Ideas For Planning Fundraising Events

So you're planning a fundraising event, and you need ideas. You've been wracking your brain, and nothing has come to you – yet. You've come to the right place! Let's talk about special fundraising event planning – some ideas that you might not have thought of.

Size Matters

In the world of fundraising ideas, size matters. If your organization is your local church, you would plan a different type of event than you would if you were promoting a political candidate. Can you imagine your church hosting a $1500 a plate chicken dinner? Maybe so – but it would never happen at my church!

On the other hand, not many politicians have raised their millions on sales of cookbooks with recipes from good cooks at their church. That would need to be a whole lot of cookbooks sold! A good idea is to size your fundraising event to the size of the organization.

Getting Buy In – Or Rather, Participation

The idea that a fundraising event will be successful without the participation of a lot of people is ludicrous. It takes many people to make the event really work. If you're doing a church cookbook, or a harvest festival at the elementary school, or a drive to raise money for the local bookmobile...whatever...divide the work up and get as many people involved as possible.

Not only will there be less work for each person, but also the participants will tell other people about it and they'll tell people – and there will be more people show up at the harvest festival or to buy a cookbook. Also, having more people involved increases the chances that someone involved can get you a discount on some part of the event, or that someone involved will have skill in an area that sorely needs someone who knows what they're doing. 

Put The Right Person In The Right Job

If Suzy really doesn't enjoy fundraising but she wants to help, maybe she should be in charge of collecting the money at the door. Let Jody, the fundraising fiend, go store to store asking for donations. If the father of one of the students is a CPA by trade, perhaps he'll be willing to donate some time to keep the books accurate for the fundraiser.

You can ask – although of course, not every professional will be willing to donate their services. Some will be willing to give services at a discount, though, which still helps the organization. Remember, too, that since some people are just a natural whiz at fundraising events, and have plenty of ideas, maybe they would be perfect to have on the fundraising team.