Fundraising Ideas

Today we wrapped up our fundraiser for the month of January. We had been doing a T-shirt fundraiser. This fundraiser did well, way better than I could imagine. When we were in the planning stage of this fundraiser I didn't think it would net much, but hey! Every dollar is a dollar we didn't have before right?

Here are some fundraiser ideas that might be a little outside the box that might just be the spark you need to get your fundraising season going.

T-shirt Fundraiser:

This is a picture of the shirt we just finished selling. It wasn't your typical fundraiser shirt. The vast majority of fundraiser t-shirts have something to do with your youth group and/or have the camp/mission trip theme on it.

Let me suggest a different approach. Do a church wide t-shirt instead. Take ours for instance. Our church's 'un-offfical' slogan is "It's a God Thing". So we decided to take our slogan and do a yearly shirt with our slogan in the shirt. The shirt may not always have our church name on it but it will have the church slogan. We get our shirts through Fund the Nations, which you can find more about here. The thought process we had for going with a church wide t-shirt is this, there are church members that may not want to buy a youth shirt or a church camp shirt. However, they will usually buy a church t-shirt. This expands your client base and even puts your students in front of church members that they might not otherwise be in front of.

Discount Cards:
I want to caution you on this fundraiser. Having been burned myself by a fundraiser card company, I will say your best two options with this fundraiser is to go with a company that allows you to send back the unused cards, like Peel To Save Cards.

The other option is to do it yourself. What? Yes do it yourself! It takes some leg work but I would rather hand pick the businesses we support and print them myself then ever get burned by another Discount Card Company. You can pick up a packet that has everything in it to help you put your own cards together from our friends at DYM. Check it out here!

Local Businesses:
If you've been in youth ministry for any length of time then you know about businesses like Chick Fil A and Pizza Hunt that have fundraiser night to help you drum up business for them and you make a % of the sales. Find local favorite restaurant instead.

Pizza Inn in our area have these nights and the students help serve and make all of their tip money. Another great local company is Finish Line Car Wash. They allow students to sell preloaded car wash cards and the students make half the money. We do this in place of a normal 'car wash' fundraiser. Another great business is Cheers Gas Station. They have Spirit Pumps that once assigned, for an entire month the students make a percentage of the sales of those pumps.

These are just some ideas to get your creativity flowing. Check with some local businesses and see if they offer similar things in your area.

Just some great simple ideas to help get your fundraising season going! Until next time! Just keep swimming!