Youth Group Fundraiser - Youth Workin' It

Top 12 Of ’12: No. 1 – 75 Ideas For Silent Auction Items

January 5, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Top 12 Of '12: No. 1 - 75 Ideas For Silent Auction Items And here we are – the end of the countdown of our most read posts of 2012.

Taking the top slot for last year is:

No. 1 – 75 Ideas For Silent Auction Items

Between June – August 2012, we published a series of posts detailing how to organize an evening fundraiser with all kinds of different fundraising ideas.

A large part of that series related to how to plan a silent auction and this particular post gave 75 ideas of items to try to obtain for a silent auction.

You can check out the no. 1 post here.

(n.b. Normal service on our blog will resume on Monday!)

5 Walk-A-Thon Ideas And 5 Bonus Tips

December 10, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

This week’s fundraising idea for your youth group is to plan a walk-a-thon fundraiser. We’ve written before about how to organize a sponsored bike ride, so this is a similar concept.

The way it works is that your young people will walk a certain amount of miles, with people sponsoring them for completing the challenge. There are many different options for how this can be done though, so here’s our list of 5 walk-a-thon ideas:

1. Hike

Organize a hike along a nature trail, in a forest, in the mountains, etc. This will make the walking part a lot more fun for your youth group, as they’ll have interesting things to look at along the way, plus it gives them a chance to learn how to read a map.

With this option, it might be hard to calculate the distance that you’re due to walk. However, if you’re doing the hike in a state park, their visitor information center should be able to advise you how long the nature trails are.

2. From A to B

If this youth group fundraiser is being held to raise money for a project in your local community, the walk-a-thon could start where you hold your youth group and end at the location you’re raising money for.

If that’s not a particularly long distance, walk back to your youth group location, where you could then have some kind of party to celebrate its completion.

3. From A to A

If there’s nowhere in particular you’d need to walk to (as per the previous example), your walk could both start and end in the same place.

This option gives you more flexibility as to which walking route you take, meaning you can take a more scenic – or safe – route.

4. From A to Z

This is a great choice if you’re raising money for a mission trip or for a charity that’s based overseas. The first step is to calculate the distance between your youth group’s location and the location of the charity you’re fundraising for that’s in a foreign country.

There’s a good chance that this could end up being thousands of miles, which might sound impossible to achieve. However, there are ways of doing this that aren’t too daunting.

Plan the walk-a-thon and add up all of the miles walked by your young people. For example, if you have 75 youth in your group and they each walk 16 miles, that’s 1,200 miles combined.

Another option is to give each of them a pedometer to wear over the course of a month. Assuming they walk 2.5 miles a day (which is only 5,000 steps on average), they’ll walk approx. 75 miles each within a month. A youth group with 50 young people all walking that distance will therefore walk 3,750 miles.

5. Treadmill

This final idea doesn’t have the fun of the outdoors but can be a good alternative, particularly if you live somewhere that inclement weather could hamper your walk-a-thon-efforts.

Contact your local gym or fitness center and ask if they’d be willing to let your youth group use their treadmills for free. Your group can then spend a few hours walking as far as they can (or for a set distance).

Why would a fitness center let you do this for free? Emphasize the good publicity it’ll get them and try to get your local news station and newspaper to cover it. This publicity will hopefully have a double bonus in that even more members of the public will want to support your youth group fundraiser.

So those were the 5 walk-a-thon ideas – here are our 5 bonus tips when planning a fundraiser like this:

1. Fancy dress

Make things even more fun by having your young people dress up. This will have the bonus effect of intriguing members of the public into what’s going on, so make sure you carry buckets with you to collect more money as you go along.

2. Safety

Make sure you don’t have any issues by doing a risk assessment first. This is particularly important if you’re going to go hiking in the mountains or will be walking alongside busy roads that have no sidewalk.

If you’re doing the walk-a-thon in the summer, make sure your young people are wearing sunscreen and carrying plenty of water.

3. Maximize fundraising

When planning how far to walk, try to make it a round figure like 10 or 20 miles. This will make it easier for people to sponsor your young people x amount per mile.

Your sponsorship forms could also offer two different fundraising options for people to choose from. One is for them to sponsor x amount per mile, while the alternative is to donate a lump sum. Suggest some amounts on the form (such as $10, $25, $50, $100), but also offer an “other amount” option.

4. Set targets

Set an overall fundraising target for how much you want to raise with the walk-a-thon, along with targets for how much you want each of the young people to raise.

This isn’t meant to make the youth feel guilty if they don’t make their target – make sure that’s clear to them. The reason is so that they can say to potential sponsors, “I have a fundraising target of $250 and have been sponsored $75 so far”. This will then hopefully encourage these potential sponsors to go ahead and donate towards the young person’s target.

5. Measuring the walk

To work out how far a walking route is, use a tool like Map My Run. You can then adjust the route until it’s a certain length.

If you liked these 5 walk-a-thon ideas, you may also like our other ideas for youth group fundraisers.

Question: Have you ever organized a sponsored walk? If so, what other tips can you offer?

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3 Ways To Organize A Christmas Card Fundraiser

November 5, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Organizing a Christmas card fundraiser can be a creative, fun and (somewhat) easy way to fundraise for your youth group. Here are 3 ways you could do this:

Reselling

Stores will often have special deals on cards leading up to Christmas, like Buy One Get One Free on boxes. Take advantage of this by stocking up on packs of these cards, then reselling at regular price to supporters.

As you’re running a fundraiser, you may even be able to get away with charging a slightly higher price. For example, if there’s a BOGOF offer where you get two packs of Christmas cards for a total of $5, you could try reselling these for $7.50 each. This would result in a profit of $10 for every two packs you then sell – not too shabby if you can get many parents and other adults supporting the fundraiser.

Self-Designing

If you have some creative young people in your youth group, get them to design some Christmas cards. These can then be produced using a site like Zazzle.

The good thing about this second option is that unlike reselling cards, you don’t have to spend anything in advance to plan this Christmas card fundraiser. Instead, you can set up a store on Zazzle and provide links for people to order directly from there. You can also register to become an affiliate, meaning you’ll also earn an additional 15% of the value of each order, greatly increasing the amount of money you raise.

Photoing

A third option is to produce personalized Christmas cards as a fundraiser. With this option, you organize a photo session where families come and get their photo taken. You then take their orders for the amount, size and design of the Christmas cards they’d like.

The cards can then be easily produced via sites like Snapfish and Shutterfly. You can usually get discounts for bulk ordering as well as free shipping, so this will help maximize the amount that you fundraise.

Tips

Try to promote your fundraiser as widely as possible. This could be done by producing flyers to send home with your young people and seeing if local businesses are willing to carry them
If your youth group is part of a church, announce the fundraising effort during a church service – this will help ensure that you reach as many members of the congregation as possible, not just those who have children
When planning this kind of fundraiser, it’s best to get it organized – and promoted – as early as possible. Otherwise, people who would have supported you may have already bought all their Christmas cards
To make it as easy as possible for people to support you, it’s worth accepting credit cards

If you liked these ideas, you may like our other youth group fundraisers, including this Christmas stocking fundraiser.

Question: What other ideas or tips do you have for a Christmas card fundraiser? We’d love to hear these in the comments below.

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Christmas Stocking Youth Group Fundraiser

October 22, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

On last Thursday’s post that gave some session ideas to prepare for Christmas, we mentioned that today we’d be giving an idea for a Christmas themed youth group fundraiser.

The idea is to sell pre-prepared Christmas stockings to raise money. Here are some tips on how to do this:

Demographics

First of all, identify what age range the Christmas stockings will need to be aimed at. For example, if you’re fundraising for a church youth group, you should have quite a good idea of the age range of young people in the church. With a local community youth group, your fundraiser would probably be aimed at the ages of the young people in that community.

Try to identify whether there will be an equal number of boys and girls you’d be buying for – if you work with girl scouts, you may choose to focus your efforts more on stockings for girls (although not necessarily).

This is important to bear in mind, as it will affect what types of stocking stuffers you buy.

Budget

Decide how much you want to spend on stockings and the contents. Don’t just guess how much it will cost as this can result in underestimating the cost of items, resulting in you not actually raising money after all.

Make a list of items you want to include, then research how much they all cost – including the cost of stockings. Total this up and then divide by the number of stockings you’ll be able to make – this will give the net cost.

Next, you’ll need to work out how much extra you want to charge in order to fundraise. For example, it may cost $15 to put together each stocking. You may then choose to charge $20 or $25, thereby making a profit of $5-$10 on each one.

It might be worth putting together one stocking first before you buy everything in bulk. This will give you a better idea as to whether the stockings are too empty, too full or just right, as this too will affect how much you budget for.

Stockings

As you’ll be putting together many pre-prepared Christmas stockings, you could probably save quite a lot of money by buying these in bulk from a wholesaler or possibly somewhere like Walmart.

Alternatively, you could get some decent enough stockings from a dollar store.

Stocking Stuffers

Like we mentioned in the demographics section, the stocking stuffers that you buy will be affected by the age range that you’re buying for. It’s therefore hard to advise what you should fill the stockings with, but here are a few suggestions:

Candy
Snacks
Toy cars
Bouncy balls
Bubbles
Travel-sized games
Stuff from somewhere like Claire’s Accessories
Small stuffed animals / plush toys
Crayons
Glitter make-up

Again, these are things that you might be able to save money on by buying in bulk or from a dollar store.

If possible, try to get at least one large item per stocking so long as they’re not too expensive. Having items sticking out the top of the stocking will make it look far more impressive when trying to sell them.

Promotion

Try to make your youth group fundraiser as widely known as possible in order to maximize the amount you raise. Produce some flyers and ask local businesses if they’d be willing to carry them.

If your youth group is part of a church, announce the fundraiser during a church service so that you can reach the entire congregation. Put up a sign on a community noticeboard or have your young people put flyers in letterboxes in their neighborhood.

When promoting, be specific as to what you’re fundraising for. People are far more likely to support something where you say “We’re fundraising to build a basketball court for the local community” rather than “We’re fundraising for our youth group”. This gives people something tangible that they can support.

Selling / Ordering

There are a couple of options as to how you can sell the pre-packaged Christmas stockings. One would be to find a location that has high foot traffic in the run-up to Christmas (e.g. outside a grocery store or mall). You’ll most likely need a permit or some kind of permission in order to do this, so contact the store well in advance to arrange this.

If the store is worried that this could impact on their own sales of stocking-related items, discuss with them the possibility of buying the items from their store in order to put the stockings together. That way they don’t miss out on sales, while you get a prime location spot for selling.

Alternatively, you could have people place orders for the stockings in advance, rather than buying them on the day. This can be beneficial as it’ll give you a good idea of how many stockings and stocking stuffers you’ll need, thereby helping you to budget correctly. You’ll also know whether you should be buying items suitable for boys, girls, or both.

Otherwise, you could do both options to maximize the number of stockings you sell for your fundraiser.

Buy One, Give One

Perhaps your youth group doesn’t need a fundraiser for themselves, but still wants to do something for the local community this Christmas.

If that’s the case, you could price this so that when people buy a stocking, a second stocking is given away. These second stockings could be given to children’s hospitals, homeless shelters, low-income housing developments or anywhere else there could be young people who wouldn’t receive a Christmas stocking otherwise.

Alternatively, these could be sent overseas if your youth group supports a charity elsewhere. Make sure you factor in the cost of shipping, unless there’s a missions trip or something similar planned whereby people could take the stockings with them.

All you’d need to do is charge double for a stocking, so if each stocking and its contents cost $12.50, you’d charge $25 in order to produce the second stocking to give away.

Youth Participation

This fundraiser is perfect for getting your young people to take a lead through youth participation. They can:

Help research the demographics
Come up with stocking stuffer ideas
Go with you to buy everything
Promote the fundraiser
Put the stockings together
Sell the stockings

Question: What other ideas do you have for how to organize a Christmas stocking youth group fundraiser? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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How To Organize A Teddy Bear Fundraiser

September 24, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

This week, we have a soft and cuddly youth group fundraiser. A Teddy Bear fundraiser gives people an opportunity to win a great prize, while supporting your youth group.

Prize

Get the largest teddy bear you can find, like this one, this one or this one. If possible, try to convince a local toy store to donate one for your youth group fundraiser. If you can’t get one donated, this will need to be one of those spend money to make money fundraisers.

When To Organize

The teddy bear fundraiser can be organized at any time during the year. However, it would probably work best in January or November, as this is just before Valentine’s Day or Christmas – the winner may like to give the jumbo bear as a present to someone on one of these occasions.

Guess The Name

Once you have a teddy bear, give it a name but don’t tell anyone what it is. Put together a list of 100 different names, one of which is the name you’ve chosen for the teddy bear.

The way this fundraiser works is that people will be paying to guess the name of the teddy bear – that’s why the name needs to be kept secret. It’s therefore important not to let your young people know what the name is either, in case they let slip to someone what the teddy bear is called.

Fundraising

Charge people $1 – $5 (depending on how much you think people would be willing to pay) to pick one of the 100 names from the list. Give them a receipt, raffle ticket or some other form of confirmation of the name(s) they’ve guessed. On your list of 100 names, make a note of the person’s name, phone number and email address in case they’re the winner.

Winner

Once you’ve sold all of the tickets, contact the person who picked the correct name of the teddy bear and let them know that they’re the proud new owner of a jumbo cuddly toy.

Tips

When having people guess names for the teddy bear fundraiser, have the bear with you if possible. Allowing people to see how big and cuddly it is will hopefully encourage them to take part
Have your young people spread the word about the fundraiser, encouraging their friends and family to take part. You could also involve them further by having them help come up with the alternative 99 names
Consider setting up a spreadsheet listing the 100 names and the details of the people who have guessed each name. That way, you’ve got a duplicate record in case you accidentally lost the sheet of paper you’ve been keeping track on
If you think there could be a big demand with this fundraiser, consider making a list of 150+ names instead of only 100

Profit

It’s possible to raise hundreds of dollars with this teddy bear fundraiser, even if you had to buy the bear in the first place. For example, if you sold all 100 names at $2 each, that’s $200 profit. If you had to spend $50 on the bear beforehand, that’s still $150 you’ve made for your youth group.

Repeat

As it doesn’t cost much for people to support this fundraiser, this could be the sort of event that you run more than once per year – perhaps just before Valentine’s Day and Christmas, even Mother’s Day.

If you liked this idea, check out all our other youth group fundraiser ideas.

Question: What other suggestions would you give to someone organizing a teddy bear fundraiser? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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