Fundraising Ideas & Fundraising Event Ideas
Looking for Fundraising Ideas for Charity Fundraising Events?
Good fundraising ideas for charity, school, PTA, sports club, church, community, and personal challenge fundraising events are difficult to come by, so we have compiled a list of fundraising ideas and subjectively rated them on their potential for 'reward relative to effort', 'ease of use', 'repeatability' and 'fun' value, with 5 stars being the maximum. Our findings are below.
A
All-day event 
A village hall, club, or pub often provides a suitable venue for a fundraising event and most pubs are pleased to host one to gain bar sales. Ask your local pub or sports club for example, if they can arrange a 24-hour sponsored fundraising event such as darts, squash, or bridge.
Auction of Promises
Try to get people to donate a gift, the promise of their time, or the use of their belongings. You can even ask people to donate themselves as 'slaves for the day'!
B
Bad hair day
Hold a bad hair day event and collect a donation from everyone that takes part.
Bag it up
Simply ask your local supermarket if you can bag customers' shopping and ask for a donation for your service. This is a great fundraising idea if you have many young hands at your disposal whose time you do not need to cost out. For example, it's a perfect fundraising event for a scout or guide group, or a school.
Bingo Night
Everyone loves Bingo but organising a bingo night can be a little difficult what with all those balls to juggle about and numbers to call out.
Bingo from Fundeo
Fundeo's Bingo comes as a streaming video with an on-screen parrot who hosts the show and calls out the numbers. No equipment is required. You simply share the video to a projector and big screen for a venue-based event or to Zoom for a virtual event. The audience marks off the numbers on matching tickets. Fundeo can also provide you with your own Shop online from where you can sell bingo tickets to your audience directly and payout prizes. Learn more about Fundeo's Fundraising Bingo and see how to fundraise easily and have great fun at the same time.
Bad taste day
Ask colleagues or friends to go to work in their worst tie or most bizarre clothes. If they refuse, get them to pay a fine.
Baking day
Ask someone to help you and your friends bake some cakes. Then hold a bake sale at your work, club, or school.
Barbecue Party
Hold a charity barbecue party event and charge people to come.
Book Sale
Dig out all those old books and have a book sale event at home or at work.
C
Caption Competition
Run a caption competition on pictures taken from your last party and collect donations from your entrants.
Car Boot Sale
Get together with friends and family and clear out unwanted items from your garage, cupboards, or loft, then sell them at a car boot sale.
Car Cleaning
Get together with your friends to clean the cars in your neighbourhood for a fee. Or clean the cars in the school car park during lunch hour. Great if you have a team of people prepared to donate their time and often suitable for a school, club, charity, church, PTA, sports club, social club, or corporate fundraiser.
Car treasure hunt
Ask someone with local knowledge to set questions so that people have to explore their local area. It’s a great way of finding out more about where you live.
Coffee Morning
Get all friends together and have a coffee morning event.
Cheese and Wine
Hold a cheese and wine party and charge people to come.
Culture evening
Get together with friends, family & neighbours for an evening event by singing songs, playing an instrument, reciting poems, telling jokes or any other ideas.
D
Daring exploits
Take part in a parachute jump event or sponsored abseil and encourage your friends and colleagues to take part.
Double the money
If your company matches fundraising donations, ask them to match whatever you raise. The only difficulty is that you must raise money first!
Disco
Organise a disco or 70's night event.
Donate day’s wage
Donate a day's wage and encourage others to follow your example. You could designate a specific date of national or local importance.
Dress down day
Organise a dress-down day and collect a donation from all those that take part, and double that amount from those that don't participate.
E
Eating competition
Set up a line of people and bet who will finish a bowl of food first - baked beans are a favourite.
F
Fashion day
Ask your parents/friends to donate their old clothes and hold a 'recycled' fashion show for your school or neighbourhood.
Fun run event
Organise a sponsored fun run event. Requires energetic fit people and a lot of supervision.
Facebook
Promote your event via Facebook, or any other social networking site. Invite friends, family, and colleagues to your fundraising event. Facebook is a fantastic tool for promoting fundraising events ask everyone to share your fundraising event for yet more promotion.
Fast for 24 hours
Want to lose weight? Then hold a sponsored 24-hour fast. Drink lots of water though.
G
Golf Match
Organise a charity golf day.
Grow your Own
Buy a packet of seeds, plant them and let them grow. Then sell off the plants, flowers, vegetables, or fruit for a profit.
H
Halloween Ball
Sell tickets to a fancy dress ball or party.
I
Ice Skating
Get people to sponsor you for how many times you can go around the ice skating ring without falling over or needing support.
J
Jumble Sale Event
Organise a jumble sale. This used to be a popular fundraiser but now in many communities of the UK, charity shops have taken over this fundraising niche and it has lost some of its appeals.
Justgiving
Set up a Justgiving page. Email everyone you know to publicise your event and ask them to support you by donating via your fundraising page. Great opportunity to bolster funds from any fundraising event ideas on this page. Justgiving takes care of the financial side too by facilitating tax deductions for donations from HMCE and administering the financial transactions. They charge a fee of just 5% (after credit card charges).
K
Karaoke Night
Ask a local pub or bar to host a Karaoke night for you perhaps in a function room then charge people to take part.
L
Lunch Money
Ask all your colleagues to bring in sandwiches for their lunch and donate the money they saved to charity.
Lunchtime Quiz Event
Stimulate the mind before heading back for the afternoon slog. Get teams together and charge to take part.
M
Match pet to owner competition
Ask your colleagues to bring in one photo of themselves and one of their pets. Charge a fee to try and match up the photographs.
N
Night in
Stay in on a Saturday night and donate the money you save. Probably not the most popular of ideas and a little boring.
O
Open Day
If you have a colourful garden, let all those garden lovers come and admire it, for a charge.
Office Olympics
Organise a competition to become an Office Olympic champion. Think up events such as speed typing, synchronised chair swiveling, bin basketball, longest paperclip chain in a minute, punching the most holes in a sheet of A4, or chair-racing.
P
Publicity
Use social media like Twitter and Facebook to promote and publicise your fundraising event. Send a press release to all your local papers describing your event, your good cause, and asking for sponsorship from companies and individuals.
Photography competition
Invite your friends to get their baby photos out and charge to 'guess the baby'.
Q
Quiz Nights
Organise a quiz night at home at work, in a club, or in your local pub or bar. Charge a fee to answer 50 questions. The winner gets half the money and the rest goes towards your fundraising target. This can be a regular event and you can buy quiz questions online quite cheaply.
Quit it Are you a smoker? Or do you have any other bad habits? Quit for a month and get everyone to sponsor your efforts.
R
Race night
Horse racing race nights are popular fundraisers and are ideal for club, school, PTA, corporate, church, or charity fundraising. Fundeo's Race nights differ from all the others in that they do away with the old-fashioned technology of using DVDs and error-prone downloads, and instead come as a continuous-play streaming video with an on-screen host so you can easily run the event yourself. In a couple of clicks, Fundeo can also provide you with your own online shop for the sale of tote tickets, sponsorships, and auctions and a bookmakers tool for calculating and paying our prizes. Click on the link below to learn more about Fundeo's race nights and see how you can raise £1500 easily in a couple of hours.
Ransom and release
All you need are some willing VIPs (very important prisoners) and somewhere to hold them captive. Then it's up to the VIPs to get friends, family, and colleagues to stump up the cash for their release.
S
Swear box Put a swear box in your office, home, or local social club to raise money for charity. Get them to pay each time they curse.
School dinners
Organise a party with the theme of school dinners. Get them to dress up in school uniforms and serve up bangers and mash.
Shopping trips
Offer to shop for elderly neighbours or run other errands for them in return for a small donation
Sponsored silence
Hold a sponsored silence. Ask your parents and neighbours to sponsor you to keep quiet. You could ask them to sponsor you for the whole day or per hour.
Shave it
Get sponsored to shave your head, your chest, your armpits, or any other hairy bits.
Sweepstake
Run a sweepstake on how many times your boss gets a cup of tea or how many times your colleague leaves their desk during the day. Charge a fee to have a go.
Sponsored stair climb
If you work in a high-rise building, get sponsored to take the stairs for a month.
T
Treasure Hunt
A challenging event for people, and a fun way to raise big money.
Theme days/nights
Jazz up the winter months and hold a themed event.
Tombola
Get some raffle tickets and persuade your friends and colleagues to donate prizes.
U
University Challenge
Organise teams who attend the same or nearby universities and hold a challenge to see which university or team comes top.
V
Variety Show
Round up your talented friends and put on a show, charging for admission.
W
Wine Tasting Event
Invite an 'expert' or local wine dealer to bring along a few cases of wine and donate some of the proceeds to charity. Or invite colleagues to taste some 'homemade' cocktails and charge an entry fee per person. Makes for a great social evening but if you are the host try not to drink too much . . . Hic!
X
X-Files party
Hold an X-files party.
Y
Yorkshire pudding eating
See how many you can eat. Get your friends to run a sweepstake.
Z
Zoo quiz
Organise a zoo quiz
Zombie party
Organise a zombie party and charge an entrance fee.
Still looking for fundraising ideas or fundraising event ideas?
If none of these fundraising ideas appeals then please check out our fundraising demos and use our Fundraise Money Race Night Calculator. Our fundraising events are used by more and more charities, schools, churches, PTA, sports clubs, clubs, and community groups every year. Don't miss out . . . see how to raise over £1500 easily in just two hours!