A to Z of fundraising ideas
So take a look at our A-Z of fundraising ideas. It’s packed with fundraising ideas, all of which have been completed by our fundraisers in the past.
Already have a unique idea and want to get started? Register your fundraiser here!
A
Aerobic-a-thon
Break out the leotard and the Jane Fonda video and get physical. Get sponsored for every five of aerobics you can manage.
Art Exhibition
Could be a great earner if you’re a dab hand with a paintbrush. Even if you’re not, give it a go and pass it off as modern art.
Arts or crafts stall
Let your imagination go wild and reap the rewards. Try fundraising by making greetings cards, pot pourri or jewellery to sell.
Afternoon Tea
Stick the kettle on, organise a variety of cakes and sandwiches, and don’t forget the scones!
B
BBQ
Charge neighbours, friends and family a small fee to attend your barbeque. Get them all to bring a bottle or some nibbles to keep costs down.
Bunnings Sausage Sizzle
Bunnings sausage sizzles and cake stalls are enjoyed by thousands of Bunnings customers every week, but spots do book out about six months in advance. Request to host sausage sizzles and for fundraising opportunities should be made in writing on the community or charitable organisation’s original letterhead, and sent to your nearest Bunnings store, to the attention of the Activities Organiser.
Beard Shaving
Grab a few hairy marys and shave them. Not just for fun, fundraise by getting people to sponsor them to go through with it. You can shave heads, beards, backs or legs… the possibilities are endless.
Bingo
Make your own bingo cards and invite your mates around for a few games. Charge them a dollar a ticket. Prizes could be something small like lollies or promises of eternal friendship.
Bad Tie Day
Charge your colleagues a gold coin to come in wearing their loudest tie. Award the winner.
Book Sale
Sell old books, collected from everyone you know.
Bowling
Coordinate with a bowling alley to rent a group of lanes—or the entire building if you know you’ll have a lot of participants—and sign up teams. Participants can get sponsored per pin or just raise donations in general.
C
Cake Sale
Let them eat cake! Hold a traditional cake stand at work, school or fetes. Get baking and sell your cakes to your mates, work colleagues or random strangers.
Car Boot Sale
All you need is a car (preferably with a boot), some junk and some people to buy it from you.
Coffee Morning/Afternoon
A great opportunity to get your favourite people together and catch up over cakes and coffee
Concert
Get some talented friends to perform in front of those less talented. Or, vice versa for a laugh. Charge an admission fee and organise a collection during the matinee.
Cricket Match
Organise enough people to make up two teams and get them to pay a small amount to take part. Organise a collection or raffle for the spectators.
Cycle-a-thon
Get sponsored for every mile you cycle.
Chocolate Ban
Get sponsored for every three days you can go without chocolate—or for every day without, if you’re a serious chocaholic!
Collection Tins
Collection tins are best sat in shops and businesses, if you would like a collection tin for your shop contact us today.
D
Dance marathon
Get people to sponsor you for every five minutes of boogying you manage—or for every song you shimmy to.
Disco
Book a venue and ask a local DJ to donate his service for free. Throw in some booze and nibbles and hey presto! You’ve got yourself a disco—well, once you invite some people and charge them to shake their stuff.
Doggy Happy Hour
Drinks and puppies, what more could anyone ask for? Ask your community members to bring out their cutest four-legged pals for an adorable doggy happy hour at a reasonable entrance fee.
Darts match
Set your sights on bullseye and keep the game serious by charging an entry fee to raise funds. Or keep it fun and set challenges like throwing whilst on one leg and charge per throw. If you are or know a local darts champion why not charge a fee to play against them?
E
Egg Painting
Something to have at your craft fair or fete. Set up an egg painting stall, provide the eggs and the paint and charge people to get creative.
Easter Egg Hunt
Charge parents to take their kids off their hands for an afternoon—plan an Easter egg/ sweet hunt in the garden to keep them amused.
Eighties Night
Get out the hairspray and dust off your leg warmers, it is time to take it back to the 80’s. Charge everyone an entry fee and have games and raffles to boost your fundraising.
eBay for Charity
Use eBay to sell your unwanted items and donate a percentage or all proceeds from any sale to Mummy’s Wish.
F
Fairs, fetes, bazaars, etc
Get yourself a big space (a hall, a field or even a car park) and let your imagination go crazy. Set up a coconut shy, apple bobbing stand, races and white elephant stalls.
Fashion Shows
Depending on how ambitious you are, this can be a fundraising winner. Either grab a couple of mates and stage a show in your house. They could model clothes that you no longer want or need, which could then be auctioned off at the end of the day. Alternatively, let local clothes shops know about your fundraiser and ask them to donate clothes for the show.
Football Match
Ask your local team to play a match to raise funds and awareness for Mummy’s Wish. Organise a raffle at half time and get prizes donated by local businesses. Alternatively, organise a match pitting your mates against their dads and older relatives. Ask each player to pay a fee to play and buy a small cup for the winning team.
Fun Run
Get sponsored to take part in an organised race—or organise your own where you live.
Face Painting
Set up a stall at a local event.
Free Dress/Fancy Dress days
G
Garden party
Whip up some cucumber sandwiches, dust off the picnic tables and crack open some Pimms. Charge a small entrance fee and organise a collection during the fundraising event.
Give up a vice
Whether it be smoking, biting your toenails or your daily coffee or chocolate bar—get sponsored to give it up for a set period—or ask people to sponsor you per day.
Games Night
There has been a massive resurgence in the popularity of board games, so this presents another great fundraising opportunity. Choose a competitive game and get the word out that you’re having a tournament with a small sign up fee, and prizes for the winners.
H
Head Shaving
Less impressive if you already have a crew cut, but for those of you with long flowing locks this could earn you shed loads of cash. Or if you aren’t feeling brave, get sponsored to shave the head of a hairy (willing) mate. Cook themed meals, have themed table decorations and wear appropriate clothing. To cover costs, it’s probably best to charge a small entrance fee. This could be a great idea for families, work colleagues or schools.
I
International Evenings
Cook themed meals, have themed table decorations and wear appropriate clothing. To cover costs, it’s probably best to charge a small entrance fee. This could be a great idea for families, work colleagues or schools.
J
Jumble sale
Dig around under the bed and at the back of wardrobes for anything you can sell and organise a jumble sale. Get your friends to get in on the act selling their own unwanted items.
Jazz Night
A good fundraising idea if you’re a jazz singer. Perhaps a better one if you’re not. Raise money and have a giggle at the same time by belting out some classic jazz tunes like ‘Summertime’. Pass around the donations bucket to your spellbound audience.
K
Karaoke competition
Rent a karaoke machine and hold an event in your local pub or boardroom. Sell tickets, or make it a competition and charge people to enter. Get a local company or your boss to donate a prize.
L
Long Lunch
Invite everyone in your workplace, school or street to a grand lunch (for a small fee, obviously). Make posh sangers and nibbles. This could work especially well in an office, where people will appreciate an unusual break in the middle of the day.
Limbo Competition
This could work well down the pub. Charge for entry to the competition, and get the bar to donate a few free drinks for the winner. For a PG version you could host one at school and have a prize for each age group.
M
Marathon events
A fundraising classic! Hire a local hall, or see if you can get one free for a good cause. Hold a marathon table tennis, aerobics, line dancing or badminton session (in shift teams). Get relevant companies to sponsor you in exchange for publicity in the hall (local gyms, sports shops etc). Get sponsorship from friends and family too.
Murder Mystery Night
This could be great, especially if you’re a member of an amateur dramatics group, or a drama group at school or college, who’ll help you out.
Musical Evening
Get some talented friends together and hold a concert. If you do this in a pub or bar, it will be more low-key than in a hall or theatre, and there will be things for the audience to do during gaps between performances (i.e.drinking and mingling).
Movie Night
Whether it be held in the summer under the stars, or at any time throughout the year at a local cinema, a movie night is a great way to fundraiser. You could host an advanced screening of the latest blockbuster, a family-friendly Christmas movie or a girls’ night out to see a new Rom Com.
Matched Giving
Whether you’re raising money in the office or outside of work, ask your employer about matched giving. Lots of our fundraisers have doubled the amount raised by their employer so don’t be afraid to ask.
N
Non-Uniform Day
People pay a couple of dollars for the privilege of coming to school or work in their civvies. Or make it every Friday for a month at work—loud shirt day or colour theme?
O
Obstacle Course
Set up a hard-core obstacle course and charge people to race.
Office Collection Day
Stick a donation tin on your desk with notices telling people what you’re raising money for. Or make it a swear jar for those words ‘your mother wouldn’t approve of’
P
Pancake day party
Everyone loves pancakes, right? Hold a pancake party for all your family and friends (charge them a fiver each). Serve unlimited pancakes and hold a pancake-tossing competition.
Parties
Know some busy parents? Organise their kids’ birthday parties for them in exchange for cash. Fairy bread and ice cream here we come.
Plant Sale
Requires forward planning. Buy a packet of seeds for a dollar (check cost of seed packs), plant them, and when they’re looking impressive, set up a stall and sell the plants for a few bucks. From little acorns, mighty oaks shall grow, or something like that. Aussie analogy?
Pub Games
Skittles, darts, pool, cards… Charge people to enter. You could even make it a weekly league.
Picnics
Sell tickets in advance; with a little imagination you can make great, fun picnic food from cheap ingredients. Keep the location secret until the night before? Make it progressive?
Progressive dinner/lunch
Bring back the eighties and eat (and drink) your way around multiple venues or houses.
Q
Quizzes
Quizzes are very popular and hence a good way to make money. Pubs are the usual venue, but you could also hold one at a local school, or in your boardroom.
R
Raffles
Get friends and local companies to donate prizes. Go for cool, unusual prizes like a day in a spa, a go-karting session or a takeaway pizza. Run an online raffle using Raffletix?
Read-a-thon
Get sponsored to read books—this works best if you’re someone who never normally reads.
S
Silly games afternoon
Egg and spoon, silly races, wet sponge throwing … use your imagination.
Sponsored Silence
Could you talk for Australia? Reckon your family and friends would pay good money to shut you up for a day?
Swear Box
Get your mates or colleagues to put a gold coin in the box if they swear.
Silent Disco
If you haven’t heard of a silent disco before, it’s an opportunity for people to dance while listening to their own music through headphones (or for several DJs to play music at once). Or Disco in the Dark?
T
Tea party
Tea is the new fashionable drink of choice, or so they say. Charge your mates a couple of dollars to attend, and go all-out with the fairy-cakes and cucumber sandwiches. Very civilised.
Teddy bears’ picnic
Charge families for tickets, and publicise it through playgroups and primary schools. Don’t forget to bring you or own teddy!
Treasure hunt
People pay you for the first clue. You lay a trail of clues, with a top prize at the end. Take it on the road? Car treasure-hunts can work really well.
U
Unwanted Gift Sale
Get your friends and family to donate their unwanted Christmas gifts in early January.
V
Variety show
Does your Dad play the banjo? Can your dog dance the tango? Put on a variety show with a difference!
Video-a-thon
Rent a bunch of classic movies and play them back-to-back for 24 hours. Print schedules and hand them out to your friends and acquaintances, who’ll hopefully turn up and pay to watch their favourites. Offer a discount for those who last the whole 24 hours. Don’t skimp on the popcorn.
W
Who’s that baby
Get old baby-photos of your mates or—much better—your bosses or teachers. Stick them up around your school or office and get people to pay to guess who they are. Needless to say, you’ll need a quality prize for the winner.
Wine Tasting
Hold a wine-tasting evening. Ask a winery or bottle shop to donate a few bottles for the tasting, and sell bottles for them at the end (for a small profit).
X
Xmas fair/party
‘Tis the season to make money! Get out the mistletoe for a big Christmas party, or sell homemade gifts at a Christmas fair.
Y
Yoga Marathon
Get sponsored to do yoga for a day. You’ll be so bendy by the end of it that you can charge people to watch you tie yourself in knots. Bonus.
Z
Zumba
Ready to feel the rhythm? Zumba your way for a day and support Mummy’s Wish.