Fundraising Ideas

Tired of organizing car washes and bake sales just to raise a little extra money for your non-profit? For a change of pace, try some of the ideas on this page.

Chuck E. Cheese

Chuck E. Cheese fundraisers are available to elementary schools Monday through Thursday, 5 to 9pm. Schedule a fundraising event for your elementary school at Chuck E. Cheese, and 10% of your attendees’ purchases will be donated back to your school. In addition, teachers get a free meal the night of the event.

Cold Stone Creamery

Cold Stone Creamery makes delicious ice cream concoctions. If you have your fundraiser here, you won’t have to twist anyone’s arm to convince them to attend.

Dancing Bear Toys & Gifts

eBay Charitable Auctions

eBay has teamed up with online charitable auctioneer MissionFish to provide a new charity fundraising platform for eBay called eBay Giving Works. This partnership gives sellers the opportunity to list items on the site on behalf of their favorite nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are able to raise funds by listing items as well.

Charity items are listed on MissionFish using the Giving Assistant (a process very similar to eBay’s SYI form). Sellers choose which organization they’d like to support, and what percentage of the funds are to go to the nonprofit. MissionFish then handles all the paperwork, such as providing the appropriate receipts to the seller for tax purposes.

Once the item is listed, the item page displays a special icon, as well as information about the donation.

E-Commerce Portals

A fairly straightforward approach to Internet fundraising is to open a virtual mall. The idea here is that your group collects a commission on all the online purchases made by your supporters. The beauty of e-commerce portals is that they’re open 24 hours a day/365 days a year.

Internet fundraising through affiliated shopping works best if you have large numbers of households that you can persuade to purchase through your website. That makes this a good Internet fundraising for motivated school, church, and youth groups.

Finding companies willing to pay you commission for items you sell for them is easy. To start, check out the following affiliate marketing hubs. Between these two, you should be able to find lots of links that will appeal to members of your group.

Empties4Cash.com

Redeem used inkjet cartridges for cash. Participation in this program is free (prepaid labels are included in the starter kit), and you can send in as many (or as few) cartridges as you have at one time.

Entertainment Books

FireHouse Pottery (Mt. Airy):

(301) 829-1665.

Half.com

From the Half.com website:

Imagine being able to raise money, year round, without asking your contributors for a single dime! Whether you’re a non-profit or charity organization or are looking to send your local high school marching band to the Rose Bowl Parade, Half.com can help you.

Half.com offers two innovative ways for your organization to raise a potentially unlimited amount of money. All you need is access to the Internet and the ability to promote these great ideas to the people who support you. Fund-raising with Half.com is a great way to generate additional money and awareness for your organization 365 days a year.

Hard Times Cafe

If you’re looking to organize a fundraiser for your group, team, or organization, you might want to consider Hard Times Cafe. Invite your friends and family to dine there, and Hard Times will donate 20% of the proceeds to your non-profit group. For more info, call Hard Times at (301) 695-0099.

Office Depot

Here’s how Office Depot’s 5%-Back-to-Schools Program works:

Buy qualifying student school supplies at Office Depot.
Designate a local school to receive 5% of your qualifying purchase.
Office Depot tallies the qualifying purchases made during the program period. (There are four program periods: 1) January 1 through March 31; 2) April 1 through June 30; 3) July 1 through September 30; and 4) October 1 through December 31.)
Office Depot awards the designated school 5% of the qualifying purchases in credits the school can use for free supplies!

For a list of qualifying student school supply items, visit our local Office Depot store (5600-B Urbana Pike, adjacent to FSK Mall) or contact Customer Service at 1-800-GO-DEPOT.

Sell Used Toner Cartridges

Here’s a simple fund raiser: Collect used toner cartridges and trade them in for cash.

Uncle Ralph’s Cookie Dough Fundraiser

From the Uncle Ralph’s website:

Our flexible fundraising program is great for your non-profit group. Uncle Ralph’s has worked with groups of one to 1,000. Groups such as churches, schools, scout troops, marching bands, clubs have all utilized our program to raise funds for field trips, sporting events and more. Employee programs such as Christmas parties and families in need have also benefited from our fundraising program.

Great selection, super products that taste great, and a huge profit margin per item, make Uncle Ralph’s a perfect fundraiser for your group. Let Uncle Ralph’s show you just how quickly your group can make a lot of money with our easy-to-follow program.