10 Cool Ways To Raise Money For Charity In 2013

1 Have a costume party at work

Get your colleagues to write which theme they would like and collect the ideas. For every entry charge your colleagues a set amount of money and allow them to enter as much as they want. The more entries a colleague has the more chance of their idea being picked, and the more money you will raise for the charity. The theme that gets picked will determine the costumes: who wouldn’t want to transform their colleagues into their favourite superheroes?

You could also encourage other businesses around you to get involved as well and ask them to join and hold a costume party in their office.

2 Organise an art exhibition

Once you have decided which charity you would like to raise money for, you could ask the members of the charity or the people your charity is helping to create paintings or any other art object they would like to make.  These can then be sold in an exhibition.

Alternatively, you could try to join forces with local artists. For example, they donate their work and get a cut of the takings, with the remaining profits going to charity. Everyone benefits: the artist makes a little money while gaining exposure, while the charity raises much needed funds.

3 Exchange items for donations

This will be done in two steps:

• Gather items that can be exchanged for donations from likely supporters. You could ask your family, friends, and colleagues to give you items which they would like to dispose of.
• You can then hold a garage sale and invite people to donate and pick an item in exchange for their donation.

4 Organise a picnic during your lunch hour in the local park

The crucial part is the weather so ensure you choose a sunny day and promote your picnic enough. On the day of your picnic, you can offer supporters food in return for their donation.

5 Hold a pancake flipping competition

The best place you could hold a competition like this would be in a shopping centre; if you can get them on board and get the permission you will be attracting a lot of people who will be likely to participate. You could charge for entries and the person who flips more without dropping the pancake could win a prize – a pancake!

6 Sell Yankee candles to raise money

If you are raising money for charity, Yankee candles will give you 40 per cent of every candle you sell to go towards your charity. The candles smell amazing and have a loyal fan base so making sales will be easy.

7 Work for donations

You can offer your labour to businesses for donations. You could wrap presents for a day, which will be appreciated by almost every business during the holiday season and as it is the season of giving, they will be more than happy to make a contribution to your charity. You could hand out leaflets and ask businesses for any other tasks that they may need help with.

8 Speed scrabble tournament

Who doesn’t love a good round of scrabble? Gather participants and charge them a set amount to join the tournament and at the end of the game make the loser pay up again; there will be no hard feelings as it will all be done in the name of charity. You will need to make sure it’s a speedy one: the more games you get through the more money you will be able to raise.

9 Organise a pampering party

Invite all your local massage therapists, aroma therapists, makeup artists, and hairdressers to your event. Charge them an entry fee and ask them to donate a minimum of £5 per customer they get during the day. Ask the participating businesses to promote your event as well and have a huge pampering party for the local ladies and gentlemen.

10 Do a ‘dare’ fundraiser and keep a video diary of it

Choose a dare that will last a month or so such as dancing every day for a month and make sure you record it and put it on YouTube. You can ask your friends, family, and colleagues to donate, and by uploading it to YouTube you will be reaching a wider audience and you could ask the viewers to donate too. Your cause will also be much more interesting to share on social media sites as it will be a video rather than just a donation link.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source

Guest piece written and contributed by A. Fowler for The Poppy Run: organisers of 5k fun runs around the UK, in aid of The British Legion.