Fundraising Ideas That Shouldn’t Work—But Do!

For charitable organizations and nonprofits, the fundraiser is one of the most important sources of development money. But with so many causes competing for people’s attention in the information age (Giving Tuesday, for example), and only so many people willing to volunteer their time and money to help, how do you make sure that your fundraiser — and the cause behind it — stands out? Some of the answers may seem unlikely, and you may even be tempted to scoff at first, but the unusual nature of these ideas is what makes them great! Coming up with fundraising ideas for nonprofits that are fun, attention-grabbing, and promote the cause to which you’re dedicating the funds shouldn’t have to be a giant headache. You just have to think outside the box, while keeping it in the spirit of what your foundation stands for and respecting its mission and core values. If that sounds like a challenging balance to strike, it can be — but anything worth doing is worth doing right, as the old saying goes.

Matching Your Fundraiser to Your Cause — And Avoiding Calamity

Sometimes, the rush of excitement that accompanies a new idea — one that feels fresh and innovative — can blind us to a very simple reality that would otherwise seem very obvious. And this can quickly turn into a PR nightmare.

To make an incredibly obvious example, let’s say that your organization is deeply invested in reducing or outright ending animal cruelty. Doing a barbecue, complete with burgers and hot dogs and chicken wings, would be in exceptionally poor taste. But flipping this idea on its head, by presenting a barbecue-style event that serves exclusively plant-based foods, might be a smart move.

However, these conflicts aren’t always obvious. If you are brainstorming event ideas for fundraising on behalf of a charity or non-profit, then you should take the time to familiarize yourself with the issue it was formed around, and communicate with the people at its core. This is an opportunity to gain context and perspective so that you don’t end up presenting your best fundraising ideas for a charity for people with disabilities, and half of them require venues that are not wheelchair-accessible (now that’s a blunder).

Doing It on the Cheap — Fundraising Ideas on a Budget

Running a charity is not cheap. You have overhead costs, you have staff salaries, you have administrative fees, and, whenever you put on an event, you have the costs of planning, promoting, producing, and more. Not lucky enough to find a venue willing to let you use it for free? Now you’re paying a venue charge. The costs can stack up quickly, and if you’re a newer or smaller organization, this can become prohibitive. And even for bigger charities and organizations, the more money spent on an event, the less there is for what really matters. To start with, focusing on resource planning can help maximize every dollar. Also, you don’t have to frame a cheap fundraiser idea as a cost-saving measure — you can frame it as an efficient way to make sure that money goes where it’s needed. Here are a few ideas:

The Anti-Gala

There’s an assumption that if you want to attract wealthy and influential donors to your event, you need an all-out black-tie affair. And while almost everyone loves the idea of an opulent gala, it can be one of the most expensive types of events to put on, even with a volunteer force or free venue. The idea of an anti-gala, then, is to create an event centred on not being too fancy.

The best way to do this is with a theme that will be fun for participants. Host a pajama party, with midnight snacks instead of fancy canapes, but keep the entrance fee the same — and let them know that the extra revenue will go directly to your cause. And pajama party is just one idea — the options are endless, so long as the appeal is there. A Wild West theme (think Westworld, but PG), a Halloween party… you may be surprised at the level of interest you can drum up with a simple but fun concept.

Auctioning Services

The charity auction is a popular enough concept, one that everyone’s seen in some variety or another. This variant is somewhat less popular, though it’s been successful in the past, and is both low-cost and simple to execute. It’s also something you can do whether you’re a large-scale charity organization or even just a group of high school or college students trying to raise funds for a good cause.

It works like a regular auction, only instead of auctioning valuable items, you’re auctioning services that might be appealing to people. Participants can bid to have a volunteer mow their lawn, paint their fence, wash their car, do yard work, and other helpful tasks. Not only do your guests get to feel like they are giving to a good cause, but they get something out of it too, which in some cases may be extremely helpful, especially to those who have mobility problems.

Good for a Laugh: Funny Fundraising Ideas

People love to laugh. It makes you feel good, it relieves stress, and it’s just overall good for you. So it’s no wonder that the intersection of charity and comedy has seen quite a lot of traffic over the years — look at Comic Relief, for example, a charity based in the UK that produces comedy specials to help fight poverty. The good news is, you don’t need to carve out a chunk of time on the BBC to get your comedic charity drive or fundraiser off the ground. Here are a few fun ideas for you:

The Embarrassing Photo Contest

The camera is not always kind to us, and everyone has a photograph they wish they could erase from existence — or perhaps one they simply pull out every now and again to say, “Look how far I’ve come!”

Well the good news is, there is a fun way to put these dark secrets to good use, and that’s through one of the best fundraising ideas we’ve heard of in a while — the embarrassing photo contest. It’s fairly simple: contestants pay an entry to upload their photo, and people vote on the most cringe-worthy.

The beauty of this idea is that it is totally scalable; you can have the one basic category if you want something simple and straightforward, or you can turn it into a tiered competition, with recognition going towards things like “Most Improved,” “Biggest Mullet,” “Worst Dressed,” and more. And while you scale it up, you can let people pay extra to submit their photo to multiple categories, or even pay a premium fee to have their photos featured near the top of the voting selections. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be!

The Anti-Raffle

You’ll notice that a lot of the best fundraising ideas in this article are about taking a format you’re familiar with and inverting it, giving it a fresh new spin that, while unexpected, creates an attractive and memorable event.

The anti-raffle is simple: instead of buying raffle tickets, people buy their way out of the raffle. And why would they do that? Because the prizes are all gags, like the classic pie-in-the-face. Each attendee to your fundraiser gets a set number of tickets, and it will cost them money to get rid of each one. You can even have a sliding scale — where each successive ticket is more expensive to get rid of than the last, encouraging higher donations. If you really want to add a competitive spin to it, people can also pay to have one of their raffle tickets transferred to a friend, for that added thrill of seeing the people in your life getting pranked.

Out of Left Field: Truly Unique Fundraising Ideas

We’ve covered what you can do on the cheap, and what you can do for a laugh, but what about some unique fundraising ideas that will set you apart from the crowd and really grab people’s attention? We’re talking about making big waves now. And in many cases, the ability to be noticed ends up becoming a fundraiser’s biggest asset. So how do you stand out? Here are a few ideas you can use, or even just build on to find something that’s entirely your own.

Meatless Monday

At the start of the article we talked about doing a veggie-based barbecue — and we weren’t just pulling that example out of nowhere. While not everyone is sold on vegetarianism or veganism, more and more people are starting to see that we do eat just a bit too much meat, and that the factory farming industry is having a tremendously negative impact, and so “meatless Mondays” have become a thing — avoiding animal products for one day every week. This is great if your fundraiser is focused on animal rights or environmental issues, or if you come across research that indicates a strong overlap between people people invested in your cause and in veganism. A vegan-style barbecue can also be an exploration of flavour. Looking for recipe ideas? The popular Thug Kitchen series of cookbooks infuses the flavours of Southern California into a plant-based diet, and is a great place to start for inspiration.

Meet a Celebrity

Celebrity meet-and-greets have long been the subject of radio and internet contests. More recently, famous folks from fantasy writer Neil Gaiman to hip-hop artist Saul Williams have auctioned off an opportunity to sit down and have a meal with them to help raise funds for projects they’re working on — so why not do something similar with your fundraiser? Whether it’s a local celebrity, the mayor of your city, or a superstar, the chance to meet a well-known figure is hard to pass up, and it’s also good press for the celebrity in question. Provided you get someone on board who can draw in donors, you could do this type of fundraiser by raffle, or incorporate it into a larger auction.

Pay to Work

We saved this one for last because, well, it just seems the most outlandish when you think about it. Why would anyone in their right mind pay you for the opportunity to do work?

Well, the answer is pretty simple, actually. According to one study, 67 per cent of volunteers for various charities and nonprofits stated that they also make monetary donations to the same foundations.

People are already giving both their money and their time and labor to causes they believe in, so why not make a single event out of both? This works especially well for community-oriented fundraiser and relief events, where you can charge participants a pay-what-you-can donation fee to take on work for the day that needs doing.