At the chapel, we have to do quite some fundraising, but we are running out of interesting ideas! We do the same things, year in and year out, and frankly, we need a change.....I thought it worth flinging the idea out there and asking the collective brain power of you dear readers - what could we do for fundraising?
Bear in mind that we are talking about an 80 year old woman and me doing the bulk of the organising, we can seat about 75 people comfortably, we have a very small kitchen, and we are in a rural village.
We already do coffee mornings, the annual overnight sponsored knitathon in August, a Strawberry Tea, Harvest Supper, etc. I am desperately casting around for some different ideas.........
Anyone out there got any brainwaves for me? What do the organisations you support do to raise cash?
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13 comments:
Can you get a group of the younger people to do a sponsored carwash?
What about a booksale?
We were very impressed by the Village Yard Sale we went to last year [in aid of the church funds] ONE Saturday was selected, and people could pay a fee [£10 I think] to be included in the brochure. This was just a folded photocopied sheet sold for 50p in the post office. Then on The Day, people just put all their stuff on their drives, and it was like a massive Boot Sale - but none of the sellers had to leave home! They made about £400 from sellers, a similar amount from sales of programmes - and sold tea and cakes in the church hall as well.
The admin was all done beforehand, leaving the organisers free to 'man the teapots' on the day.
I think it worked well because the sellers felt they were making money out of it, and it wasnt too stressful for the planning team. I am still trying to work out whether to do one here in our village!
What about a "basics sewing" skills day? Participants pay a registration fee- for the chaurch. Then they can bring own needed supplies or pay a fee for a "kit"
We have a wine tasting in our village hall. I'm not sure where they get the wine from, must be at a discount, or even from a sponsor. Tickets are £10 and that includes 6 glasses of wine, snacks, and a quiz.
We also have a visit from a rural touring theatre. Google 'touring theatre' that might come up with something. They book the VH for one night, and perform at all the other village halls in the area.
In the summer we had the Great Village Bakeoff. Lots of people made cakes and they were judged by a local chef. Some of them were auctioned off, and the rest was cut up into slices and everyone had some. They sold tickets for the event, or pay on the door. It was very successful.
Soup and sweet/pudding is a big fundraiser up here in NE Scotland. You could prepare the sweets beforehand.
Beetle drives are great fun if youngsters are involved but to be honest, it's great fun at any age. Then you can have prizes for the most colourful/artistic/original beetle!
Bingo?
I'm not as involved with fundraisers as I used to be so I'm a bit out of touch. Good luck x
Hi, love your blog. What about an auction of promises or a 50:50 auction? Maybe local businesses or attractions could be contacted for donations. Maybe run it as a silent auction as part of harvest supper? People who can't make the event can always bid before hand. Hope this helps! Keep writing - it's good to hear about other juggling Methodist mums!!
Rachel x
Goodness, folks - thanks v much for all these sparkling ideas!
There was also a comment from BRIDGET [are you still about?] but I haven't published it because you shared your email address with me in it, and I didn't want to be responsible for you getting a load of spam emails - but thank you v much for all the ideas! Lovely to hear from you x
I shall sift through the ideas and see which ones are likely to be doable here in our particular situation....watch this space!
THANK YOU ALL!
Thanks Morgan. I was a bit paranoid as to why it didn't appear. I thought I might have bombarded you! Lovely blog by the way x
We only do a few fundraising at our church as we are a small parish and most are over 75 yesrs of age.
We produced a cookbook of all our parisoners recipes which I produced with husbands help which we sold for £5 it had 75 recipes and we raised over £500.
Then we ran a 100 club for a few years which generated a nice amount.
Mostly we have coffee mornings once a month and that gives us a nice income.
After someone mentioning the cookbook I remembered that my elderly neighbour wrote 2 books to sell locally; one was on all the local walks and another was on local history and historical events/local stories. The historical one is fascinating and shows how the village used to be, which shops were here, photos of the past etc. Perhaps something like that could help raise money but it is a lot of work.
One year we had the youth group do a Valentine's Dinner. They and their moms did all the cooking. People were encouraged to get a bit dressed up. The kids made all the decorations and I made tablecloths however borrowing some nice lace or linen or embroider ones is also nice. The kids came up with the entertainment. There are usually two or three kids that play instruments so there was music. There were games also that the kids came up with and a couple skits put on. The highlight to the evening was the kids getting volunteers to come and tell about their "love" experience. Some were how they met their spouses and some were about their walk with God or how they came to be a Christian. The kids also had some money in the kit so they did a silent auction and had a draw or a lower arrangement. Sorry one o my keys is not working. Bless you in your undraising journey. Jean rom Manitoba Canada. BTW Love your blog.
I did not mention that we sold tickets to the Valentine dinner.
What about adding in some table sales to your existing coffee morning or knitathon if you have space. We found sales of books, CDs and DVDs went well, also bric a brac, but not "jumble" which folk seemed to think was a way to offload stuff that should have been recycled or taken to the tip! We also found a sponsored trampoline bounce worked well, many parents being so proud that their offspring were able to do an activity that the parents had never tried, not sure if this might translate to your gym club in an equivalent activity. Good luck in whatever you decide to do, Vee x
We had a table sale and rented out table space to individual people and to other groups (who then advertised it to their people and we reached a wider audience). I charged a slightly higher admission fee but this then entitled them to a free cuppa and a plain biscuit. We had some delicious home made cake on display next to the drinks but they had to pay extra for that. That ploy worked very well and we raised a lot of money.
We have had book sales but find that too many people are getting rid of their books because Kindles are becoming more common. Even selling 5 books for £1 did not shift many. Those of us running the last one were of the opinion that we could all have chipped in £5 and we'd not only have had a free day but we would actually have raised more money with no hassle involved...
Putting on a nice meal has worked well for us too. As a family we don't actually go out for meals but other people do and they seem willing to part with a week's housekeeping (for us) for one nice meal. Making it several courses helps (starter, main, dessert and coffee and mint) as well as publishing the menu beforehand. If you are offering a choice of menu, then make sure people write down their options for you when they pay in advance. A proper tablecloth and some kind of little floral table decoration make it seem more special but at little cost to you. Maybe even a candle too (Poundland).
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