10 Fun and Great Fund-Raising Ideas for Your Workplace

Great companies to work for encourage community support by allowing and conducting fund-raising projects in the workplace. This is one of the reasons why I am still working for my company, even if I get a better offer somewhere else. My company instills in its employees the spirit of giving and encourages volunteer-ism, allowing its employees time away from work to be able to contribute time for a good cause. We have had employees devote their time in volunteering for the Habitat for Humanity and any other volunteer programs.

Every year, starting around September, we are already pumped up with ideas on how to support our community campaign. From 2^nd week of September through 3^rd week of October, we are busy with our office fund-raising campaign trying to break our record each year.

This year we are having more fun with our fund-raising projects than ever with the amount of money we will raise which we shall donate to various charities.

Here is a list of some of the fund-raising ideas that could certainly make everyone in your office open their hearts and their wallets:

1) Pink Ballerina Hippo Costume Fund-Raising Contest – this is possibly the favorite of everyone in my workplace, simply because this is where each department competes and raise money to vote on whom they would choose wearing the Pink Ballerina Hippo Costume. The candidates are no other than the people in management positions. Each department’s head manager and section managers’ names are put in the ballot. Employees will then vote who they would like to see wear the costume. They do not necessarily vote for their own managers, unless they desire to see them in the costume of course! Even the candidates can wager high and vote for their opponents so that they can avoid wearing the costume. Whoever has the most votes will “win”. Winning may not be fun for the winner who will have to wear the ballerina hippo costume for one full day in the office and will choose another branch location within the city to be escorted on foot to attend another official meeting, all along wearing a sign on the chest- “I am proud to wear this costume in support of the community campaign”. This was such a success last year, raising the biggest amount among our fund raising ideas that we decided that this would be done annually. Last year we generated over $5,000 for this contest alone. At the time of this writing, we are down to the top three candidates, and we’ve already surpassed what we have made last year.

2) Hot Breakfast Sale – one of our big money makers is when we sell hot breakfast once a week until the completion of the campaign. The organizers bring in “raw materials” and then cook the orders in our break room. I, for one, love the croissant with egg and cheese for $4.00 adding 2 strips of bacon for $0.50 more. For $4.50, I not only had a hearty breakfast but helped in the campaign itself! There are other options in the menu you can sell in your own “Hot Breakfast Sale”, like pan cakes, waffles, sausages, breakfast burrito, etc.

3) Candy Gram Sale – for $4.00 a bag you get an assortment of candies and chocolate bars. They are placed in decorative plastic bags, the kind you see used for kids’ birthday party tokens. To add fun, the bags are intended to be inscribed with either “Thank You” or “Have a Nice Day” to be delivered in person to the intended recipient by the fund-raising organizers. This is a great way to show your appreciation to a co-worker who had helped you in your previous projects, or if you are a manager or supervisor, to give to your staff for their hard work.

4) Bring Your “Inner” Child to Work– Another one of my favorites which we just started this year is where we asked everyone who would want to participate to bring a copy of their childhood photo. Then we posted these pictures on a bulletin board for everyone to see. The object of this fund-raising is to see how good anyone can guess or name who is on each photo. The names to be matched to the photos are compiled into a “guess” sheet with the corresponding letterof their photos. The price for each “guess” sheet is $2.00 each, $5.00 for 3 “guess” sheets. The person who submitted a sheet with the most matches will win the game. There are prices up for grabs for the top three winners. Some of the prices we get from our vendors who we approached as sponsors like Verizon, HP, MAC, Microsoft, etc. Since our department handles the technology needs of our company, we approach our vendors for gifts and prices, like a nano or video iPods, Blackberry, iPhone, etc. You can do similar things in your department even if you cannot find a company to sponsor, like getting a Gift card from Starbucks or Jamba Juice worth $20.00 each. You can also buy gift cards for gasoline, oil change, massage, facial, etc.

5) Bingo – We organize bingo games once a week. For $4.00 each person they can go for four rounds. The more rounds bought, the better the chances are for winning a price similar those listed in number 4.

6) Raffle Drawings – We organize a couple of big raffle drawings with different gadgets as prices as well as an extra Paid Day Off or a Paid Dinner for 2 at a nice restaurant. Each token can be purchased for $1.00 each with $10.00 minimum purchase.

7) Movie and Popcorn – On Fridays during the campaign weeks when it is “normally” slow, we would sell a movie pass for $4.00 each which includes a movie to be viewed in our conference room that has the big projector or plasma TV and a bag of popcorn. Showing starts late in the afternoon towards closing time so as not to disrupt work.

8) Book Sale – We sell old or slightly used books donated by employees and sell them for $1.00 to $5.00 each depending on the title and condition of books.

9) Bake Sale – on the mornings that we do not sell hot breakfast we sell bake goods like muffins and breads we purchased from Costco. We sell them for a $1.00 each.

10) Hot Dog, Hot Chili Beans, and Hot Nachos Sale – We sell these during lunch time for $3.50 for plain hotdog on a bun, and for an extra $1.00 one can get either a serving of hot chili beans or nachos with cheese.

Hopefully you can adapt some of these ideas to bring in more dollars to support your own company’s community fund-raising campaign!

I would also appreciate if you can drop me a note in the comments box below regarding what your own favorite fund-raising activity is in your community or workplace and explain how you do it, and how much money can be generated from it.

Reference:

• own company’s fundraising projects