by Jessica Purdy

So you know that you need to start fundraising, and you know the basics, but you have no idea how to actually make it happen. You’ve started to feel the financial weight of the trip. Don’t worry. Fundraising isn’t as complicated as you might initially think. Thankfully we have a starting point.

Like we’ve said before, always remember to start with prayer. We can’t emphasize enough how important this part of the process is. It brings God to the front and center of your trip, and it is the most effective way to go.

Below we have compiled a list of several suggested fundraisers. Check it out!

Events

Sticky Note Fundraiser

Number a set of sticky notes or envelopes 1-40. Stick the notes or pin the envelopes to a board for people at your church to take as a donation pledge.

Host a Walkathon

Have members of your team get people to sponsor them in the Walk-a-thon (For a twist on this activity, host a Walk-and-paw-a-thon, where people bring their leashed pets).

Host a Trivia night

Charge teams a fee to participate in the game. Offer a prize to the winning team (You can ask local businesses to donate the prize).

Cultural Cuisine Night

Get your team together and make a meal from the place you are going. Have people pay a set amount for each meal. If possible, you can hold the event several times with different main dishes each time.

Pie throwing contest

Make simple whipped cream pies and have volunteers line up as targets. People pay to buy a pie to throw at the targets

Tips

• This activity raises the most money when the ‘“targets” are well-known people in the community (i.e. teachers, pastors, etc)
• Make sure the “targets” are willing volunteers and know what they are signing up for.

Host a bake sale

Have members of your team bake their most delicious desserts and sell them at an event.

Asks

Send Out Letters

Send out letters to potential donors telling them about your trip and asking them to give. Check out the example fundraising template we’ve made for you to follow.

10 to 10

Ask ten of your friends to ask ten of their friends to donate $10 to your trip.

Matching Donations

Ask different companies/organizations to match any donations made at other fundraisers.  If you arrange this ahead of time, their willingness to match up to a certain amount can serve as an incentive for other people to give.

Prizes

Ask local businesses to donate prizes for your other fundraising activities. For example, a movie theater can donate movie tickets, a restaurant can donate a free meal voucher, a teacher at the school can donate a free homework pass, etc.

Give it Up Fundraiser

Ask people to give up something that is a regular expense (daily coffee, fast food trips, etc) and instead donate that money to your trip.

Partner with Restaurants

Ask a local restaurant to donate a portion of that night’s profits to your trip. Make sure to let people know this is happening! Chipotle actually has a super easy online process for setting up this kind of event.

Etc.

Change Box

Create boxes where people can donate their pocket change. Set these boxes in places where they are easily seen by people (i.e. the foyer in your church)

Penny Wars

Create two teams (men versus women, staff versus students, parents versus kids, Sunday school class versus Sunday school class, etc). Have two jars set out. One team wins by having the most pennies in the jar after a preset amount of time. People from one team can sabotage the other team by putting a dollar bill in their jar, cancelling out 100 of their pennies.

• Twist: instead of having jars you could have people toss their pennies into umbrellas hanging upside down from the ceiling, toss pennies at a wall covered in duct tape sticky side out (only pennies that stick count), toss pennies in a bucket partially filled with water (first one to overflow wins), etc.

Guessing games

Have a jar filled with some kind of small trinkets (Pennies, candy, etc) Have people pay $1 to guess how many are in the jar. The person with the closest guess wins a prize

There are lots of ways you can get creative with fundraising, and honestly we didn’t come up with these ourselves.  If you want to read fundraising ideas other people have posted, we’ve left you some links below:

https://blog.fundly.com/fundraising-ideas/#fundraising-event-ideas

https://www.networkforgood.com/fundraising-ideas/

https://www.qgiv.com/blog/fundraising-ideas/