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100 Ways to Raise $100
100 Ways to Help Raise $100 for Lois’ Lodge
- Give it yourself.
- Ask 5 friends to donate $20.
- Ask 20 friends for $5.00 each.
- Ask 10 friends for $10.00 each.
- Send a letter to family and friends, explaining why it is so important to Save the Lodge and ask for a donation. Suggestion: Always ask for more than you expect. Example: If you want $25, ask for $50. Be sure to include a return by date.
- Set up a challenge campaign. Challenge gifts can be quite small. Tell people you'll give $5 for every $25 they give, or will match every $10 gift up to ten gifts. For added suspense, make this challenge during a regular meeting that you attend (such as club meetings, Bible Studies, fellowship groups or business groups, such as the local Chamber of Commerce. You or the leader of the group can announce, "We now have the Dave Buckstretch Challenge. For the next five minutes, Dave will give $5 for every member that donates $5 to Save the Lodge.
- Host a Save the Lodge party. During the party, give a short talk about the organization (or invite someone from Lois’ Lodge to speak), and ask everyone to consider a gift of $25, $50, $100 or more (depending on the crowd). Either pass out envelopes and ask people to give then, or after the party contact everyone individually who came and ask for a major gift. Indicate that you have given, and if appropriate, how much you have given.
- Start a personal fundraising page. Go to firstgiving.com/loislodge for information on how to get this set up.
- Solicit small businesses, churches, synagogues, or service clubs for $500. If you are active in a church, or own your own business and are involved in business organizations or service clubs, this can be very effective. You can often raise $200-$500 with a simple proposal and oral presentation. Research whether your church or others have a discretionary fund. Many churches have small pools of money available to groups through a women's fellowship or pastor's discretionary fund or various seldom-used endowments. Grants are often in the $50-$500 range and so go largely untouched by fundraisers. Sometimes simply writing a letter will free up this money and it tends to be renewable if someone is willing to ask the church yearly.
- Ask your church is they would consider a "second collection” to Save the Lodge. The church passes the plate for its own collection and then you or someone from Lois’ Lodge gives a brief talk about the ministry and the plate is passed again; the proceeds go to Save the Lodge.
- Research all the service clubs in town and see what their giving policies are. They often have formal giving guidelines for large grants of $2,000 and up, but have smaller amounts of money available for specific small projects.
- Send a letter from your pet to family and friends. You might also want to send this out to your veterinarian.
- Take a walk around your neighborhood. Knock on doors and ask your neighbors for their support.
- Cash in your change. Coinstar.com’s web site says the average US household has about $90.00 of spare change just sitting around.
- Ask 5-10 people to save all their change for 3-5 months. You save yours. Count it at the end of the prescribed time and use one of the other methods to raise the rest. (You may not need to.)
- Sell the stuff you never use. What is in your attic? What is in your garage that needs to go? Sell it on eBay. Sell it on Craig’s List. Get together with your neighbors and hold a garage sale.
- Invite people to your birthday party and ask that in lieu of gifts they give money to your organization.
- Sell those old CDs, albums and DVDs down at the music store.
- Have a used book sale.
- Ask a local business if you could put a box on their counter to collect spare change to benefit Lois’ Lodge.
- Karaoke evening – pay to sing your favorite song, pay not to have to sing, pay to make someone else sing!
- Bad taste clothing day – if you don’t or do want to take part you pay!
- Hold a bed race
- Sell your old cell phones.
- Donate that car. Lois’ Lodge will gratefully receive your sellable car and apply proceeds to our campaign.
- If you own a getaway cottage in a beautiful place or an expensive city, rent it out for a week or a weekend two or three times during the next several months and give the proceeds to Save the Lodge. Or rent a room in your home for much less than the cost of a hotel room to people needing a place to stay while they are on business in a big city. You may even make a new friend in the process.
- Take the small stuff and have a yard sale. Have it with others. Make it fun with music, balloons, snacks, etc.
- Gold and silver prices are still staggering. Sell that jewelry you never wear. A number of reputable jewelry stores are buying precious metals.
- Cash in that savings bond you’ve forgotten about.
- Collect aluminum cans and/or bottles and sell them at a recycling center.
- Are you a great cook? Host a cooking class.
- Food is always a great draw. Hold and event to introduce your family/friends to the ministry of Lois’ Lodge and to invite them to support the ministry financially so that we can Save the Lodge :
With 4 or 5 friends, have a spaghetti dinner at a church or union hall or other big room with a large kitchen. Charge $10 per person and feed more than 50 people. You can charge extra for garlic bread, salad or for dessert.
Barbeque in your back yard.
Have a fancy dinner at your home or a regular dinner at someone's fancy home. Serve unusual or gourmet food, or have special entertainment. Charge $25 or more per person, and have 20 or more guests.
Get three friends to help you have a progressive dinner. Start at one person's home for hors d'oeuvres, progress to the next person's house for soup or salad, the next person's for the main course, and the last person for dessert. Either charge by course, or for the whole package. To make it extra special (and much more expensive), get a limousine for the evening that carries guests from house to house.
Bake sale.
Pancake breakfast.
Tea party.
Chili cook-off.
Spaghetti dinner.
Progressive dinner.
Clam Bake.
- Post a note on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linkedin, etc. asking your friends to help you raise the money.
- Chick-fil-A puts the "fun" back into fundraising! They offer several fundraising opportunities to help nonprofit organizations raise money.
- E-mail the donation link from LoisLodge.org to everyone in your address book and ask them to make a special donation in your honor.
- Ask your friends and family to donate money to Lois’ Lodge instead of buying you presents for your birthday or other holiday.
- Ask your Sunday School class to collect a love offering.
- Give it yourself. (This is so good it bears mentioning again).
- Ask your employer to match your contribution.
- Holding a fundraiser at a restaurant in your community is a great way to earn money for your school or nonprofit organization. This type of fundraiser appeals to families because they get to eat out and socialize while helping raise money for your cause. The restaurants appreciate the extra business and the potential for repeat customers. And you can earn several hundred dollars in one evening. There are a couple of ways to hold a restaurant, or dining out, fundraiser. Most of the major restaurant and food franchises such as McDonalds, Applebees, and Ben and Jerrys reportedly already have programs and policies in place for their restaurant fundraisers.
- Have you ever been a customer of Schwan's Home Service? If not, you may have seen their yellow trucks making deliveries of frozen food to homes in your neighborhood. Schwan's has been in the business of delivering frozen food for over 50 years. Busy families appreciate the convenience of Schwan's easy-to-prepare meals. Now, Schwan's reportedly has a fundraising program for nonprofit organizations, schools and charities. You can raise money by taking orders for Schawn's frozen foods. Then, unlike some food fundraisers, Schawn's will deliver your customer's orders to their door. So you do not have to receive and distribute the products
- Ask the manager of your favorite store or restaurant to donate a percentage of sales on a specified day to Lois’ Lodge. Do you know a local celebrity? Host a simple event at which they will attend.
- Are you a part of a choir, quartet, or music ministry? If you are, then why not use the talents you already have to raise money. Your music can help to raise funds and awareness for Lois’ Lodge.
Singing Telegrams
A singing telegram is a great way to give a special gift to a loved one. A purchaser will pay from $20 to $50 depending on the song that they choose for the recipient.
On the day of the telegram delivery your vocal group arrives at the place of business or home of the recipient and sings the special message. It would be best to go in pairs and not as a whole group. That way you can maximize the number of recipients visited.
For an additional $3 offer to present a personalized card to the recipient or for $10 extra a coffee mug filled with Hershey's Kisses to fit the theme. Be sure to dress the part.
Consider, nursing home residents, businesses, nonprofit volunteers (for recognition), and retirement villages as potential recipients. Contact the administrative offices to offer a flyer about your services for the family members of the resident or business member.
- Hold a Mothers Day flower sale. Providing flowers for the honoring of mothers on Mothers Day is a welcome service that people are happy to pay.
You will need some ribbon, florist's tape, lapel pin, and some "baby's breath" or similar accent flower to complete a corsage. You will also need a small container to place each completed carnation for later distribution. These corsages can be sold for $5 to $7.
If you plan to simply hand out a carnation stem, then $2 to $3 may be appropriate as there is not as much preparation as there is with a corsage type arrangement.
http://www.growerflowers.com is reportedly a source for wholesale flowers.
- Hold a Craft Fair. Crafts Fairs offer tremendous exposure for Lois’ Lodge by getting people from all over your community to come out and get to know about Lois’ Lodge and the Save the Lodge campaign. This is a chance to get free publicity and community involvement on a grand scale at a profit.
There are two ways to make a profit from Crafts Fairs. You can either simply
provide the space free and then charge from 10% to 25% of each vendor’s profits with no other costs or you can charge a set fee and then charge for extras like rental space, tables, and decorations.
- Arrange a personal challenge for your friends. In return for raising a given amount of money:
Shave your head.
Dye your hair pink.
Men, have your legs or chest waxed (ouch).
Sit in a tree until funds are raised.
- Turn a personal goal into a fundraiser:
Pounds lost.
Days without smoking.
Days without chocolate.
Miles ridden on a bicycle.
Miles run.
Miles Walked.
Sponsored silence.
Cuss jar.
Truth jar.
- If your office policy allows it, set up a jar on your desk and sell snacks to raise money.
- Have an “empty your pockets” day and collect all the change from everyone in your office.
- Encourage co-workers to write a check in memory or in honor of a special person.
- Take the nice clothing in your closet that you never wear to a local consignment shop.
- Hold a MUSTACHE-A-THON. Gather a group of fearless men, convince them to put their naturally occurring facial follicles to good use, and challenge them to a) grow a very fashionable mustache; b) gather financial support for Lois’ Lodge from family, friends, co-workers, 'stache fans, and complete strangers; and c) garner mustache glory that would be the stuff of legend.
- Set up a fundraising event at your church or club:
Karaoke night
Movie Night
Coffee shop
Silent auction
Talent show
Car wash
Band performance
Children’s carnival
- Purchase, or ask a local business to donate a cool item, and hold a raffle.
- Organize a service raffle. Get four people (one can be you) to donate a simple but valuable service that many people could use. Services can include childcare for a weekend or for any weekend night two weekends in a row; pet sitting, one day of housecleaning; yard work; car washing/detailing, cooking a meal, house painting (interior or exterior), etc.
- Have your friends over for the next great sports event.
- Have your friends over to watch the next gripping episode of the TV show you all watch.
- Arrange with the principal of a local school for a baseball cap day. Usually caps are not allowed, however, for $1.00, once a week a student could wear a baseball cap in class. Be sure to have a sign ready that says, "You will see students today sporting baseball caps as a fundraiser to Save the Lodge”.
- Do you manage a business?
Arrange a dress down or dress up day at work. Anyone dressing down or up will have to pay. Be sure you have a sign that says, "Please excuse our appearance today, we are dressing down/up to “Save the Lodge”. You could charge anywhere from $1.00 to $5.00 per person to dress down. You could arrange these on a weekly or monthly basis.
Hold a raffle for a day off with pay.
Hold a raffle for a reserved parking space.
- Bowling competition
- Tennis competition
- Golf competition
- Bingo night
- A Rock-a-thon is a group of folks (young and old) gathered together to rock in rocking chairs for donations to benefit Lois’ Lodge. The Rock-a-thon is a fun activity for the participants. Persons sponsor rockers by pledging an amount per hour or making a general donation. This would be a great activity to hold at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant
- Crafty? Sell the things you make for fun. Jewelry, crafts, flower arrangements.
- Hold a fashion show. An incredible intensive and proven event is a fashion show. Whether it's a baby fashion show, bridal show, women's fashions or children's fashion show you will thoroughly enjoy the excitement and name recognition gained from this event. Everybody loves seeing the latest fashions that will be upcoming. If you are a women's league, sorority, women's ministry, social club or civic association made up of mostly women, then this will be the perfect fundraiser.
Two Options To Consider
The two options for fashion style show is how your show will be presented.
Option One
Most fashion shows work with stores in a local mall to show their spring, summer or fall fashions. They will work with one store or several if there is a good working relationship with each other. Charge $500 to $1,000 per store if there is more than one store to showcase. Consider also charging $30 to $50 per item shown. Work out the arrangements out with each store well before hand.
Option Two
Your second options is to contact various small stores throughout your town and get an agreement to show so many fashions for a fee. You will be advertising their store and fashions they carry. Charge $500 to $1,000 per store and portray five to ten stores in an hour long show.
Ask that the store owners or managers provide some certificates that will get people back into their store.
- Baby sit. It’s not just for kids!
- Used book sale. How many times have you actual reread all those books that you have kept.
- Have a grass mowing fundraiser in your neighborhood.
- Have a leaf raking fundraiser in your neighborhood.
- Hold a Father - Daughter Dance.
- Easter Gift Basket sale. Easter egg hunt.
- You could also pull in some easy cash for your charity with a Krispy Kreme fundraiser. Krispy Kreme has a variety of fundraisers available. One way to raise money is to just sell the donuts. They offer doughnuts to sell to raise money for non-profit groups at a reduced price, which are then resold for full retail price, or slightly higher.
- Box Lunches (Sell tickets and let a caterer do the work)
- Product Sales (Cookies, popcorn, candy, candles, first aid kits, etc.)
- Have a penny run. Organize teams of people to go door to door in your neighborhood asking everyone to donate their pennies.
- Don’t forget your pets:
Have a doggie party in your back yard.
Have a neighborhood dog wash in your front yard.
Have a “pooper scooper” fundraiser in your neighborhood.
- Sell some plasma. Well you could!
- Host an auction for a “date night” with a single person in your life. Maybe it’s you.
- Have a plant sale.
- Hold a car wash and charge per vehicle.
- What about holding a "FREE" Car Wash fundraiser? The members of your group would ask family members and business to get pledges per car. Individuals might pledge 10 cents a car while businesses might be willing to pledge 25 cents a car. You might want to try to set a goal of each member to get a certain amount of pledges but you may be very surprised to see that most members will receive even more! Set up a car washing station with your water, hose and soap. Create your "FREE CAR WASH" sign. All members should collect their pledges after the fundraiser is complete.
- Don’t want to wash that car anymore? J Donate your car to Lois’ Lodge to use to raise money. Your donation is tax deductible.
- How about a star-studded twist on the standard auction fundraiser? The members of your group could compile a list of all the stars they want to contact and locate their mailing addresses on the internet. You would want to craft a professional letter to forward to their attention indicating your fundraising effort and what it is for. You then want to ask if they will send you something they sign. The item could range from pictures, clothing, books, tapes, CDs, sports items, etc. You may also want to consider contacting your "local stars" such as newscasters, TV personalities, weather forecasters and so on.
- .Jail for a day. People have to pay to free their friends.
- Hold a birdhouse auction. Have people design and create their own decorated birdhouse to auction or they can purchase birdhouses inexpensively from the local craft store. Charlotte has lots of artists and other very creative people. Ask lots of artists, organizations (like the fire department, the library, the hospital auxiliary, etc.), businesses, teachers and other individuals to participate.
- Same idea as above but with a different item. Hold a teddy bear auction. Bears can also be purchase from local craft and hobby stores. Ask local and area 'celebrities' to design the bears, as well as many individuals. Hold an auction to sell bears and raise money to Save the Lodge.
- Parents and grandparents- Give a gift in honor of that special child that God has invited into your life. A pink flamingo fundraiser is fun way to raise money for your favorite cause. It's an easy fundraiser for any size group to put together because it requires very little effort to keep it going.
- This basic fundraising idea involves deploying a flock of pink plastic flamingoes in someone's yard or outside a business entrance. A note is left explaining that the person or business has been selected by someone to be "flocked" for a good cause. And, it then goes on to explain that they will have to pay $10 per flamingo to have them relocated. The fun part is that each flocking victim then gets to pick the next victim. The flocking process continues for the duration of the fundraising event.
- Organize a Save the Lodge phone-a-thon. Bring your friends and the names of people you think would like to support this ministry. Make calls until you reach your financial goals. Or trade names with a friend and call their friends until you have reached your goal. This is particularly effective for people who are shy about asking their own friends for money, but not afraid to ask people they don't know.
- Teach a seminar on a topic you know: Fundraising; Knitting; Organic Gardening; Organizing; Proposal Writing; Environmental Impact Reports; Gourmet Cooking; Dog Grooming; Starting Your Own Business. Charge $30-50 per person, with a goal of 20-30 people. Donate proceeds to Save the Lodge campaign.
- If, as a child, you collected something avidly that you now store in a basement, consider selling it. Coins and stamps are particularly valuable and have usually increased in value over the years. But your collection of rocks, toy ships or rockets, arrowheads, or dolls can also be valuable. When you donate the income from the sale, you can deduct that amount from your taxes-an added bonus of this strategy, since you probably paid little or nothing for the items in the collection.
- If you have an artistic bent, offer to design greeting cards to specification for organizations or individuals for a fee. If you are good at calligraphy, sell your skills to schools for graduation announcements, friends for classy but low-cost wedding invitations, or just fun certificates such as "World's Greatest Dad" for Father's Day or "Outstanding Friend." Create unique Halloween costumes or masks. Donate the proceeds from your artistry.
- Hold an "I'm Not Afraid" Auction. You do this with just a few friends or hundreds of people if you have enough items to auction. You survey a few people (and use your own common sense) about what things need to be done in their home of office that they are afraid of or would really rather not do. This is different from a service auction-there has to be an element of dread in the activity. For example, some people cannot wash their windows because their apartment is too high or the second story of their house is too high and they suffer from vertigo. If you are not afraid of heights, you can sell your window-washing service. This goes for drain cleaning, minor roof repairs, antenna fixing, etc. Of, if you are unafraid of cockroaches or water bugs or spiders, you can offer to clean out that dark corner or garage or basement for a small fee. Snakes can be found in gardens and woodsheds, but maybe that doesn't bother you. The problem doesn't need to be as serious as phobia. How about allergies to dust, pollen, weeds? If you don't have them, you can mow, sweep, and clean for a fee. By marketing it as an "I'm Not Afraid" Auction, you also have the option for people to name something they need done to a group of volunteers, and then have a volunteer say, "I'm not afraid to do that." In that case, you will need a set fee for service.
- Similar to the suggestion above is the "Details Auction." This is for all your friends whose desks are overflowing with papers or who can't get their receipts in order to give to the tax preparer or who complain they can never find anything. If you are well organized, offer to clean up their desk, get their rolodex in order, file their papers, etc. If you like to shop, sell that to people who don't and do all their holiday shopping for them, or buy birthday, baby shower or niece/nephew presents for them. Anything that people feel they cannot control is the organized person's fundraising dream come true.
- Find out which of your friends (perhaps this is true for you also) work in corporations with matching gift programs. Then ask them to donate and get their gift matched, and ask them to ask their co-workers to donate and get their gift matched.
- Think of a store or service related to the purpose of Lois’ Lodge or where a lot of you regularly shop. Ask the store to donate a percentage of profits for a certain day or week, or even forever. You can also explore this with mail-order firms. Then you advertise widely to friends, family and members that Joe's Florist will give 2% of each sale during Valentine's weekend to anyone identifying themselves with your Lois’ Lodge.
- Under United Way's Specific Care program, donors have the opportunity to direct their gift to the causes that are important to them. You may designate to Lois' Lodge by identifying our 501C3 number (#56-2077047), along with our address and phone number on the United Way application
- Use a baby bottle to collect money for the Save the Lodge campaign. Helps to remind you of lives being saved thanks to your efforts.
100. “Guess the Baby” photo competition.
As you can see, almost all of these strategies involve asking for money and giving money yourself. These are the basic premises of fundraising-you must ask, you must give. Everything after that involves creativity, imagination and a sense of fun. Be sure to utilize the media if you have a creative idea for your fundraising efforts. They can multiply your results.
Contact us to provide you with additional assistance with your fundraising efforts,
704-376-8550. Also follow the 1000 x 1000 blog for more ideas and assistance with fundraising and for updates on the campaign, www.loislodge1000.blogspot.com.
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