Youth Group Fundraiser - Youth Workin' It

Grant Writing Basics for Youth Work Programs

October 30, 2013 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

One of the biggest problems that face most youth programs is the lack of funds. Whether it’s a large organization, a small non-profit, government provision or a faith-based organization there just doesn’t seem to be enough money to go around. And the thought of grant writing can be very daunting for many youth workers. I mean really, we do the program bit and it’s a general stereotype (that is correct in my opinion) that most of us hate paperwork. We don’t want to sit at our desk or computer and fill out paperwork- we want to do the work!

Sadly, like exercising or taking the time to go to the bathroom, it’s a necessary evil (that’s just me then that finds going to the bathroom a complete waste of time during my busy day?!).

You never know when you may need a skill like basic grant writing. No, you may not need to write hundreds of grants for millions of dollars. But you may need to help the teens in your program write a mini-grant (this is a way that is becoming more popular to fund projects for youth, by youth) or assist your own fundraising department in their preparation of a grant. You may also be wanting to start your own youth program and go it alone and for that you will need funds (unless you’re independently wealthy).

I recently had the opportunity to attend a grant writing workshop and here are the top three tips I took away from a foundation grant writer:

1. Seek other funding options.

I’ve been learning about this over the years while preparing to get my own non-profit off the ground. You can’t rely on grant funding alone. Firstly, because grants come and go (and are getting increasingly more competitive). Also, most grants now want to know how are you going to use this ‘seed money’ to get your project going and then make it sustainable when the grant finishes. Funders don’t want to see ‘get another grant’ on your paperwork. You need to focus on private donors*, major donors*, streams of revenue, etc. during your current grant cycle.

2. Figure out (before you apply) if your aims meet the funders goals (and if you don’t know- ask).

A lot of grant making organizations will sit down with you before you apply- in the case of my four local foundations they actually require it before application. You need to review their guidelines with a fine-toothed comb and if you have any questions or doubt about your program or organization fitting into their funding goals then pick up the phone and make a connection with a real person and get some answers.*

3. Give them what they ask for- no more, no less.

You know your organization and program so you’re going to be quick to say a lot about it and possibly skim over the grant management aspect of the application. Wrong. You need to do both, equally well and clearly, in your application to be in with a shot. According to the trainer its about 50% or less of a grant application that is the actual project. They really want to know how you are going to manage their funds. Remember- it doesn’t have to be lengthy, as long as you provide what they want there is no need to go on and on and on and on and on and on… well you get the picture. If you think something will enhance your grant or add clarity then include it (or even better- ask a real person at the organization about it first).*

* Bonus tip: There is both a science and an art to grant writing. The science is the basic application. The art is building relationships. You need to build relationships with funders, whether they are foundations, private donors or corporations. You need to keep in touch with them. Share your successes. Be honest about your shortcomings. An email won’t do. You need to get out there and talk to people. Send them notes and updates. If you do a newsletter, drop that in the mail to them. Keep that relationship open. Even if they can’t fund you right now, or in the future, they are going to know people who might be able to.

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How To Plan A Back To School Fundraiser

July 22, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Here’s a great idea for a Back To School fundraiser that you can use to either raise money for your youth group or provide school resources for low income families in your community.

During August and September, your young people will be going back to school or college. Most of them (well, their parents) will be planning on buying school supplies that they need, so make things convenient for them by selling Back To School Kits.

What would go in a Back To School Kit?

The supplies you include will vary depending on how old your young people are, but here are some suggestions of items:

Notebook
Pens
Pencils
Crayons
Coloring pencils
Erasers
Ruler
Calculator
Binders
Paper clips
Glue
Pencil sharpener
Protractor
Backpack
Lunchbox
Pencil case

How to reduce the cost of items

As this is a fundraiser, you’ll want to get as much as possible for as little as possible. Here are a few ways to do this:

Sales – Take advantage of stores’ Back To School sales that will also be going on during August and September
Bulk – As you’ll be producing many packs, reduce the cost per item by buying multipacks and in bulk – either from stores like Walmart or wholesalers like Costco or Sam’s Club
Dollar Store – Although not always the greatest quality, dollar stores can still be a great place to stock up on school supplies

How much should I charge for a Back To School Kit

This will depend largely on how much you’ve spent on supplies. First of all, calculate how much all of the items will cost (along with any miscellaneous expenses), then divide by the number of kits that the supplies will fill. Miscellaneous costs might include boxes that you’ll be giving the kits in, although if you’re also including a backpack they could be put in there instead.

When you know how much each kit costs, add a markup of 50% – 100%. For example, if it costs $15 for each kit, you could charge $22.50 – $30.

An alternative would be to provide different levels of kits based on what’s included. A Standard kit containing the basics might cost $10, a Deluxe kit containing some extras might be $20, while an Ultimate kit (perhaps including a backpack) could be $30. If you provide different options like this, make sure that parents know what they’d be getting in each kit so that they can easily choose which one they need.

Buy One, Give One

Instead of this being a youth group fundraiser, you and your young people could plan this as something that will benefit other youth in your community, particularly those from low income families or who live in a shelter.

When selling these kits, add a markup of exactly 100% on top of what the items cost. Parents will then be able to Buy One, Give One – they get one Back To School kit for their own child and a similar kit is given to a family who might not be able to afford to buy their own one.

If you want to find people who might be able to benefit from this, there will be many local organizations who would gladly welcome the donations or be able to pass them to people who need them:

Schools
Shelters
Low income housing authorities
Local children’s charities
Libraries

If you like this BOGO idea, we’ve also provided a way you can do a similar type of Buy One, Give One activity by selling Christmas stockings.

Tips

Backpacks – These can be quite a personalized style. If including backpacks as part of the kit, it’s best to go for something fairly neutral rather than a design that a child will either love or hate
Local partners – Contact local businesses – especially stationery stores – to see if they’d be willing to donate supplies for your Back To School fundraiser
Get your youth involved – This is a great way to encourage youth participation. Have them make a list of items to go in the kits, take them to the store with you, get them to pack the kits, promote the fundraiser, etc.

How to reduce wastage

If you have any items left over at the end of the fundraiser, you could either keep hold of these for your own youth work programs or donate them to a local shelter or low income housing authority.

Alternatively, keep track of the receipts and return any additional supplies to the stores for a refund.

How to promote the fundraiser

To maximize your youth group fundraiser, promote it as widely as possible. Here are some ways to do this:

Church – If your youth group’s run through a church, make sure the fundraiser is mentioned during services and included in the bulletin
Flyers – Give these to your youth to take home to their parents, providing extras for them to pass to their friends, neighbors and work colleagues
Local businesses – Ask businesses in your area if they’d be willing to post your flyers in their window or on their counter
Local news – Contact local TV news networks and newspapers and ask them if they’d be willing to do a feature on your fundraiser
Libraries – Get in contact with your local library and see if they’d also be willing to carry your flyers
Charities – If you’re running this as a BOGO option, let whichever charity or organization you’ll be supporting know what you’re planning so that they can then promote it to their own donors.

Ordering

Try to reduce the amount of supplies you have left over at the end by getting parents to order the kits upfront. Put together some order forms that include the following details:

How much the Back To School Kits will cost (including the Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate options if offering these)
The supplies that will be in each pack
When it will be available
How they can pay (make it easier by offering credit cards)
Who to return the order form to

Where possible, take payment for the kits upfront as this will reduce your initial outlay.

If you liked this idea, check out all out other youth group fundraisers.

Question: Do you have any additional tips or ideas for people organizing a Back To School fundraiser like this one? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.

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Live Below The Line – Youth Group Activities

April 25, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Live Below The Line is a global campaign that seeks to both raise awareness about extreme poverty and raise money in order to make a difference for people living in that situation.

This week’s session plan idea therefore has some ideas for youth group activities to take part in this campaign.

What’s involved?

Extreme poverty is currently defined as having to live on $1.50 a day. The Live Below The Line campaign therefore encourages people to spend five days living on $1.50 a day, so a total of $7.50 over the course of the five days.

Although this would normally include all costs like housing, clothing, transport, etc, for the purpose of the campaign participants only have to restrict their $1.50 spending to food and drink.

The US part of the campaign is being run from April 29 to May 3 2013, but if this doesn’t provide enough time to prepare the following activities, your youth group could always participate during another 5 day period.

So here are some suggested youth group activities to help your young people have a more tangible appreciation for what life is like when living on such a small amount of money.

Activity 1 – Video

Watch a video which explains a little more about Live Below The Line. We’ve embedded one below featuring Hugh Jackman, but there are many more featuring Sophia Bush, Josh Groban and others.

n.b. This video is aimed at Australians, so gives the figure as $2 which is the Australian Dollar equivalent.

Activity 2 – Meal Planning

Sit down with your youth and plan out some meals that they might be able to afford on a $1.50 a day budget

To prepare for this, go to a grocery store and price out various staple foods and ingredients. Make a note of the:

Price per package
Weight of package
Portion size

This will enable you to calculate the cost per portion in advance. Create a worksheet with all the portion size prices so that the young people can pick and choose the different ingredients they need for each meal.

Here are some suggestions for food items to include:

Pasta
Rice
Baked potatoes
Bananas
Breakfast cereal
Milk
Eggs
Cheap cuts of meat
Canned tuna
Lentils
Vegetables
Ramen noodles
Canned tomatoes
Bread
Butter

Stipulate that they have to plan for three meals a day. Each meal doesn’t have to total $0.50, but they’re not allowed to exceed $1.50 per day.

See our previous session plan about meal planning for some further ideas on how to help young people learn how to do this.

Activity 3 – Cooking

Even if your youth group can’t fully participate in the entire campaign, cook and eat a meal together. For this part, allow $0.50 per person for ingredients.

This might cause some conflicts between youth who want to eat different things or who don’t like the meal that’s been chosen. Use this as an opportunity to discuss what it must be like for families who have to live on such a strict budget for their entire lives. Encourage them to try to find a meal that everyone’s able to agree upon.

Activity 4 – Fundraiser

Plan a youth group fundraiser as an activity to raise money for people who have to live on such a low budget every day of the year. The Live Below The Line website has a list of partner organizations who the money can be donated to.

A good option could be a spaghetti dinner fundraiser, restricting the portion size spending to $1.50 per person. You can then highlight to the attendees that the meal they just ate would be all that 1.4 billion people worldwide would be able to afford for that day’s food.

Try to charge as much as possible for the meal so that you can maximize the amount raised. If 50 people paid $10 per head, this would raise $425 after the food costs have been taken out. Arrange a collection for the attendees to donate further to the cause.

Activity 5 – Youth Retreat

If you’re planning a youth retreat, consider using a hunger theme, limiting the food spending to $1.50 per person per day. This will give the youth a much better idea of what it’s really like to live on such a low food budget and how bland and lacking in nutrition meals will tend to be.

This will also help reduce the cost of the youth retreat as you’ll need less money for the food budget. Charge the same amount for the retreat as you normally would though, using the additional money to either subsidize the cost for less well-off youth, or donate the rest to a charity that works with people living in extreme poverty.

Questions: Are you taking part in the Live Below The Line campaign? What kind of youth group activities are you planning? Let us know in the comments below.

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How To Plan A Pink Flamingo Fundraiser

April 15, 2013 By Shae Pepper Leave a Comment

I have a young lady I mentor and she and I will be going on a mission trip (community-service trip) this summer to Puerto Rico. Originally we were working to get her to China, but we found that that’s a trip for another year.

She hasn’t been out of the country or on a plane before and so this trip is already going to be full of new experiences which for her, upon reflection, were best experienced with someone close to her – voila, me! We did a fundraiser at Valentine’s Day and we’re about to embark on our next one – a Pink Flamingo Fundraiser.

Here are the instructions and resources needed if you want to organize this as a youth group FUNdraiser:

Resources

1. Pink Plastic Lawn Flamingos (1-3 per youth is probably sufficient)

2. Flamingo Name Tags – including the following information:

Information – You might want to say something like ‘I’m a fundraising flamingo from (date to date) for (insert youth name here) to go to (insert trip, activity or location here). My trainer can be reached at (insert phone number here) for collection’
Prices – ‘It’s $10 for flamingo removal. For $5 more you can receive flamingo insurance, keeping your lawn flamingo-free for the rest of this fundraiser and for a further $5 you can send this flamingo to someone else’s yard!’

3. Cars – you’ll need youth that can drive or responsible adults who are willing to drive around, not only to distribute flamingos initially but also to collect them and move them to other yards as requested.

4. Flamingo Tag (optional) – this lets the next friend or family member know who sent this flamingo to their yard (i.e. ‘you’ve received this fundraising flamingo from (insert name here)’

Instructions

Start with friends or family of the youth who you know would be willing to participate in the fundraiser initially. For example, we’ll most likely be starting with someone from my family and someone from the family of the girl I mentor.

Wait for the calls to come in for removal – set up the date/time to collect the flamingo, ask if they’re purchasing flamingo insurance and if they would like to send it on to anyone else. If so, get those details including an address.

Collect flamingo and money and provide a receipt if necessary.

Deposit the pink flamingo fundraiser money into the bank.

It’s just that easy!

For large groups you can also send a ‘flock of flamingos’ to someone’s yard and they can pay a larger fee to have 25-50 flamingos removed (although the cost for the initial flamingos might outweigh the benefits to the group).

If you liked this idea, check out all our other fundraising ideas for youth groups.

Question: What other tips would you give for someone planning a pink flamingo fundraiser? Let us know in the comments below.

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5 Great Easter Fundraising Ideas

March 18, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

If you’re wanting to plan a youth group fundraiser for the coming season, here are 5 great Easter fundraising ideas:

1. Easter Baskets

The first fundraising idea is to put together and sell baskets full of all kinds of Easter goodies – candy, eggs, books, stuffed animals, etc. It’s also worth contacting local businesses to see if they’ll donate any goods or vouchers (e.g. free coffee at a local coffee shop). If you’re able to specify what your fundraiser is for (e.g. specific youth group activities, to buy new equipment, etc), they may be more likely to donate.

There are then a couple of ways that these can then be sold:

a) For your group – With this option, calculate how much the baskets and their contents will cost, then add an additional amount for the fundraising profit. For example, if your baskets cost $20 to put together, you could sell them for $30 and make $10 profit on each one.

b) For your community – If you want to benefit a local children’s charity or women’s shelter, another option is to sell the baskets on a Buy One Give One Free basis. With this option, if your baskets cost $20 to put together, sell them for $40 and for each basket that’s sold, give one to the local charity. This won’t make your youth group any money, but can be a great way for your youth to serve others.

2. Easter Egg Hunt

Organize an Easter egg hunt and charge for entry. Don;t make it too expensive, but you’ll need to charge enough to pay for the eggs, candy, etc while also allowing for some profit on top.

This option can also be combined with other ways of raising money, like simultaneously running a Krispy Kreme fundraiser. You could also sell bottles of water to thirsty participants – simply buy a case of water for $4 and sell each bottle for $1 each, thereby making $20 profit on each case.

Alternatively, some of the other ideas on this page will work well, particularly as they’re all Easter fundraising ideas too.

3. A Cracking Idea

This is an Easter youth group fundraiser that your young people will definitely be on board with! For this, buy dozens of eggs and hard boil one egg out of every dozen. You’ll also need some Easter-themed prizes – one prize for each dozen.

You’ll then need a number of volunteers who are good sports. If you’re a church youth group, the youth pastor, head pastor and other church leaders would be perfect for this. If you’re a local non-profit, see if the CEO and other well-known community members would be willing to be on the receiving end of this game.

Have the volunteers sit on chairs. People can then pay $1 or $2 to crack an egg on one of the volunteers’ heads. If it’s uncooked then they don’t win a prize (but really, cracking the egg on the head is a win!) If they pick the hard boiled egg, they win one of the Easter prizes, although this is more of a commiseration prize.

The more volunteers you have the better, as this will hopefully mean people will take part in this Easter fundraiser more than once. If you charge $2 a turn, this should mean you raise approx. $15-$20 for every dozen eggs (depending on how much you spend on prizes).

4. Eggs-cellent Guess

Get a large jar and fill it with as many candy eggs as you can – Whopper’s Robin Eggs or Cadbury’s Mini Eggs are perfect for this.

People then pay to guess how many eggs are in the jar, with the person whose guess is closest winning the jar, complete with eggs. The cost to enter this fundraiser will vary depending on how much the jar and eggs cost, as well as how many people you’re anticipating will take part.

5. Easter Egg Decorating Competition

Get all the equipment you’ll need to decorate some eggs, as well as some prizes. Similar to the Easter baskets option above, contact some local businesses to see if they’ll donate any goods or services – paying less for prizes will maximize the fundraiser.

Supporters then pay to decorate an egg and enter it into a competition to see which one looks the best. If you’ll have enough participants, judge them based on different age groups, such as 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-25, 26-50 and 51+.

If you liked these youth group activities, check out all our other fundraisers.

Question: What other great Easter fundraising ideas do you know of? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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