Fundraising can feel like an uphill battle. One year, you’re exceeding expectations. The next, reaching your goals feels harder than ever.
The difference between an average fundraising campaign and a high-achieving one isn’t always the size of your donor base, but the quality of the fundraising idea behind it. Creative and engaging campaigns can encourage your donor base to participate more excitedly (and contribute more generously).
If you’re looking for some creative ideas for nonprofit fundraisers, look no further. We’ve compiled a list of 40+ fundraising ideas for nonprofits to help you strengthen donor relationships, reignite excitement, and encourage your supporters to become advocates for your cause.
To make it a bit easier to find what you’re looking for, here’s a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover on this page:
- Our #1 Fundraising Idea for Nonprofits: Hosting a Shoe Drive Fundraiser
- Log On, Give Back: Best Online Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits
- Events That Give Back: Top Fundraising Event Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations
- Big Impact, Low Budget: Low-Cost Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations
- Fundraising with a Twist: 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 #1 Fundraising Idea for Nonprofits: Hosting a Shoe Drive Fundraiser
Our top fundraising idea for nonprofits is perhaps the easiest of them all: host a shoe drive fundraiser.
With this nonprofit fundraiser, you can raise a substantial amount of money for your cause while spending very little time on planning. A shoe drive fundraiser lets your supporters clear out their closets for a good cause and support 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.
- Get paid by your shoe drive fundraising coordinator.
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.
Events That Give Back: 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 that need to hit a fundraising target quickly.
We’ve compiled our top fundraiser event ideas for nonprofits in this section to inspire your team. Let’s get started.
Gala 
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Galas are traditionally an effective way to bring together your major donors and long-term supporters. A fundraising gala offers a unique opportunity for supporters to dress up and celebrate your mission, while also giving them opportunities to further support your cause.
A well-executed gala is not only memorable for guests but also provides opportunities to raise funds through ticket sales, sponsorships, raffles, and auctions. If you’re thinking of hosting a gala, make sure you prioritize engaging your guests with success stories, live donation appeals, and a highlight of your campaign’s future goals.
Comedy Night
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
Who doesn’t love a stand-up comedy show? Have your supporters join you for a night of laughs with a comedy night fundraiser for your nonprofit.
You’ll want to ask a few local comedians if they would be willing to donate their time to a good cause. The more popular they are, the better they’ll draw in attendees to your comedy night.
Beyond the comedians, all you really need for this nonprofit fundraising idea is a venue and a way to sell tickets. Consider selling food and beverages at the event to provide another opportunity to raise money. You might sell “package” tickets that grant admission to the event and include food and drink vouchers.
Silent Auction
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
An auction is a wonderful way to raise money for your organization and get to know local businesses, artists, and vendors.
To start, you’ll need to reach out to some of these figures in your community to see if they’re willing to donate items, experiences, discounts, and more. Consider auctioning off the following:
- Gift certificates
- Art by local artists
- Gym memberships
- Classes (cooking, yoga, pottery, etc.)
- Gift baskets
Don’t forget to back up your auction with software to make the process as smooth as possible.
Volunteer Grants
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Companies offer workplace giving opportunities to inspire employees to give back to their communities. One common type of employee giving program is a volunteer grants program.
Also known as dollars-for-doers programs, volunteer grants are monetary awards that companies give to nonprofits where employees regularly volunteer. These are typically determined by the number of hours an individual spends with a nonprofit.
For example, let’s say one of your volunteers works for a company that pays $20 per hour for their time lent to an organization. This volunteer spent 5 hours with your nonprofit. If eligible for their company’s program, they can then submit a grant request.
All your team really needs to do is encourage the volunteer to submit their employer’s volunteer grant request form. Then, you’ll confirm the volunteer hours with the company. In return, the business will donate $100 to your nonprofit.
5K
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★
A 5K run is the perfect nonprofit fundraiser to energize and activate your supporters in advancing your mission! Consider combining your 5K with crowdfunding or peer-to-peer fundraising, so participants can fundraise and spread awareness about your organization to their friends and family.
Be sure to start planning your 5K early, as you’ll have many decisions to make, like:
- Where your route will be
- Who will sponsor your event
- Who will work the event
- What is your fundraising goal
5Ks aren’t just limited to running, either. You could have a 5K walk, ride, or swim instead.
When you’re reaching out to potential sponsors, consider who might be interested in providing t-shirts, water bottles, and towels to market their brand. Sporting goods companies could be a good choice.
Of course, leading up to your 5K, it’s a great idea to incorporate a shoe drive fundraiser so your participants can get rid of their gently worn, used and new shoes that no longer fit and make room for a new pair of running shoes!
Dance-a-Thon
Cost: $$
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 set amount. 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 leverage peer-to-peer fundraising in advance.
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 for the winning teams and top performers.
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!
Fashion Show
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
Bring the catwalk to your community with a fashion show fundraiser. These are fun and exciting fundraisers that engage a wide range of supporters with your organization. You’ll need:
- Models: Flatter community members by asking them to model in your fashion show fundraiser. Welcome all shapes and sizes to make your event inclusive and fun for everyone. Keep in mind that the more models you have, the longer your event will take, so plan accordingly.
- Volunteers: A large volunteer staff will be needed for this nonprofit fundraising event. You’ll need volunteers to sell tickets at the door, organize models backstage, and sell concessions.
- Clothes: A local designer or boutique may be interested in donating clothing to your fashion show, or you could introduce a challenge by asking supporters to design and fabricate 1-2 outfits for a model assigned to them.
- A venue: Obviously, you’ll need a space suitable for your fashion show. You’ll want somewhere big enough to accommodate your guests and a raised platform for the runway.
- A digital sign-up form: This will make it much easier to keep track of who’s modeling and volunteering at your event.
All that’s left to do is sell your tickets! A fashion show isn’t the easiest nonprofit fundraiser to pull off, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
Carnival
Cost: $$
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, such as a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and a spinning teacup ride. 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 for your carnival, charge a flat admission fee or sell tickets that let attendees 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 & Low-Cost Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations
Having a big impact doesn’t always require a big budget! In fact, for nonprofits with limited time, staff, and resources, low-cost fundraising ideas can be an extremely effective way to meet your goals.
Low-cost fundraisers for nonprofit organizations are designed to be simple, adaptable, and easy to execute. They require minimal planning and a low financial investment, which means that they can deliver a strong ROI.
Even more importantly, low-cost fundraisers free up your staff to dedicate time and energy towards what matters most: donor relationships, community engagement, and strategizing for the future of your organization.
Here are some low-effort, high-impact fundraising ideas for nonprofits with limited staff or resources:
Pay-What-You-Can Events
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
Pay-what-you-can events remove financial barriers for supporters while still generating support for your nonprofit. Instead of setting a ticket price, attendees are invited to contribute whatever amount they are comfortable with.
This model not only makes your events more accessible, but may also encourage higher-than-normal donations from supporters who may be able to give more readily. To keep your up-front cost low, consider partnering with local businesses that may be able to donate their space or supplies to your cause.
These events can take many forms. In fact, this payment model can be applied to many of the events on this list! Consider allowing guests to pay what they can at pay-to-enter events such as movie nights, trivia nights, or performances.
Yard Sale
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
We’re willing to bet your supporters’ homes and garages could use a little spring cleaning, no matter the time of year!
Bring everyone together for a community yard sale and raise money for your organization. For this nonprofit fundraising idea, your supporters each contribute items to sell at your communal sale, and your organization keeps the profits. It couldn’t be easier—just make sure to spread the word about your sale in advance and remind your supporters to drop off their sale items the day before.
Matching Gift Drive
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Your donors may not realize they could be doubling their donations through matching gifts programs.
Matching gifts are a part of some employers’ corporate philanthropy programs. Through these programs, companies match donations that their employees give to nonprofits up to a certain amount. In a matching gift drive, try to get 100% of your contributions matched by your donors’ employers.
To accomplish this, it’s best to partner with a matching gift database provider, such as Double the Donation, that can help your supporters determine whether they are eligible for matching gifts. All they’ll have to do is search their company’s name and easily determine their eligibility.
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 include an admission ticket, a set number of bingo cards, and a voucher for a snack or drink. Have a donation kiosk or collection box available at your event and encourage donations between games.
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. Your supporters will provide all of the food for your event.
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 venue for your event, and tables for participants to 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 to promote your tournament in advance. You’ll need a sign-up form for teams to complete, volunteers to referee, and a suitable location to host your fundraiser. Charge teams for registration or encourage peer-to-peer fundraising ahead of time, and you’ll be all set to raise money for your nonprofit! Don’t forget that this is another perfect opportunity to coordinate a shoe drive fundraiser to maximize funds.
Donation Kiosks
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Donation kiosks aren’t entirely fundraisers on their own, but they can facilitate the collection of funds at all of your other nonprofit fundraisers! Think of them as cash registers for your nonprofit, so supporters can give anywhere they are.
Giving kiosks come in a range of sizes. Some are the size of iPads, which is an effective option if you’d like to collect donations in various locations and events over the year. These donation kiosks come with a credit card swiper, making it easy to collect card donations.
Meanwhile, a nonprofit like a church might want to purchase a larger, permanent kiosk where congregants can donate on their way into the church. It just depends on what type of organization you run and how you interact with your supporters. Regardless, donation kiosks are a convenient way to collect donations for your nonprofit.
50/50 Raffle
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
Fundraising raffles work by incentivizing your supporters to buy tickets with the promise of a chance to win a prize. In this case, your nonprofit sells a certain number of tickets, and the winner receives 50% of the funds raised through ticket sales. Your nonprofit keeps the other 50%, hence the name “50/50” raffle.
If you’d like to increase your participants’ chances of winning money, you could split the 50% prize among different tiers. For example, the grand prize winner could receive 25% of the pot, the second prize 15%, and the third prize 10%. This strategy might encourage more ticket sales by increasing the number of winners.
For this nonprofit fundraiser, you can sell physical tickets for a fee or run the raffle entirely online for an even easier experience. A 50/50 raffle is an excellent opportunity to encourage peer-to-peer fundraising in advance; consider rewarding participants who sell the most raffle tickets to others with a prize.
Family Photo Day
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
We all know how meaningful it is to have nice pictures of your loved ones. A family photo day fundraiser provides this service to your supporters while raising money for your organization.
For this fundraiser, the most critical part is finding a photographer. Odds are, if you look among your base of supporters, you’ll find a competent photographer who would be happy to donate their time to your organization.
6-8 weeks ahead of your family photo fundraiser, start promoting the event on digital channels, through direct mail, and with posters and flyers, if applicable. Have a digital sign-up sheet available for your supporters to register for specific time slots, so your photographer doesn’t become overbooked.
It’s entirely up to your organization where this nonprofit fundraiser takes place. More formal photos might be staged inside with a plain background and professional lighting, while more casual photos could be taken outside on a nice day. Either way, your supporters will love the results! Have them pay for each image they’d like to keep, and you’ll be well on your way to meeting your fundraising goals.
Envelope Fundraiser 
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
An envelope fundraiser is an incredibly easy way to raise money for your organization. It’s best when combined with another fundraising event, like a comedy night, concert, art show, or another gathering with a good flow of your supporters nearby.
To get started on your envelope fundraiser, just follow these steps:
- Buy envelopes. The amount you’ll want depends on the size of your event, but we’ll recommend 100 or more.
- Write a dollar amount on the outside of each envelope, starting with $1 and increasing to $100, or however many envelopes you have.
- Pin your envelopes up on a bulletin board, wall, or other high-visibility surfaces. Pin them in order, with their amounts visible to everyone who walks past.
From there, just make sure your supporters know what to do: grab an envelope and fill it with the donation amount written on the outside. This is a good nonprofit fundraiser because it is low-pressure and provides donation options for a spectrum of budgets.
Because your supporters might not carry cash or checks, consider setting up a donation kiosk nearby so they can pay the envelope amount digitally and place their donation receipt or something similar in the envelope.
Log On, Give Back: Best Online Fundraising Ideas for Nonprofits
Virtual fundraising has opened up a host of exciting possibilities for nonprofits. Rather than being limited to in-person attendees, virtual events allow your campaign to connect with donors wherever they are.
Whether your supporters are busy, out of state, or simply prefer online engagement, digital fundraising can expand your reach. The following virtual fundraising ideas can help you inspire giving, strengthen relationships, and maximize donations.
Online Donation Page
Difficulty: ✔
Cost: $
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 on mobile devices, 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 securing donations is confuse your supporters! Prioritize ease of use on your donation form to maximize donations.
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!
Giving Day Campaign
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★ ★ ★ ★
A Giving Day campaign is a virtual fundraiser that combines a sense of urgency and excitement around making donations within a specific 24-hour period. By providing supporters a single day of concentrated giving, nonprofits can generate significant momentum for their cause.
If you’re thinking of hosting a Giving Day, the first step is determining the date! Choose one that is meaningful to both your organization and the fundraiser’s target audience. For instance, your organization’s anniversary, a day connected to the mission you’re fundraising for, or a national day, like GivingTuesday, can be great opportunities to spur broader community engagement.
As you get closer to your Giving Day, continue to seek opportunities to maximize your donations and reach, such as sponsors who will match donations. With the right planning, a Giving Day can help your nonprofit engage both new and existing supporters. The best part: it can enable your organization to raise significant funds in a single day!
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 and promotional campaigns generate approximately 28% of all online nonprofit revenue.
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, 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 the influencer’s entire social media following. 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 and the goals, so you’re more likely to succeed!
Text-to-Give
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
An easy approach for a text-to-give fundraiser is to host a campaign where your team promotes your organization’s designated phone number. Alternatively, providing a text-to-give option alongside your other fundraisers ensures maximum convenience for donors.
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!
Gift Card Fundraiser
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
Gift card fundraisers allow supporters to contribute to your nonprofit by doing something that they were likely going to do anyway: buy a gift card for a loved one. This fundraiser is free and easy for your nonprofit to run, and it can bring in funding year-round!
To get started, you’ll need to partner with a gift card fundraiser platform. Their fundraising experts will set up your nonprofit’s account and provide the app your supporters will use to purchase gift cards. Once you launch your fundraiser, it essentially runs itself—all you have to focus on is marketing and tracking results.
Digital gift cards make this fundraiser especially convenient, as they can be delivered to supporters’ inboxes within minutes of purchase. Then, they can forward the email to a loved one to give them the gift card, and a portion of the purchase goes directly to your nonprofit!
Virtual Trivia Night
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
A virtual trivia night is a fun, low-cost way to bring supporters together for friendly competition. All you need is a video conferencing platform, a lively host, and competitive attendees!
To raise funds, charge participants a small entry fee. Upon enrollment, ask participants whether they’d like to participate individually or as part of a team. To maximize donations, consider offering bonus round “buy-ins.” You can also contact local organizations to request donations (such as gift cards or themed merchandise) and either raffle them off as prizes or offer them to the trivia winners!
Choosing trivia categories that align with your nonprofit’s mission can also help keep participants engaged. Virtual Trivia events are a great way to boost engagement at a low cost.
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 on ecology, zoology, or conservation taught by 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!
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 performer options and see who gets the best response from your supporters.
Once you have the artist nailed down, promote your digital concert in advance on your social media accounts and 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 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!
Creative Nonprofit Fundraising Ideas that Stand Out
Sometimes, when it comes to staging fundraisers for your nonprofit, the same old ideas get thrown around again and again. If you’re getting bored with your own fundraising, your supporters probably are too.
Instead of running the same five classic fundraisers over and over, try introducing some creative fundraisers to keep your community engaged. If you’re continuously providing fun, exciting, and different ways to contribute to your organization, you’re more likely to hold your audience’s attention and garner more donations.
Let’s dive into some creative fundraising ideas!
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!
For this nonprofit fundraiser, your organization provides supplies for making tie-dye shirts. Then your supporters can participate by taking home a tie-dye shirt in exchange for a donation. If your organization has branded T-shirts, they would be perfect 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 in advance.
To save money on staging this event, see if a company would be willing to donate the dye necessary to make the shirts.
Craft Fair
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
Embrace your community’s creativity with a craft fair. To host a craft fair fundraiser for your nonprofit, you’ll need the participation of local artists who want to sell their items. Some standard craft fair goods are pottery, jewelry, art, textiles, and collectibles.
There are a couple of options for how to raise money at this event:
- Charge the artisans a flat fee to sell at your craft fair.
- Take a percentage of the total profits, usually about 10-25%.
Market your craft fair in advance, and consider the event’s timing—holding it before Christmas is a smart idea, as your supporters will be looking for gifts for friends and family. To execute your craft fair, just make sure you have the right space (an outdoor setting could be fun if the weather permits).
Pub Crawl
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★
A pub crawl could be an awesome way to get your (aged 21+) supporters together to raise money for your cause.
A pub crawl involves visiting multiple bars in one night with a group of people. Usually, the bars are within walking distance from one another, but if your area doesn’t have a bar strip to accommodate that, you could try renting a bus to transport your crawlers!
To start, contact the owners or managers of the local bars you’d like to visit and ask if they’d be interested in participating in your pub crawl. They would need to offer free entry to the bar and maybe even some pub-crawl drink specials for your attendees.
How do you raise money with this event? Charge a fee for tickets. Anywhere from $10 to $40 is within a reasonable range.
Custom Merch
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
An effective way to expand your marketing reach through your fundraising ventures is to sell custom merch to your supporters. With your name and/or logo on merchandise like t-shirts, water bottles, pens, and mugs, you can spread the word about your organization without lifting a finger.
It’s possible to order your branded merchandise in bulk and sell it individually at your events and on your website. Still, there are also fundraising companies like Bonfire that handle everything from design to shipping. Plus, these providers house the online store for your supporters to purchase from, so your team doesn’t have to build one out.
Charity Calendar
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
A charity calendar is a wonderful way to remind supporters of your cause every day of the year. Your calendar will include a large, high-quality photo for every month of the year, plus a cover image. You can also have your logo and website URL throughout the calendar to encourage supporters to engage with your organization online.
You’ll want to sell your calendars for the upcoming year in December, so make sure to start planning early, around September. You’ll need to make decisions about the calendar, like:
- Which holidays to mark
- Whether or not to include dates specific to your organization, like major annual fundraisers or volunteer opportunities
- Which images to use
- Who will sponsor your calendar (if you plan on getting sponsors)
You could print your calendar yourself, but it might be easier to use a calendar production service. That way, you know all the details will be right, and you’ll end up with a high-quality calendar that your supporters will be proud to hang up in their homes!
Cupcake Wars Fundraiser
Cost: $$
Difficulty: ✔✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★★
We’ve all seen baking competition shows on TV, but not all of us have gotten to participate in one. That’s the experience you’d give your supporters with a cupcake wars fundraiser.
For this nonprofit fundraiser idea, encourage crowdfunding and P2P fundraising in the lead-up to the event. Allow participants to register alone or as a team. Instead of having a master chef judge everyone’s cupcakes, why don’t you give a seat on the judging panel to your 5 best-performing fundraisers? That way, your supporters will be more motivated to raise money for your cause.
There are a few key steps to take to pull off a cupcake wars fundraiser for your nonprofit:
- Find a space with ovens and a kitchen for your competitors.
- Provide ingredients.
- Have prizes.
- Invite your supporters to the event.
Charge for viewer tickets as well, and let attendees taste the delicious cupcakes at the end! Your supporters will love contributing to your cause, while creating (and devouring) delicious baked goods!
Chores for Charity
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
No one exactly loves doing chores, but you probably have some hardworking supporters who would be happy to lend a hand for a good cause. Depending on your volunteer workers’ skills, some of the chores you can do for your community in exchange for a donation are:
- Gutter cleanout
- Yard work (weeding, mowing the lawn)
- Vacuuming, mopping, etc.
- Miscellaneous household repairs
For this fundraiser, you’ll need a couple of different forms:
- Volunteer sign-up form. This form will collect information about who is willing to work on your chores for charity today. You should also find out what skills each volunteer has and what type of work they’re ready to do.
- Chore request form. Those who need work completed can submit a chore request form for assigned chores during the charity day. Share the chore request form throughout your community and clarify the expected donation level for each type of assignment.
Ideally, your forms will automatically integrate with your donor database so you can keep track of who’s participating in your nonprofit’s fundraising events. That way, you can alter your fundraising strategy to target groups of donors who either do or don’t regularly attend events!
Serve-a-Thon
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
A serve-a-thon is a wonderful way to raise money for your organization and encourage service and community building among your supporters.
For a serve-a-thon, ask your supporters to commit to a community service project, whether that’s a certain number of hours volunteering at the local animal shelter, a local highway cleanup initiative, or grocery delivery for seniors. You set a timeline for your serve-a-thon and encourage every participant to make a page with a peer-to-peer fundraising platform.
From there, each participant raises as much money as they can from their family, friends, and coworkers to support your mission while they work toward their service goal.
Wacky Wager
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
If you’ve never run a wacky wager fundraiser at your organization, you’re in for a fun time!
Encourage your supporters to create peer-to-peer pages and set miniature fundraising goals. For example, their first goal might be $50. Your supporters post their first goal along with their crowdfunding page on social media for their followers to see.
That’s where the “wacky wager” comes into the picture. They offer a bizarre incentive for their friends to donate. For example, a person might post, “When my fundraiser hits $50, I’ll eat a pickle covered in maple syrup and rolled in cocoa puffs.”
Of course, participants are required to upload proof of the completed wager, so they’ll have to take pictures or videos of their wacky activities. You can see how this idea might take off!
Other wacky wagers could include donning a strange outfit and dancing, embarrassing yourself in public, or altering your appearance (like with temporary hair dye). Your supporters’ friends will make sure the funds keep rolling in!
Scavenger Hunt
Cost: $
Difficulty: ✔✔✔
Earning Potential: ★★★
A scavenger hunt will easily appeal to your supporters’ competitive spirits. This nonprofit fundraiser can be completed virtually, but it’s probably more fun in person.
To raise money with this idea, you’ll need to encourage peer-to-peer fundraising in advance (as with many of our other event suggestions). It would provide a good incentive to fundraise if you restricted registration to teams that can raise a minimum donation amount from their friends, family, and coworkers.
Once you have teams signed up, you should have an information session (virtual or in-person!) to ensure all participants are clear on the rules. Then you just have to design the scavenger hunt, in which you’ll send the teams around your city to find hints, complete tasks, or collect items. Offer a fantastic prize for the winning team to keep everyone motivated.
Free Nonprofit Fundraising Idea Resources
With fundraising at the center of a nonprofit’s core duties, we know your team already devotes considerable time and effort to maximizing your revenue-generating capacity. If your fundraisers are falling flat or you just want something new to try, we hope you’ll take an idea from our list to help you garner support for your cause.
Regardless, you’ll definitely want to check out our other ideas for nonprofit fundraisers and useful resources:
- 100+ Amazing and Unique Fundraising Ideas for Everyone. If you didn’t find the perfect fundraising idea for your nonprofit in this list, explore these additional unique ideas.
- Creating a Nonprofit Monthly Giving Program: 6 Top Tips. For a sustainable, reliable fundraising option, consider establishing a monthly giving program for your nonprofit.
- Fundraising Event Planning: 10 Steps for Event Success. Need some help planning your fundraising events? Learn about the steps you need to take for event success.