Fundraising ideas

Tips and tricks how to fundraise for your experience

Why fundraise?

Don’t let funding keep you from an amazing experience serving communities abroad. Even if you have the funds for your trip, you may wish to raise money to support a project in the community you will serve. Here are some ideas to inspire you. Always remember to recognise your supporters by thanking them and ensuring they understand what they’re contributing towards. If you need any help with this, just let us know.

Cheap and easy

Dinner party — A low-cost option for your friends on budgets. Charge each guest $20 and prepare a dinner yourself.
Film screening — Is there a documentary related to your trip or the country where you will volunteer? Host a night at the movies with popcorn and ice cream. Charge each guest $20.
Restaurant dinner — Arrange a good group deal with your favourite restaurant and charge your guests full price, letting them know all profits go towards your trip.
50/50 raffle — Sell as many tickets as you can to people on the street, friends, family ect. The winner gets half the pot, and the other half goes towards your trip.

Event fundraising

Bingo night — Host a bingo night with prizes donated by local businesses, experiences using your contacts or services you can offer.
Dinner party — A low-cost option for your friends on budgets. Charge each guest $20 and prepare a dinner yourself.
Dunk tank — Rent a dunk tank and charge participants for a chance to dunk willing local celebrities or teachers.
Film screening — Is there a documentary related to your trip or the country where you will volunteer? Host a night at the movies with popcorn and ice cream.
Karaoke contest — Recruit a local celebrity or two to judge participants willing to put themselves out there The Voice style, or just enjoy singing along with friends.
Lip sync contest — Participants lip sync to their favourite songs while performing a choreographed dance. You can accept donations during the contest as a way to vote by using test-to-give donations or linking to your Crowdfunding page. Award prizes for overall winner, best dancer, best costume and whatever you like.
Polar bear plunge — Gather sponsors for a dive into icy cold water.
Pot luck dinner — Another good low-budget option. Everyone brings a dish to share and you choose how to raise money - a small participation fee, corkage fee, sell drinks, have a raffle etc.
Restaurant dinner — Arrange a good group deal with your favourite restaurant and charge your guests full price, letting them know all profits go towards your trip.
Sausage sizzle — This is a great fundraiser that’s hard to beat! Be sure to get permission before setting up at any event and don’t be afraid to ask your local Bunnings or similar venue to dedicate a Saturday morning to your volunteer trip.
Trivia night — Host a trivia night at a local bar or club and have participants pay to play. For extra credit, the bar can donate a portion of proceeds of drinks and food sold.

Quick & easy fundraising

50/50 raffle — Once you’ve sold as many tickets as you can, the winner gets half the pot, and the other half goes towards your trip.
Branded products — Sell t-shirts or other items you feel are likely to sell with a tag line they are proud to wear, showing they are supporting a great cause.
Competitions — Be creative. Simple idea - who can throw a gold coin closest to the prize.
Guessing game — How many jelly beans in a jar, the weight of a watermelon etc. Pay to play.
Limbo competition — Charge an entry fee and then see how low everyone can go!
Name the baby competition — Who’s that baby? Get old baby photos of your friends, parents, bosses, teachers or others at your event. Stick them up and get people to pay to guess who they are.
Silent auction — Get creative with the auction items. Think about experiences instead of things. Perhaps your parents or their friends are willing to grant access to their holiday home for the weekend, for instance.
Tug-of-war — Teams pay to enter, with the hope of winning prizes.
Yo Yo competition — People to pay to enter; hand out small prizes for duration and tricks.

Action based fundraising

Amazing race — Organise an amazing race where groups have to find clues and complete challenges to make it to the end where you can all come together for a dinner and/or drinks where the winners are announced for different categories.
Bowl-a-thon — Bowling is a crowd-pleaser, and this one’s a great rain-or-shine activity.
Climbing challenge — Rent a climbing wall or team up with a local climbing gym to hold a race to the top.
Cricket challenge — Challenge players for the most runs in a friendly game of cricket. Charge for entry or take bets on the winner.
Dare fundraiser — Sponsor a social dare contest in which participants agree to do outlandish things if sponsors contribute a certain amount of money.
Treasure hunt — Use an app like Actionbound to set up a treasure hunt that combines a real life experience with augmented reality on a device.

Providing service based fundraising

Bake sale — This is an oldie but definitely still a goodie. Stand out with a theme that’s on point with your fundraising focus, like recipes from the country where you will volunteer.
Car wash — Spice up this classic fundraiser with teachers or local celebrities washing the cars to really appeal to the community.
Community garage or car boot sale — Most people have tons of stuff they are secretly dying to get rid of. Have them donate it to a neighbourhood sale with the proceeds going to your trip.
Dog wash — Invite the public to come get their pooch polished.
Help Desk — Are you a tech savvy? Sell your services at reduced prices to fix bugs, connect new stereos and TVs, explain tech-heavy processes to those who need help.
Lawn mowing – Let your friends and family know your lawn mowing skills are available. Charge a fee and be sure you explain what the money will go towards to inspire people to support you.
Serve-a-thon – Gather some supporters to take on a volunteer project benefitting a club, business or your community. You’ll need to find a local business to sponsor your efforts and agree on an outcome. You might pick up rubbish, clean up a park, paint a wall, build something for the business or promote them in some way. If you reach the goal the business will contribute towards your trip.

Creative based fundraising

Arts and crafts — If you have a talent, make something and sell it to others eg. hand bags, necklaces, homewares, graffiti a wall. Sell or auction a painting, sculpture, photos etc.
Christmas decorations — Make your own decorations and sell them at Christmas fairs or through contacts working in offices, clubs or schools.
Greeting cards — Make greeting cards for birthdays, Christmas, Easter and other special days. You can paint, draw or use photographs pasted on coloured card.
$20 Turn Around — Get inspired by the latest home design shows with a group of participants willing to take the challenge. Give each participant $20 (or whatever fits your budget) to buy something from a flea market, and turn it into something really special. After they give their item a makeover, they sell it for a profit which goes towards your fundraising. You can give prizes for greatest profit or most inspiring makeover.
In lieu – In place of a gift for any special occasion ask friends and family to donate.

Crowdfunding

Don’t mistake this as the easy option: you won’t raise any money without driving people to your site. But if you set it up early and take lots of initiative to make people aware of what you’re doing and how to support you, this can be very worthwhile. Plus, it’s free!

There are plenty of platforms available, so choose the one you think most closely aligns with your intentions then tell everyone about it on social media, face-to-face and at any event you hold. Stick it on your t-shirt if it helps.

Money and date fundraisers — Extra motivation to get your bottom line moving. Pick a day with significance and ask supporters to donate in a sum that matches the numerical value of that date. For example on Cinco de Mayo you could ask for $5.50. This can create a lot of small but impactful donations to your cause and gives you the flexibility to scale it as small or large as you think will work.

Boost the success of your Crowdfunding by offering incentives and prizes for large donations or reaching different benchmarks to your goal. You could offer to send postcards from overseas for donations over a certain sum, framed photos of the community where you’ll be staying for larger contributions and any other ideas you think will inspire giving.