creative fund raising ideas?

[_kim_]

Hi everyone,
I signed up for my first charity ride ever, Climate Ride California, taking place this fall. I've started fund raising and have been doing relatively well for this early in the game, I think. However, I'm afraid I may be reaching the point where I have to get more creative with my fund raising ideas. (To date, I've just been asking people directly, and have raffled off one item; working on acquiring more items to raffle off, but turns out this may be a slow process, as a couple businesses have said that requests for gift card, etc. donations have to go through their corporate offices.)

Has anyone done a fund raiser they really liked and thought was cost- and time-efficient? Or do you know of any websites with particularly good tips? (A couple I've used as references have been the one for Bike MS and the AIDS/LifeCycle--which pages actually contain a lot of the same tips.)

Also, when it comes to emailing people about one's fund raising event, at how frequent of intervals would you recommend following up with people?

Thanks! (and if you're interested, my donations URL is here. :-) )

[kcmpls]

I put notices out on Facebook and Twitter and promised homemade food stuffs for anyone who donated over $20. I also, for a limited time, matched any gifts I got, that inspired a lot of people to donate. My co-worker just had a bake sale at work for the ride we are doing. He asked his co-workers to donate baked goods and then he "sold" them. He didn't put a price on anything and let people give what they wanted. He raised over $1000.

[Possegal]

The most I ever make every year (I captain my team for the Livestrong Challenge in Philly) is a yard sale. We bring in hundreds of dollars. It is a lot of work and we pester people to give us their crap. One man's junk is another man's treasure, and all that.

But it is a lot of work. This year we're giving ourselves a year off and I'm making a fundraising cook book to sell. Also a lot of work, but not physical work. I have no idea how well this will do for us financially yet.

[zoom-zoom]

I like the cookbook idea. We have friends in the JDRF organization who have done the garage sale thing, but I LOATHED the ONE I did for myself, so I'm not sure I want to do that, even for charity.

I know a lot of restaurants will help with fundraisers...some will do a portion of their day's sales, others (like Buffalo Wild Wings) will do a coupon, where 10% of the table's bill goes towards the charity. I also did a short campaign with FlowerPowerFundraising.com that worked pretty well. Pretty soon I need to set up one for their Fall shipment.

[_kim_]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I have a couple more ideas I might pull out close to the end if I find I still need to raise more. For now, I'm still just contacting family, friends and coworkers. I've also been collecting bottles/cans from coworkers (both beverages they get at work, and their stuff from home) and have made $35 from that so far, soon to make more (as I have a bunch of stuff sitting on my patio...). Oh, and I almost forgot, one of my yoga teachers ever so kindly offered to make an announcement about my ride after class. Due to various scheduling conflicts (her being away, me not being able to make it to class) I think she's only announced it a couple times, but I'm hoping for at least one or two more announcements. And I will hold my second and I think final raffle I'm thinking by the first week of September--going to contact one or two more restaurants about gift certificate donations. Man am I going to be glad when I don't have to fundraise anymore!

And if anyone happens to have money burning a hole in their pocket that they'd like to contribute towards four bicycle advocacy nonprofits and the National Resources Defense Council, my fundraising page is here! ;-)
--Kim

[NbyNW]

Last year when we did the Ride to Conquer Cancer, we kept leapfrogging a guy who had a car tire strapped to his rear rack.

The story they told at the finish was, for every $100 that he raised, he pledged to add a kilo of weight to his bike. The per-rider fundraising goal was in the $2500-3000 range, so this was how he motivated his friends and colleagues to donate!

[_kim_]

holy moly! definitely hadn't heard of that one...

[Possegal]

Last year when we did the Ride to Conquer Cancer, we kept leapfrogging a guy who had a car tire strapped to his rear rack.

The story they told at the finish was, for every $100 that he raised, he pledged to add a kilo of weight to his bike. The per-rider fundraising goal was in the $2500-3000 range, so this was how he motivated his friends and colleagues to donate!

Holy moly indeed. Glad I never thought of that idea. I can barely ride my big old self around on my bike.

[nancielle]

A couple of years ago when we were raising money for our AIDS walk several of us joined together to hold a tag sale. We cleaned out our homes and made a decent amount of money. One member of the group offered to hold it at her house (fortunately the weather cooperated) and we took shifts being there.

For a charity walk I'm doing next month I'm holding a raffle on a jar of jelly beans (got a bunch of raging sugar addicts in my office). X/ticket on guessing how many beans are in there. Again, it won't be making bucketloads of money but it'll bring in something.

Contact your local newspaper about doing a human interest piece and including your donation site.

With some willing partners, you might find a church group with a kitchen that will let you do a breakfast or dinner (we've done pasta dinners in the past).

Are there any summer fairs or festivals in your area that allow people to set up informational tables? You may be able to get permission to set up a donation table.

Will your local bike shop(s) allow you to put up a donation flyer or maybe even a donation container?

That's all that's coming to mind right now.

[bluebug32]

I did LiveStrong a couple of years ago and my friend who sells Arbonne offered to host a part in which LiveStrong got a certain percentage of the proceeds. Apparently many of these companies will help support such causes this way. It ended up being a fun party. My friends came out to support my ride and sampled and bought products and there was a raffle. I don't remember exactly how much I raised, but it was definitely worth it.