Fundraising Ideas.

[Phoenix Spud]

RoboCamps. We are annually raising 5 digit sums by providing robotics-based child care during our school vacation. PM me if you want our resources.

[smitikshah]

Our team for the first time this year tried giftwrapping!

At a local Barnes and Nobles, we offered around 6 hours of our time a few days before Christmas day and set up a small tips jar.

We didn't gross much, but I'm sure if you had a more tactical plan you would make more (we did it as a spur of the moment thing).

Something like that, when made large scale with proper planning, I'm sure would get you a decent bit of funds.

[natejo99]

An idea that has been thrown around a couple times on my team (although we have never accomplished it) is a team yard sale. Team members and their families can bring in anything they want to sell, and have an enormous sale.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by ctt956

Yes! Don't forget to charge extra if they want soap, a rinse, and/or if they want you to dry their car.

Well, no, but Don hit the nail on the head with pre-selling tickets. IIRC, 1676 made $8,000 from their annual Fall car-wash alone last year. Tickets were $5 each. Get your local FLL and FTC teams involved to help out too, both with selling tickets and to lend hands at the event. More tickets sold --> More cars able to be washed --> More $ for all programs.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Well, no, but Don hit the nail on the head with pre-selling tickets. IIRC, 1676 made $8,000 from their annual Fall car-wash alone last year. Tickets were $5 each. Get your local FLL and FTC teams involved to help out too, both with selling tickets and to lend hands at the event. More tickets sold --> More cars able to be washed --> More $ for all programs.

I believe that you do indeed remember correctly. That's pre-sales plus drive-by sales plus tips. It helps to have a little kid (maybe 5 or 6 - supervised of course) manning the tip bucket. We've had folks pay $5 for a wash and drop a $20 in the bucket.


Then there is Legos and a Movie: Kid-friendly movie (like Robots, or some other disney-pixar), and beforehand they get to build a Lego creation (using all those legos collected from our FLL qualifier, plus donations). We charge a small fee for the legos, but you can include that with the movie.

[3072Cap]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

The trick to car washes is pre-selling tickets. Even if they don't show up, you have raised fund.

Our youth group at church did our car wash by donation. Some would give $10, some $100. With a preset price, a lot of people will just pay that price, and not think about giving more. But we are pretty rural, so not sure how it would work with pre-selling here.

[guniv]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

I believe that you do indeed remember correctly. That's pre-sales plus drive-by sales plus tips. It helps to have a little kid (maybe 5 or 6 - supervised of course) manning the tip bucket. We've had folks pay $5 for a wash and drop a $20 in the bucket.

Can you elaborate on how you did pre-sales? Someone collecting at a school; online?

Also interested in where you guys held it, how you advertised it, your layout, etc. As much info as you guys can provide would be very valuable to me, this sounds like a great fundraising opportunity.

[Phoenix Spud]

I've had a ton of PMs about RoboCamps. With an approaching thesis deadline, I'm passing this along to our RoboCamps coordinator. You can get in touch with him directly by emailing robocamps@firstaustralia.org

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by guniv

Can you elaborate on how you did pre-sales? Someone collecting at a school; online?

Also interested in where you guys held it, how you advertised it, your layout, etc. As much info as you guys can provide would be very valuable to me, this sounds like a great fundraising opportunity.

Josh,

Once my finals finish next week, I hope to write a White Paper detailing how 1676 organizes and runs their annual car wash. I'll be sure to post the link to it here once completed.