Kind of Odd Fundraising Ideas

For those of us running out of 'typical' fundraising ideas, we may want to try some of the following more unusual ideas. Or maybe not. I'm not saying that I'm going to do ANY of these, but maybe they will help spark your imagination!

· Murder Mystery Party Fundraiser: http://www.stepbystepfundraising.com/murder-mystery-party-fundraiser/

· Trivia Night Fundraiser: http://stepbystepfundraising.com/trivia-night-fundraiser/

· Squeegee fundraiser – Approach some local fast food restaurants with drive-thru service – McDonalds, Coffee Time, Burger King, etc. – to see if they would let you set up a squeegee fundraiser in their drive-thru area. Leading up to the event, approach hardware stores and gas station to ask if they would be willing to donate buckets, squeegees and windshield washer fluid to your cause. For the event you will need volunteers at either end of the drive-thru – one to collect donations and give the donor a token to indicate that he or she has given to your cause, and 2 more at the opposite end to collect the token and squeegee the windshield.

· Burger fundraiser – Ask any of the big chain restaurants - McDonalds, Pizza Hut or Burger King –if they will help your cause. Most of the larger fast food restaurants, like McDonalds, offer fundraising benefits, which means the restaurant will donate a certain portion of the day's sales to a fundraising event. To set this up you need to go speak directly with the owner or manager of your local fast food restaurant to see if they offer fundraising benefits. If they do, agree on a day and time – it's typically a few hours (for example from 2pm to 4pm). In the past, fundraising organizers have reported making $500 to $1000 worth of charity profits from just a few hours of sales at a McDonald's restaurant.

· Fundraising Raffle
A raffle is a great fundraising activity! To give yours a twist, sell lollipops with numbers printed on the sticks instead of standard raffle tickets. The sticks themselves can be difficult to write on, so use sticky file labels folded around the sticks to make tags. It would be a good idea to have lots of volunteers and participants to print the numbers. Assign people numbers 1-99, 100-199, etc, or smaller amounts for young children. The person with the winning stick in this fundraising activity gets the prize!

Tip: If you don’t have the money to purchase a prize, ask a local business to donate an item or a gift certificate to raffle off. You’ll be surprised how willing people are to help with fundraising activities. You can even have group members bring baked goods to raffle off!