Some fundraiser ideas that we like...
- Raffle: everyday for December pull a name and the winner gets the 'daily gift'. The daily gift calendar our band put out this year has 50$ cash gifts on weekends, 30-50$ gift card gifts that were donated by local businesses and chains, and a 200$ cash gift on dec31. They sell the tickets for 10$ at town events and thru all schools, and you can win more than once (winners names are put back in the barrel).
- scrip gift card sales - as mentioned above - people can purchase what they were going to spend anyway.
- Super Bowl Sunday Sub Making - they take orders for subs and deliver them on game day. Requires permit from the board of health - students make them and deliver them. Pricing is comparable to any national chain. Menu typically has cold cuts only and basic condiments are included on all subs.
- spare change contest - pennies are points, all other monies are negative points. Class Year with the most money collected wins a prize (donation to class fund of their total is common), remaining funds go to organization or split with charity. Sabotaging other class years is the big money maker here.
- selling food/hot chocolate at school events - school concerns, cold football games, etc
- helicopter football drop - (my group did this in October) - it has some start up costs to buy the footballs the first year other than that the yearly costs are low. Sell 'footballs' with numbers on them for 10$ each. The footballs are then put into bags and taken up into a helicopter. Te bags are dumped onto the field at our homecoming game and the numbered ball closest to the logo wins 500$. (200 and 100 for 2nd and 3rd). Students sell footballs at town events and sporting events for a month prior. Costs were helicopter at 375$ and prizes. We made over 2500$ in profits.
- Candy Graham's are fun for students
- Pink Flamingo fundraiser - pay to have the pink flamingos removed from your yard and pay to have the put on someone else's yard (there is always a a way to get rid of them without paying)
- the only 'selling' fundraiser that I like is the 'Butterbraid Bread' company fundraiser - that's because I think the pastries are really yummy and easy to cook at home...good for holiday mornings too!
~Theresa
Be very, very careful with any raffle, football drop or any game of chance. Make sure to check your state laws first. Raffles and games of chance are considered gambling in most states and they have very specific laws on who can do it and how. Your state, Massachusetts does have gaming laws, so I am betting your group is a 501c3 and you have permits for your raffles. But not all organizations can just hold a raffle or a game of chance when they want to.
For instance, in our state, in order to hold a raffle or a game of chance like your football drop, the organization has to be a IRS determined charity, such as a 501c3, the charity has to have been in business for 5 years before they can get a gambling license and you have to have a games manager, who has attended a 5 hour class put on by the state.
Then you have very specific rules on what the tickets can look like, you have to submit your raffle and ticket mockup before the raffle and then file a report on how much you made right after the raffle.
This applies to any game of chance where you collect money and there is a "winner" of some sort.
And you might say, 'oh, the state is not going to go after a small band raffle.' But all it takes is one disgruntled loser to report you to the state and they can fine you and shut you down.
I know a group of women that had a friendly ladies night out once a month where they played Bunco and bet pennies. A catty woman who didn't feel welcome reported them and the cops showed up at the door and shut the game down. Luckily they got off with a warning, but states will go after the little guy if somebody complains.
(Sit on the executive board of two 501c3s whose groups are always scrambling for fundraising ideas.)
In the end, he donated it back to the group raising money, so it was pure profit for them. I still wish I had won.
