At Funds2Orgs, we understand it can be difficult to consistently hit your fundraising goals, expand your donor base, and keep your supporters engaged. Sometimes it can feel like the enthusiasm just isn’t there.
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If you’ve been executing the same old fundraisers year after year, it might be time to spice things up. It’s exciting for your supporters to have new ways to get involved in supporting your cause, and that excitement will surely lead to more donations.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled this list of standout fundraising ideas for nonprofits. The enthusiasm for your cause is there—you just have to stoke it! You’ll find the following categories of nonprofit fundraising ideas on this page:
- Our Top Fundraising Idea for Nonprofits
- Best Virtual Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits
- Top Fundraising Event Ideas for Nonprofits
- Easy Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations
- Creative Nonprofit Fundraising Ideas that Stand Out
Sometimes all you need is a little inspiration to hit (and even surpass!) your fundraising goals. Let’s get started.
Our Top Fundraising Idea for Nonprofits
Shoe Drive Fundraisers
Our top fundraising idea for nonprofits is perhaps the easiest of them all: host a shoe drive fundraiser.
With this nonprofit fundraiser, it’s possible to raise a substantial amount of money for your cause while spending very little time planning. A shoe drive fundraiser allows your supporters to clear out their closets for a good cause, supporting your mission!
Here’s how it works:
- Partner with a shoe drive fundraising coordinator.
- Place the collection materials they send you around your building, campus, or at your fundraising event.
- Advertise the shoe drive fundraiser and ask your supporters to donate gently worn, used and new shoes.
- Your shoe drive fundraising coordinator will pick up your shoes at the end of your fundraiser.
- All you have to do is wait for a check in the mail!
See? We told you it was easy! Plus, shoe drive fundraisers are not only awesome on their own, but they also pair well with other campaigns. So even if you have your heart set on one of the other nonprofit fundraising events on this list, consider incorporating a shoe drive fundraiser as well to maximize your fundraising ability.
Best Virtual Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits
Sure, the recent pandemic has made virtual fundraising necessary. But even outside of pandemic times, it can be hugely beneficial to your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts to add a virtual aspect to your campaigns.
Why? Because not everyone who wants to attend your events in person will be able. You may have people who connect with your cause who live across the country, or you may have supporters who have limited abilities or are chronically ill who can’t make it to all of your events.
So even going forward past COVID-19, we hope you’ll continue to use virtual components in your fundraisers to maximize interest, participation, and engagement. Let’s get started!
Online Donation Page
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Online donations these days account for a considerable portion of the fundraising revenue nonprofits bring in every year. Without an online donation page, you’ll miss out on a huge opportunity to collect donations.
For all of your virtual nonprofit fundraisers, you’ll want to direct traffic to your online donation page. When you’re crafting this page, keep these elements in mind:
- Mobile optimization: Make sure your donation page appears correctly from a mobile device, so you don’t miss out on donations from supporters using their smartphones.
- Length: Limit the required fields to the essentials. You want to encourage completion of the donation form, not find out everything you can about your donors. Remember, there’s plenty of time to learn about your supporters after they’ve donated!
- Clarity: The last thing you want to do when you’re close to donation conversions is to confuse your supporters! Prioritize ease-of-use on your donation form to bring in the most donations possible.
Your online donation page will serve as the main portal to donations for many of your virtual nonprofit fundraisers, so make sure it’s up and running well before you get started on any of these ideas!
Virtual Gala
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Just because social distancing is in effect doesn’t mean you and your supporters can’t get dressed up and attend a gala. Virtual galas are just like their in-person counterparts, except supporters can livestream your programming from the comfort of their own homes.
Galas are traditionally an effective way to bring together your major donors and long-term supporters. With the shift to virtual and the lower costs due to the lack of venue and catering, consider expanding your gala invitation list to include all of your supporters who wish to attend.
Online Book Club
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★
Get your supporters together to get reading! For this nonprofit fundraiser, you’ll need to advertise the opportunity to join the book club to your supporters ahead of time. Choose a book on a topic related to your nonprofit’s cause, or survey your supporters to see what kind of books they would be interested in reading together.
All you’ll need to do is charge a small registration fee to join the club. From there, set up a weekly, biweekly, or monthly video call where book club members can gather to discuss the book.
To maximize the results of this nonprofit fundraiser, you’ll also want to advertise your online donation page at the beginning of your book club meetings, along with your nonprofit’s text-to-give number, if you have one.
Virtual Race
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Who said races have to be in person? Take your traditional fundraising races virtual with this fantastic fundraising idea for your nonprofit.
Beyond providing a suitable fundraising event for the social distancing era, a virtual race saves your nonprofit a significant amount of money compared to an in-person race. The costs to plan and launch are significantly less.
Just like a regular race, a virtual race gets your supporters up and moving in support of your cause. The only thing that’s different about a virtual race is your supporters will complete the race route independently. There are a couple of options to consider about the structure of your race:
- You could provide a specific day and time for participants to complete their route.
- Alternatively, have participants complete the race on a date and time of their choosing, as long as it’s within a certain window of time.
Either way, your participants will report their running, biking, or walking times to you upon their completion of the race.
Charge a registration fee to make money from this nonprofit fundraiser, and consider pairing it with other fundraising ideas like peer-to-peer fundraising or a shoe drive fundraiser.
Digital Concert
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
Odds are, your supporters would jump at the chance to see some live music. Consider recruiting a local band, singer, or other performers to donate a night of their time to your organization.
It’s a good idea to survey your supporters ahead of time to see what kind of music they generally like. You may even present some choices of performers and see who gets the best response from your supporters.
Once you have the artist nailed down, promote your digital concert online ahead of time on your social media accounts and your website. Make tickets available in advance and ask supporters to buy tickets to gain access to the event.
When the day of the concert arrives, make sure everyone knows where to go to watch the livestream, and enjoy!
Virtual Movie Night
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★
Get the popcorn ready! This low-effort, COVID-friendly fundraiser will bring your supporters together for a night of family-friendly fun.
To launch a virtual movie night fundraiser, follow these simple steps:
- Choose a movie to screen. Try to pick something relevant to your cause or of particular interest to your donors. Don’t be afraid to ask them what movies they would be interested in seeing.
- Promote the movie screening, and provide information on where to access it.
- Charge a small fee for a “ticket” to the livestream of the movie, or just provide the link to your donation page and ask for suggested donations.
Once everything’s lined up and ready to go, all that’s left to do is get watching!
Online Class
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
An online class is a versatile virtual fundraising idea for nonprofits. You could offer various classes—try to gauge subject interest before you set the topic and find a teacher.
One option is providing a class on a subject related to your cause. For example, if your nonprofit is a wildlife conservation organization, you could offer a course related to ecology, zoology, or conservation with a prominent scientist.
If connecting with an expert in the field isn’t feasible, consider finding an instructor affiliated with your own organization. Send out a survey to see who has expertise in which subjects, as well as who would be willing to teach a class. Then, just promote the program online, charge a registration fee, and get learning!
Email Campaign
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
While email campaigns may be traditional, that doesn’t mean they’re ineffective. In fact, email-based marketing generates a considerable chunk of all online nonprofit revenue. Studies found that email marketing accounted for 28% of all online nonprofit revenue in 2017.
An email fundraising campaign should definitely be on your nonprofit’s radar. There are a couple of best practices to keep in mind when planning your email campaign:
- Personalize your appeals: Generic “Dear Supporter” emails don’t tend to resonate with potential donors. Instead, use their names and reference personal details about your supporters within your emails. How can you do that? Try segmenting your donors within your donor database so you can address specific subsets of your supporters all at once.
- Consider a multi-channel approach: While email is an exceedingly effective way to raise money for your organization, it can help to widen your reach by including social media, text-to-give, and even direct mail in your fundraising campaign.
A good email campaign can make a huge difference in your nonprofit’s annual fundraising and help you hit your goals.
Social Media Takeover
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
A social media takeover can have many benefits for your nonprofit. To execute a social media takeover, you’ll need to find an influencer, expert, artist, or another prominent figure to “take over” one of your social media accounts, usually for a day.
The endorsement from a trusted public figure increases your organization’s credibility while expanding your reach to all of the influencer’s social media followers. You’ll likely gain new followers from the takeover, which will inevitably lead to new volunteers and donors.
To make the takeover more fundraising-centric, discuss how the influencer will encourage or solicit donations for one of your campaigns during the takeover. Make sure to clearly define the terms of the agreement as well as the goals, so you’re more likely to succeed!
Text-to-Give
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
An easy approach for a text-to-give fundraise is to host a campaign where your team promotes your organization’s designated phone number. Alternatively, providing a text-to-give option along with your other fundraisers ensures maximum donation convenience.
To get started with text-to-give, you’ll first have to choose a provider. Once you’re set up with a number and keyword, all you’ll need to do to take advantage of your new donation channel is to promote your text-to-give information in your communications and on your website. That way, your supporters will always know where to donate quickly and easily!
Virtual Lemonade Stand
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
You may be wondering how a virtual lemonade stand is possible, much less effective. Spoiler alert: there is no lemonade involved in this fundraiser.
Instead, a “virtual lemonade stand” is just an endearing way to brand a peer-to-peer fundraiser. Instead of sharing your average peer-to-peer fundraising page on social media, participants share a link to their “lemonade stand” and request donations. The reference to lemonade stands can be nostalgic for viewers and encourage more donations to your P2P campaign.
To execute this nonprofit fundraiser, you’ll need to invest in a peer-to-peer fundraising platform with customizable pages. In particular, you’ll want your participants to be able to add images to their pages so they can upload a photo of a lemonade stand. Ensure your branding appears on every page, so viewers always know the cause to which they’re contributing!
Top Fundraising Event Ideas for Nonprofits
General nonprofit fundraisers are useful for raising money. Still, if you’d like to foster a sense of community and socialize with your supporters while garnering donations, a fundraising event is the way to go.
Nonprofit fundraising events usually occur at a specific time, place, and location, so the window during which your nonprofit receives funds is smaller than with a broader campaign. It can be helpful for nonprofits who find themselves needing to hit a fundraising target quickly.
We’ve compiled our top fundraising event ideas in this section to inspire your nonprofit’s team. Let’s get started.
Silent Auction
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★★
An auction is a wonderful way to raise money for your organization and get to know local businesses, artists, and vendors.
To start, you’ll need to reach out to some of these figures in your community to see if they would be willing to donate items, experiences, discounts, and so on. Consider auctioning off the following:
- Gift certificates
- Art by local artists
- Gym memberships
- Classes (cooking, yoga, pottery, etc.)
- Gift baskets
Don’t forget to back up your auction with software to make the process as smooth as possible.
Ice Cream Social
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★
If it’s still warm outside in your part of the world, consider bringing your supporters together for a nice, cool ice cream social.
You could opt to charge a fee for attendance, but it’s more common to suggest a donation or encourage donations at the event. This activity is a beneficial nonprofit fundraiser to encourage socializing among supporters and staff at your organization.
You could combine an ice cream social with a volunteer training day or a project launch day to help everyone in your community get to know one another!
Tie-Dye Party
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
A tie-dye party is an arts and crafts fundraiser that supporters of all ages will love to join in on!
For this nonprofit fundraiser, your organization provides supplies for making tie-dye shirts. Then, your supporters can participate and take home a tie-dye shirt in exchange for a donation. If your organization has branded T-shirts, those would be perfect to use for this fundraiser. That way, you’re getting a little marketing outreach from the event as well!
Plan a date and time for your tie-dye party and promote your fundraiser well ahead of time.
To save money on staging this event, see if a company would be willing to donate the dye necessary to make the shirts.
5K
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
A 5K run is the perfect nonprofit fundraiser to energize and activate your supporters in advancing your mission! Consider combining your 5K with crowdfunding or peer-to-peer fundraising, so participants can fundraise and spread awareness about your organization to their friends and family.
Be sure to start planning your 5K early, as you’ll have many decisions to make, like:
- Where your route will be
- Who will sponsor your event
- Who will work the event
- What your fundraising goal is
5Ks aren’t just limited to running, either. You could have a 5K walk, ride, or swim instead.
When you’re reaching out to potential sponsors, consider who might be interested in providing t-shirts, water bottles, and towels to market their brand. Sporting goods companies could be a good choice.
Of course, leading up to your 5K, it’s a great idea to incorporate a shoe drive fundraiser so your participants can get rid of their gently worn, used or new shoes that no longer fit, and make room for a new pair of running shoes!
Dance-a-Thon
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
A dance-a-thon is the perfect peer-to-peer fundraiser to get your supporters moving and grooving! Here’s how it works:
- Set a date and a fundraising goal for your dance-a-thon.
- Promote the dance-a-thon far and wide, and make sure to make your messaging fun! This event is a great fundraiser for the whole family.
- Ask your supporters to commit to a certain amount of dance time. Many dance-a-thons run for 12, 24, or even 36 hours! But people could do the dancing in shifts, so your supporters don’t get too tired.
- Ahead of the event, ask your participants to collect pledges from their friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. Many pledge to donate a certain amount per hour of their participant’s dance time.
- Have your event and watch the funds flow in!
Don’t forget to advertise the team aspect of dance-a-thons. Families, coworkers, or friends can join together and commit to raising a certain amount together. Then, see which team can raise the most and reward them with a fantastic prize.
Dinner Party
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
A dinner party fundraiser is highly versatile. While it’s more common as more intimate events with a nonprofit’s most supportive donors, you can make it as big or small as you like.
Think gala, but on a smaller scale! One of your donors may want to host it, or you could find a venue that would donate their space for the evening. Consider lining up catering, or if you’re taking a less formal approach, have your supporters bring food, potluck-style.
Regardless of the approach you take, make sure to set a fundraising goal for your dinner party and collect pledges or donations at the event.
Golf Tournament
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Have some golf fans in your community? Bring them together for an annual golf tournament. This fundraiser will require a lot of prep beforehand, but it’s worth it! Golf tournaments can have a high return on investment if you take advantage of peer-to-peer fundraising beforehand.
9-12 months out from your tournament, you’ll want to assign a committee to begin planning your event. As you get closer to the match, market your event on your organization’s social media pages, website, and email channels. Hype-up the tournament by revealing the prizes that will be awarded to the winning teams and best-performing individuals.
Instead of registration fees, have your supporters form teams and meet a minimum fundraising threshold to register for the event. Reward the team that raises the most funds with an awesome prize to incentivize peer-to-peer fundraising at next year’s tournament!
Bingo Night
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
Take advantage of bingo’s broad appeal and invite your supporters to a bingo night! They’ll bring the whole family for a night of fun.
To pull off this nonprofit fundraising idea, you’ll need help from volunteers, an online registration form, and of course, a game of bingo with cards. And don’t forget to get some really cool prizes for your winners. Consider reaching out to local businesses to see if they would donate items or gift cards to your prize bucket.
Ahead of your event, sell entry packages to your supporters that contain an admission ticket, a certain amount of bingo cards, and even a voucher for a snack or drink. Have a donation kiosk or collection box available at your event and encourage donations between games.
Fashion Show
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
Bring the catwalk to your community with a fashion show fundraiser. These are fun and exciting fundraisers that get many different supporters involved in your organization. You’ll need:
- Models: Flatter community members by asking them to model in your fashion show fundraiser. Welcome all shapes and sizes to make your event inclusive and fun for everyone. Keep in mind that the more models you have, the longer your event will take, so plan accordingly.
- Volunteers: A lot of volunteer staffing will go into this nonprofit fundraising event. You’ll need volunteers to sell tickets at the door, organize models backstage, and sell concessions.
- Clothes: A local designer or boutique may be interested in donating clothing to your fashion show, or you could introduce a challenge by asking supporters to design and fabricate 1-2 outfits for a model assigned to them.
- A venue: Obviously, you’ll need a space suitable for your fashion show. You’ll want somewhere big enough to accommodate your guests and a raised platform for the runway.
- A digital sign-up form: This will make it much easier to keep track of who’s modeling and volunteering at your event.
All that’s left to do is sell your tickets! A fashion show isn’t the easiest nonprofit fundraiser to pull off, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
Car Wash
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★
If you’re in a pinch, a car wash fundraiser is a relatively quick and easy event to plan to raise money for your organization. All you have to do is gather supplies, recruit volunteers, and market your fundraiser ahead of time! As far as location goes, any parking lot will do (with permission, of course).
Have your volunteers make signs you can place along major roads sending traffic to your car wash. That way, you’ll spread your reach beyond just your supporters and garner donations from the broader community.
A car wash works well because many of your supporters likely own cars, and “attendance” to your event is easy—they can just sit in the car while your volunteers get to work washing and shining!
Carnival
Cost: $$
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
Who doesn’t love going to the carnival? Combine a fun, family-friendly event and raising money for your cause with this nonprofit fundraising idea.
If it’s within your organization’s budget, rent carnival rides and games like a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and spinning teacup rides. However, if renting large carnival rides isn’t feasible, you can still host an excellent festival.
Some fun lower-cost games you could rent include bouncy castles, a dunk tank, and skee-ball. You don’t even have to rent classic games like the ring toss, 6-pin bowling, or balloon pop—you can get some volunteers together to make your own.
Regardless of the exact rides and games you end up with at your carnival, be sure to have prizes for winners at every game so your supporters will really want to play!
To raise funds from your carnival, charge a flat admission fee or charge attendees for tickets that let them play games. Offer concessions as well, so you’ll have another chance to raise money and satisfy your carnival-goers with treats like funnel cake and cotton candy.
Easy Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations
If you find that your nonprofit is low on time or resources, but still needs a fundraiser to meet your goals or make a project possible, an easy nonprofit fundraiser is probably your best option.
These fundraisers won’t require months of planning, but they are still effective ways to raise money and bring your community together.
With all that saved time, you and your staff can dedicate more attention to building relationships with donors at your event or strategizing for your next fundraising campaign. Plus, consider that easy fundraisers can have high returns on investment (ROI) due to the lack of upfront costs and work-intensive planning required on the front end.
An easy fundraiser could be just what your nonprofit needs! Let’s get started.
Bake Sale
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
A bake sale is a classic nonprofit fundraiser for a reason: who doesn’t love sweet treats for a good cause? This fundraiser requires little to no up-front costs, as you can easily reach into your base of support to find volunteer bakers.
All you’ll need is a good location to stage your sale, tables for all of your baked goods, and a baker sign-up form (an Excel spreadsheet could work, or you could use a volunteer management tool to keep track of participants). Ensure all of your bakers can see who’s making which items, so you end up with a breadth of different baked goods, rather than several duplicate ones.
You’ll want to sell all the bake sale classics, like chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cakes, and pies. Some vegan and gluten-free options would be nice to include for your supporters with dietary restrictions as well!
Cooking Competition
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★
Barbecue cook-offs, chili cook-offs, and bake-offs are just a few options for your nonprofit’s cooking competition fundraiser. Like a bake sale, this fundraiser doesn’t require your organization to devote a hefty amount of funds to its planning and execution. All of the food for your event will be provided by your supporters.
To execute a successful cooking competition fundraiser, create buzz on your organization’s social media accounts and email marketing channels. Challenge your supporters to make the best [food item of your choice] ever and bring their creation to your event for others to taste and enjoy.
You’ll need a panel of judges, a suitable location to host your event, and tables where participants can serve their dishes. Have all of your chefs sign up ahead of time, so you know what you’ll have to offer your event attendees. Charge an admission fee and award prizes to the winners, and you’re done!
Sports Tournament
Cost: $
Difficulty:
Earning Potential: ★★★
With a sports tournament fundraiser, there are tons of options. Depending on what kind of sports your supporters like, you could opt for traditional games like:
- Soccer
- Basketball
- Volleyball
Or you could go with less conventional sports, like:
- Capture the flag
- Roller derby
- Cornhole
No matter which sport you settle on, make sure
