The Art of Fundraising
Fun options for church engagement
Family Penny War!
For this activity, every family participating brings in their own decorated jar or container. Over a specified period of time members bring in their spare change to drop it in the jars of their choosing. Pennies count as positive points for your team while all other coins are negative. Whoever has the most points at the end wins!
We suggest creating fun prizes for the top collectors! Competition is key to this fundraiser! Students can participate by making announcements in church, donating change, creating posters or other advertisements around the church, and counting the change at the end of the war.
Wherever you set up your jars have poster explaining what you are fundraising for and how the donated money will be used!
Silent Auction & Spaghetti Dinner
A silent auction is a great way to raise money! Students can contribute by donating items, helping set up the auction area, and making announcements to the church! At the end of the auction the money can be split up by how many shifts or tasks students completed.
A silent auction goes great with a spaghetti dinner! Charge people a donation for all the pasta they want. This provides a great communal dinner for the church and allows people the opportunity to browse the silent option items! You can keep the dinner casual or have the students serve the tables allowing for more shifts they could earn money from.
Appreciation Grams
This fundraiser is great around Valentines Day and an awesome way to spread some love around the church! You sell a card and envelop for a dollar (or whatever you want to charge) and the person writes a nice encouraging note to another congregation member. They put it in a box and at the end of a certain period the youth spend a night traveling to housing and leaving the notes in the corresponding mailboxes!
You can also add additional gift options such as flowers or chocolate for additional donations! You could also offer to send encouragements to anyone, not just church members, to spread love throughout the community.
There are many different versions of this concept so feel free to mix it up as best fits your church!
Fun options for Community engagement
Blaze Pizza Fundraiser
Blaze Pizza offers fundraising options where you hand out fliers to friends, family, and whoever you can think of! All that person has to do is bring the flier to the store with them (or show the flier on their phone) and a percentage of their order will be donated to your cause! How well you do on this fundraiser is purely based on how well you can promote the event but takes no work to staff and no upfront money to run.
If you don't have a Blaze Pizza near you there are all lots of restaurants that offer similar events.
Support Raising, Scholarships, and Grants
There are most likely lots of people and organizations in your community that would be willing to support you through various types of donations. The biggest struggle is often finding them! There is no harm in asking. In exchange for support you can offer to place their business name on your T-Shirt, church newsletter, etc. This is not only a great way to thank someone for supporting you, but also a great way for them to help advertise them and/or their business.
You would be shocked at how many grants and scholarships are out there for the taking yet nobody is applying. Especially on the local level, there are lots of opportunities to find some support if you are willing to put in the effort. Reach out to local churches and charitable organizations to see if they either have or know of any of these opportunities that you and your team could be taking advantage of.
Got any ideas? Let us know!
Does your church have any super awesome fundraisers that you love? Send us the email at Office@MyCallingMinistries.com so we can share you awesome ideas with the rest of the MyCalling! community!