Out of the box Fundraising...

[dubious elise]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

We sell shares of our team.

This is an interesting idea. Can you elaborate on it please?

Our team has used the information from team 364, that we found in the white papers section, to host and manage a golf tournament. After all expenses, we made approximately $2,300 this year alone.

Wal-mart will match donations up to $500 for car washes during the summer months.

If it is available in your area, Entertainment and Gold-C books have an excellent return, I believe $10-15 per book sold. The books are about $35 apiece and have, literally, hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars worth of coupons in them.

Though we have never tried this ourselves, there are some groups that sell First-Aid kits door-to-door. Its an oft-overlooked item that many people are willing to purchase, simply because they need one or two. (And of course, the FIRST-First connection is great )

[Kyle Love]

The Technokats use "discount cards". We get multiple businesses to run special deals to our card holders. We actually had two sets of cards go out last year. A thing we need to do with them this year though is split up the known "well liked" places that everyone wants deals at on to both cards. Do demos in public places and accept donations. Be like, "hey want to help support these cool things? Give your extra change!" Sure, seems a bit homeless person like, but hey its money!

[mechanicalbrain]

We create shares and have a certain amount (roughly 1,000) each sells for $50. They are roughly symbolic but its better than just asking for money because they get a nicely done paper and special footage so they actually have something in hand. We raised like $1,500.

[KenWittlief]

have your team members, families and others donate unwanted stuff, and sell it on ebay.

An ebay party is a blast - schedule all the sales so they end at 2 or 3 minute intervals, then you can all watch together as the snipers drive the prices up at the last few minutes.

a team can raise thousands of dollars this way - and you can see what stuff is selling for (on the completed listings section) so you dont end up listing a bunch of junk that wont sell.

[Kims Robot]

There is some info in this thread that has been posted fairly recently. We have a pretty big list of potential fundraisers in our thread, see if that peaks any interest in your team.

[JulieB]

We get $1000 for cleaning up after 5 home football games at our high school.

[Robocat1]

We do an annual Trash & Treasure Sale and advertise for donations (taken the night before) and usually make about $1300.

Max & Erma's also holds special breakfasts, profit about $1200 - no work for us, just sell tickets (they make them), advertise, and bus tables. Sure beats the old Pancake Breakfast we used to do where we had to get donations and cook and clean up!

Instead of just asking for donation, our community members can sign our robot (or a sign when there's no room on the robot) for a minimum $5 donation.

We host a Beach Party Dance for grades 4-6; an alumni DJs and we make about $1200. Everyone else at our school hosts dances for the high school, but we're the only ones putting on a dance for the middle school - and they all come! We sell hot dogs, pop and popcorn that night too. Then, they all sign a banner with the FIRST and LEGO logos and we add pics from the night and hang it in their cafeteria - great way to begin recruiting early.

Our golf outing and Night at the Races are taking a few years to get established - be patient if you do this, it takes 1-3 years to catch on, then its easy. But then, the profit is at least $3,000 each.

Aluminum Recycling drives are also painless and easy - just set up the bin and advertise. Very little time & manpower so even if you only make a few hundred dollars its okay.

We have also done a successful dunking booth at a local festival. Rent the booth and then get all the other high school activities and teachers to be the dunkees. Profit over $1000 in 5 nights. Very fun for us too!

Finally, just try to balance what you sell with what you host and vary the audience you sell to.