Several years ago, when I was the President of a local non-profit, the treasurer and I came up with a unique fundraising idea that involved both the community and the members of the group.

One of the biggest frustrations was trying to get every member of the group interested and involved. The project had to be something that was not too daunting for them to undertake; and, at the same time, fun enough to garner their interest. We live in a college town, so we decided to raffle off WOW gift baskets during WOW week.

On the Thursday of WOW week, we had a booth at Farmer’s Market in which we displayed the gift basket and people would buy tickets to win one of the baskets. Members of the board went to local businesses where they frequented often and asked for donations of merchandise or gift certificates. We drafted a letter for them to take to the business explaining who we were and why we were asking for a donation.

This presented us with the opportunity to educate local businesses about our group and to involve them in our fundraising activity. We would bring all the donations together and decorate the gift baskets, which was a lot of fun. We would get $50 gift certificates and expensive merchandise from local restaurants, markets, beauty salons, and wineries etc…There was one business who sold gift baskets that included local food and wine. Every year, they would donate a $100 gift basket to us. We would insert our brochures in each basket as well as pass them out at our Farmer’s Market booth. During WOW week, many students and parents would come to the Farmer’s Market, which made the crowd larger than usual. Our chapter members were excited to share with their favorite businesses what our group was all about. Sometimes the owners or managers knew someone who could benefit from the services that our group provided.

At first, we charged $1 per ticket. A couple years later, we decided to increase the ticket fee to $5 a piece, and people still bought a lot of tickets. We would prepare for the event during the summertime. It was a lot of fun, and it was an opportunity for our members to be a big part of the fundraising process.
We would create a poster to display at Farmer’s Market that included all the names of our donors as well as putting their names on our organization’s website. Many businesses enjoy supporting local groups, especially the Mom and Pop businesses.

The key ingredients to successful member ownership and participation in a fundraising event is experiencing a sense of accomplishment in getting donations and selling tickets and seeing the final amount of abundant revenue generated from their efforts.

Sara Delia | Posted On 2016-03-27 Tagged | Unique Fundraiser, Cheerleading Fundraiser