How Your Youth Group Can Make Money and Gain Exposure

Rising money for church youth groups or other youth groups can be challenging. You can't depend on the old magazine and candy sales to get by. Many parents and relatives of members of your youth group are probably tired of pushing candy bars at work or having to subscribe to Lawn Mower Monthly to support their youth's activities.

There are ways to raise money for your Youth Group that will have wide appeal and raise money They take some imagination and preparation, but since they are community oriented they also raise awareness in your community about the activities and good your youth group does in the area;

The first idea is to use your church's kitchen and fellowship hall to sponsor a dinner auction. If your church does not have these facilities try to hook up with a local youth group whose church does have these facilities and do a combined fund raiser. Other youth clubs might be able to use a larger church facility for a fundraiser as well.

The kids can participate by making and serving the food. An adult needs to be in charge to make sure safety and sanitary concerns when cooking for a large group is being followed. The traditional spaghetti dinner is a good inexpensive choice for a number of youth groups. You can add a twist to this by offering spaghetti made with soy alternatives and organic sauce. This way you can appeal to more people in your community. Organic ingredients are a little more expensive but you can charge a little extra for the organic alternative.

One fun and easy dinner would be an all American Dinner where you serve hot dogs, American Potato salad (mustard), apple pie and serve lemonade. Again you can offer kosher hot dogs, soy dogs, in addition to regular hot dogs to have wider appeal. Since two of your dinner items are served cold you cut down on your cooking time. You can charge extra for specialty hot dogs. The theme of red, white, and blue can be inexpensive as well if you have the dinner after the fourth of July as you can pick up decorations on clearance.

You can get local businesses to donate things to auction off or you could hold a rummage sale during or after the dinner. Arts and crafts made by local artisans are a good choice. You can get a portion of the auction price and make help the local starving artesian make a little money and get some community exposure. Don't forget you can auction services. You might get some of the kids to auction lawn mowing or dog walking services.

Be sure to have the kids involved in the preparation and clean up of the dinner event. If you can leave the donated kitchen space cleaner than you found it. If you leave a mess for the host congregation to clean up there is little chance your group will be asked back.

Another unique fundraiser is to get a local merchant to donate a video game system to serve as a price in a play for a fee video game contest. Again you can hold the contest in the church's fellowship hall and get the kids to donate the game equipment for the contest. Guitar Hero and Dance Revolution are two high energy games that all the youth in the area will be glad to play. You need to consult the kids who are the experts on these games to help organize the rules for the contest. Donated games and gaming accessories can be used as prizes for the winners of these contests. Don't forget to get your youth to twitter and use other social media to promote any of your youth group fund raisers.

http://www.egadideas.com/ideas.asp Ideas and pre packaged fundraisers for church youth groups.

http://www.articleinsider.com/business/fundraising/youth-group-fundraisers

Good general article on the benefits of Youth Group fundraisers.