Big Fundraising Ideas, Please Help! :)

[Carol]

Also, are you associated with a school upon which you can draw participants? We have been limited by the fact we are not in a school, so events like spaghetti dinners, etc., are not feasible as it is too hard to sell tickets. So we have concentrated on events that draw people outside of their interest in helping the team.

We have sponsored 5K races, which can attract a lot of the "serious" runners who do a race every weekend. We went through a local group to make the race an "official" 5K (runners know what this means), but that limited us to making a profit on ticket sales only after the first 80-100 runners. You can get an unlimited amount of money through sponsorship though - many places will pay to sponsor a 5K that wouldn't sponsor a team.

Basket bingos are big in this area and we held one last year with mixed results. Your costs are mainly the Longaberger basket prizes and bingo supplies - about $1000 upfront. But these events have a big, broad fan base and you can attract 150-200 people easily. (Unless, as happened with us, the paper didn't run the ads and a nor-easter blows in the day of the event.)

Sales of items like candy, pizzas, can raise a lot of money if you sell a lot, but you only get a small profit for each item sold. We have sold Xmas wreaths, which have a profit close to 50% if you buy them by the case. We are considering poinsettias this year.

Other people can tell you about spaghetti dinners and pancake breakfast type fundraisers. Again, we haven't considered this since we would sell tickets mainly to families and close friends, but if you have a large target audience that will buy tickets, this has good potential.