Fundraising+Ideas

Here are some ideas to get you started; tweak them to suit your situation. There are many more ideas on the P2P website. Check it out here. Be sure to read the note from “Mom” at the end. She has some excellent advice.

NEW FUNDRAISING IDEAS:

Sell "fall" pies. Student and mom made 15 pies per week for the three week before Thanksgiving and sold them for $25 (pumpkin) and $30 (pecan and apple) each. She was able to get local grocery store to donate items, such as cans of pumpkin, flour, sugar, pie tins. This idea could be repeated for the three weeks prior to Christmas and Easter. She approached potential buyers and got pre-orders. Purchase cheap disposable cameras (they purchased them for $1.25 @ a dollar-style store). Print "wraps" to put on them promoting your cause. Sell them at a function for $5-$10, such as proms, graduations, athletic events, parade.

Here's another one from another P2P leader: We had a student with a very supportive church. She had the members send their recipes and then, had them bound into a cookbook. She cleared about $5000 doing this and the members loved seeing their recipes in print. I bought some and it made a great hostess gift for the homestay.

With the holidays coming up and many are having "Christmas Open Houses" to welcome the season, here is a variation on the traditional bake sale. Bake up several type of Christmas goodies and sell a small plate/bag of candy/cookies to hungry shoppers for $5. Be sure to label with your "cause."

Idea #1: POSTCARDS: One delegate wrote letters to friends, family, acquaintenances, even the family dentist, doctor, mechanic, etc. He listed some highlights of the trip and offered to send a postcard from those locations for a $25 or more donation. He also included an offer of a picture CD of the those locations for a donation of $50 or more.

Idea #2: BAKESALE: We had a bake sale on the Sat before Christmas. Yes, I (mom talking here) baked a bunch of stuff, but so did friends and church ladies. We raised $400 in about 1.5 hours. We took the left-over items to the rest home and donated them that morning. (Great PR!)

Idea #3: DINNER FOR TWO FOR A WEEK: This was an idea right out of the P2P idea list. Business owners loved it because they would much rather give product than cash. It began with soliciting businesses to donate.

They usually gave gift certificates in the amount of $20-$50. We got 7 of them. It was also free advertising for them. We printed tickets and fliers up from our home computer. We allowed 2 months to sell. I can't remember the price, but if you want more details or examples of the tickets/fliers, let me know. I'm not sure how much we raised, but this was a neat thing! (Note from Linda, I bought a ticket and it seems like I paid $10—which would be cheap for 7 nights of meals for two.)

Idea #4: SWEETHEART DINNER: On a Sunday evening before Valentines Day, we had a candlelight dinner by advance reservations. The Masonic Lodge offered their building as a donation. We planned a profitable menu with chicken cordon bleu (purchased at Sam's), baked potato (cheap and easy to make a lot), green beans (cheap), French bread, tossed salad w/ some special toppings (easy when you make 70 in an assembly line), tea or coffee, and a layered chocolate dessert (crumbled brownies, pudding, cool whip, and a cherry on top). We advertised with fliers and called people that we knew liked to eat out. We charged $15 per person or $25 per couple. Many people gave more. Lots of friends offered to cook, serve, and clean up. We made reservations to allow us to rotate people in and out over a 3 hour period, as we could only serve about 15-20 at a time. We played soft dinner music and my husband wore a bow tie and was an excellent waiter. It was a fun evening! Of course, after that evening, I never wanted to be in the restaurant business! Total profit approximately $600! We sold Dinner for Two tickets as people left.

Ideas #5 - Here's an idea from a friend.....

They worked with their local bowling alley and offered chances on a ball, shoes and bag. They were at the bowling lanes every night for a week and sold chances on these items. They took in over $900.00 that week. Leagues were in full swing. It required very little extra work on their part except to be at the alley each night. (This could probably be tweaked to work with other sports.)

**SOME INFORMATION and IMPORTANT HINTS from an EXPERIENCED MOM:** We raised $6,000 in 4 months. Basically, we followed the advice of P2P. There is a fund raising section on their website. The first thing we did was "tweak" one of their suggested letters to solicit donations from family, friends, organizations, and businesses. We made the letter look very professional. We compiled a list of everyone we could think of that might want to support our venture. We were very organized and put this list on an Excel spreadsheet so we could **keep careful records of who responded, how much money, and a column to check when he sent a thank you card.**

We opened a separate bank account just for this. He signed every letter and stuffed every envelope. He wrote every thank you card. What a great life experience--preparation for graduation and wedding experiences! He mailed about 180 letters. This effort raised over $2,000. Most people gave $20 - $50. Some only $5. Every little bit helped.

As P2P recommended, we laid out our fund raising plan from the beginning. We knew how much money we had to earn by specific dates, so we planned fundraisers to achieve the goals.