Non Profit Fundraising Ideas
Raising money for a non-profit organization, in this time of recession, can pose to be a real challenge. Nevertheless, if you employ some good strategies and keep at it, there are high chances that you will find donors who believe and support your cause. So, for all those people who are either volunteering or working for an non-profit organization, given below are some effective ways and ideas on raising money for charity.
Emails
With so many people hooked on to the Internet these days, for doing their work, socializing or shopping, it is the right time to utilize this medium for raising funds for charity. One of the best charity fundraising ideas is to make an appeal to the people to donate money, by sending them emails, newsletters and alerts, from time to time. To get maximum results out of this fundraising strategy, include lots of links in your emails, which direct the net user to the website of the organization you are supporting, where he can immediately donate money, then and there!
Events
One of the most effective fundraiser ideas for non-profit organizations is to hold a charity event. It can be something like a marathon, in which you invite anyone and everyone supporting your cause, to participate. Or a formal dinner, where you have some specific people, those who are the cream of the society and thus, can make some really good donations, if convinced properly. For the former event, you would need a lot of manpower to handle the event as well as some corporate sponsors to fund it. By holding a marathon, you can raise money by keeping some minimum amount as registration fees to participate. As for the formal dinner party, it would create a lot of impact if you can invite a local celebrity to it. If you can display some paintings or other craft work made by the people/children of the organization you are working for, it would further add to the charisma of the event and inspire the society people to make donations.
Donation Containers
To promote your organization's cause and raise some good money, another effective idea is to convince the commercial establishments such as departmental stores, shops, hotels and restaurants, if they would keep donation containers of your organization at their cash counters. You will be surprised to find out, how much money you can actually raise with this simple method. So, every month, you can ask the volunteers of your non-profit to go and collect the money from these boxes. The more commercial establishments you are able to convince, the more funds you can raise for your organization.
Auctions
An auction never ever fails to yield results. You can hold auctions of different kinds to raise funds. The easiest way is to have all the people who are related to the non-profit organization in any way to donate some old books, clothes, wall hangings, jewelry, bags and all those things which they no longer use but are still in good condition, to the organization. You can raise money by holding an auction of all these. Another method is to have the people, volunteers and workers in your organization make some art and craft items, such as greeting cards, posters, handmade jewelry, hand-made t-shirts, paintings, which bring forth your organization's essence and then put these on sale at an auction, both online and offline.
Volunteer Services
A good way to raise money is to have all the workers and volunteers spare two hours every week, in which they will take up a part-time job and donate the earnings from the same to the charity. Washing cars, gardening, babysitting, pet sitting, cleaning - people can choose any of these jobs to raise funds.
Selling
Buying things in bulk at a discount and then selling them at a profit, is a simple non profit fundraising idea. In the recent years, the idea of selling scented candles to the people for raising money has caught the fancy of many fundraisers, so much so that many candle manufacturers are actually ready to negotiate and lower their price for non profits, if you give them bulk orders! Likewise, there are a number of other things that you can put up for selling, such as homemade cookie gift baskets, books, candy boxes and calendars.
Once the money is raised, your job does not end there. Being a non-profit organization, it will need funds from time to time. That's why, staying in touch with people who donated for your cause once and building good relationships with them, will ensure that in future too the money does not stop coming your way!
