cringe at "fundraiser".

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately - depending on how you look at it), you've realized a very important lesson that we who work in fundraising as a career often learn the hard way. Fundraising events really aren't "fund" raisers when you factor in the amount of hours and labor that are involved. If you factor in the church's paid staff time, the physical resources that have to be bought or rented for the event, etc., not to mention the volunteer burn-out from working that hard, you're probably spending more than you're making in the event.

Have you thought of doing a more traditional appeal to your church members? A letter from the minister/pastor explaining the need and asking for donations? Maybe a special collection one Sunday that's just for your purpose? Or, smaller fundraisers might be a better way to go. Have a table set up before & after church where people can purchase things (whether it's a bake sale or raffle ticket sales). Take the elements you already have for the larger event and break it into smaller, more manageable chunks. One to two tables at Sunday services is a lot easier than a huge event.

valentine rose/flower sale

mother's day bedding plant sale

First of all, congrats on getting your group started! Taking the first steps of forming a group can always be a trying process... kudos for giving it a go!

One of the first things can really help getting started is finding ways to get organized early on. Coming up with the tools to manage your members, plan your events and get the word out about everything you do can be tricky.

I'd say the best way to get a jump on this: set up a group home page on a fundraising website. Many of them are free to use and can offer new groups amazing tools to organize, find new volunteers and raise awareness for a cause (regardless of whether you actually want to fundraise). Some require that you have non-profit status to form a group, but plenty others will give student groups, church groups and other groups without non-profit status some awesome ways to help get your group off the ground.

For example, one good site to help new groups is GroupSpaces (www.groupspaces.com). They offer plenty of tools to help get groups off the ground, including some event management functions that let you create events, as well as managing your members. And if you're interested in fundraising for your group eventually, they can link to your account and charge 2.5% of donations received (while some other sites charge as much as 5%).

Another good option would be Empowered.org (www.empowered.org). It is a bit newer than GroupSpaces and their platform is geared more towards social action, but are open to all small groups, regardless of non-profit status. Also, they offer plenty of solid tools to help new groups, and give groups the ability to create specific volunteer activities and events for each group (which GroupSpaces doesn't do). And if you ever were interested in fundraising, they offer specific fundraising campaigns (and charge 1.5% of donations) - nice if you ever go down that road.

There are some other sites worth looking into - MeetUp is another one that helps groups, but doesn't offer as many tools as the other two I mentioned. Anyways, I really think that setting a home would really help jump start the group-starting process.

Hope that helps! Good luck with your group going forward.