Fundraising Ideas to Earn Your Organization Some Cash

The idea of raising money for a cause or for a organization used to be easy all you had to do was pick up a phone, call a local store and ask for a donation. The only problem is that the economy was good than and now its bad causing companies to stop the donating. This causes everyone to think outside the box to create that income for your crab feast or for that donation to that charity you support. So I will save you the time and energy by giving you the ideas needed to raise that cash!

Fund raising opportunity 1: Silent Auction
Yes silent auctions is a reliable source of income for any fund raising cause and can be done at crab feasts, cock tail parties, bull roasts or any other event that entertains a large number of individuals. The hardest part of the silent auction process is obtaining the product to use in your auction which is actually easy if you know where to look. Yes I said easy all you have to do is reach out to your local jewelry store, sports memorabilia store or any store that sells something unique that will attract bidders for you and ask them if they do consignment. For instance a local sports store located in Maryland called greatmomentsinc.com which gives products at a discounted price and will also make the bid sheets for you starting at the discounted price or a few bucks above so that any thing above the listed price is profit for your benefit, organization, charity or club. Breaking it down real quick and using a $60 dollar piece that may retail for $150 dollars. That saves your organization $90 dollars and will start the bidding at $60 dollars. Say that product ends at $200 dollars all you have to do is pay the store the $60 dollars and the other $140 is profit. Thats easy way so its a win/win situation for both you and the company.

Fund raising opportunity 2: Raffle Tickets
This method isn't as easy as opportunity 1 but still can be done as I used this for a baseball team I have played on in the past. The same concept though is used as you reach out to local stores that do consignment and possible donations for use in the raffle. In our case we did consignment and received a $1600 dollar t.v. at retail cost $600 dollars and than made prize 2 and 3 just cash prizes. The t.v. draws the attention and also gets people interested in buying some tickets. Than reaching out to a local company to draw up and print out the raffle tickets. Which may require the most time because we called around to get the best price. After figuring out the prices for the items used in the raffle and the cost to have the tickets printed that is when you decide what the cost of the tickets should cost. We ended up selling ours for $2 a ticket and 3 for $5. So after all that is done its time to get the raffles out to people to sell. Once its time for the raffle you pay out the cost's for the products and for having the tickets made and the rest is your profit. For our team we actually made close to $3000 after everything was said and done. What organization couldn't use that amount of cash.

Fund raising opportunity 3: Selling Products
Sell other companies products and make cash doing it. Yes I said make cash selling someone's products and all you have to do is reach out and see what companies do this. The hardest part is finding stuff to sell but that is a lot easier than you think because many companies participate with this fund raising opportunity. We used this method also selling pizzas for a company called joe corbis. They provide you with the flyers, magazines and everything you need to get started. After that all you have to do is reach out to the community, friends, families and businesses for some sales. At the end of the period you were giving turn in what you owe and order forms. What ever funds above what you owe is your profit. The products will be shipped out to you. After receiving the product you must hand out to everyone that sold the product for distribution to the customers that purchased the products. This opportunity is a little harder than the first two but can help you make some cash. As with our baseball team we made almost $2500 profit. Other ideas of products you can sell is candy, popcorn, coffee or even magazines.

So making that extra cash for that cause is only as simple as you want it to be but the chances to earn money are sitting in front of your face. So the next time your fire house or boy scout troop needs some cash give one of these methods a try!