It’s easy to feel a fundraising slump every year when June rolls around. People are starting to dial things back, and as other priorities take hold, email open rates begin to dip, and fundraising starts to trickle. The summer time hits most organizations, but you can help overcome it with these seven summer fundraising ideas and donor engagement events.
Should You Run a Summer Fundraiser?
The short answer to this question is a yes, but it takes a bit more thought and creativity. In other words, you want to drive intentional donor engagement, which, in turn, will support any summer fundraiser. Also, if you make it low-pressure and fun, it’s an opportunity to build community, and your organization becomes the hub of the activity.
July and August are consistently slow fundraising months, and while you can run a raffle, it’s essential to get creative. For example, in our summer fundraiser ideas, you can consider a shoe drive fundraiser, donor meetups to build community and donor engagement, or a storytelling campaign. Let’s dive into what you can do now!
7 Summer Fundraising Ideas & Donor Engagement Events That Actually Work
1. Shoe Drive Fundraising
One of the most underrated yet effective summer fundraising ideas is a shoe drive. For all the shoes your community no longer wears that are sitting in closets or storage units, it’s important to realize that in a shoe drive fundraiser, they become currency. In other words, every pair you collect is fundraising revenue you earn from Funds2Orgs.
Why have more than 25,000 partners across the nation completed shoe drive fundraisers with Funds2Orgs and collectively earned more than $20 million? It’s simple. When you do a shoe drive fundraiser, you don’t ask for money or sell merch that no one cares about. You simply collect shoes (keeping them out of landfills), and Funds2Orgs issues you a payment.
2. Outdoor Community Event
People are starving for community, and when you organize an outdoor community event, you help yourself and others. For one, you build community and fill a need. When you sponsor (or ask for a sponsor) a picnic, community cookout, or concert in the park, you build and deepen relationships.
The key to this donor engagement opportunity is to make it feel like a community event and not a fundraiser. So, you should make participation free (but have a business or major donors sponsor it). Make it a point to ensure there are peer-to-peer opportunities for mingling, including with you. Once the event is done, make it a point to share on social and all comms.
3. Peer-to-Peer Summer Challenge
Another excellent way to drive donor engagement, and also as a summer fundraiser, is to host events that prompt people to take action. For instance, you can do a 5K run, weekend hikes, create scavenger hunts, or offer bike or scooter tours of the city or town (throw in some history!). Once you know the activity, you can build a whole fundraiser around it.
If you do a scavenger hunt or 5K, make sure to brand it and ask people to fundraise on your behalf. For example, they can ask for sponsors if they’re running a 5K. If you decide to do scavenger hunts or city tours, you can ask for a donation and ask them to share the event with their peers to get more people participating.
4. Small-Group Donor Meetups
If you want to deepen donor engagement meaningfully, you can invite 8 to 12 mid-level or lapsed donors to a private event to engage or re-engage them. The best ways to attract people are to have a theme for the event and to host it in someone’s home (think of a major donor). The event is to share ideas and to get to know each other.
If your organization is in the arts, a theme could be around a discussion of a piece of art. If you’re in education, you can invite an honored guest who has community star power. If your mission is health, you can discuss a health topic with people. For all events, participants can make a donation to attend.
5. Virtual Auction or Online Fundraiser
With the kids out of school, many families are taking vacations, which means your donor base may be out of town. To boost any summer fundraiser, you can decide to do a virtual or online fundraiser. By doing an online giving event, you can generate income with low overhead or simply by sharing a link.
For example, if you’re looking for summer fundraising ideas and donor engagement events that are as easy as sharing a link, you can do a tree fundraiser with TreeRaise. TreeRaise provides an easy platform where you determine your goal and share the link. It’s easy, and every tree planted in your organization’s name is verified with GPS and on-site documentation.
6. Business and Corporate Partnership Drive
The summer months are an excellent time to approach local businesses and corporations about partnerships, thereby improving donor engagement. In addition, using platforms such as Double the Donation, you can ensure that any donor who works at a corporation can match any gift they give to your organization with a corporate matching gift.
Corporate social responsibility budgets are typically reviewed mid-year, ahead of fall and end-of-year giving, so it’s a good time to check with them. But it’s also good to discuss with local businesses a fall/winter campaign where you can co-brand an event, share recognition, and create opportunities to drive business to them and donations to your organization.
7. Impact Storytelling Campaign
As far as summer fundraising ideas and donor engagement events, this one isn’t traditional, but it’s a powerful fundraiser. All you have to do is run a multi-week social media campaign, which you promote through all your communication channels, focused simply on storytelling by your donors and supporters. As you share submissions, make it easy to share a donation link.
Each week, ask your supporters to share one reason why they support your cause by telling their story. In other words, what does your organization mean to them and why? Ask for text, video, and audio submissions and share them across all social channels as you get them. For text, ask your social media team to read the submissions. Remind people why you’re here!
A Few Summer Fundraising Tips Worth Keeping
- Start planning as soon as possible. Develop the plan, launch as soon as possible, develop a communications plan, and assign ownership.
- Don’t go silent. Summer is not the time to go dark until fall. Even quick updates keep your work top of mind.
- Use summer fundraising ideas to prep for year-end. This is the time to prepare for Q3 and Q4 before September, so do your year-end planning now.
Remember that you can do several of the summer fundraiser and donor engagement ideas over the season. A shoe drive fundraiser may be a great place to start, if you pair it with a 5K. Giving back doesn’t always have to be about opening wallets. It could be about simply contributing gently worn shoes. Learn more about a Funds2Orgs shoe drive fundraiser.
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