Most groups raise money themselves and they need do-it-yourself fundraising ideas. Luckily there are tons of great ideas out there to consider. Here are some brief descriptions of ideas you might consider. Of course you may need to adapt some aspects to your needs.

We hope in the future to write more articles with additional do it yourself fundraisers but here’s some food for thought for today with 10 do it yourself fundraisers:

1. Pizza Night – There’s a couple of way you can do a pizza night. The easiest is to contact some of the pizzerias in your town and see if they would donate a portion of a night’s sales if you promote their store to your supporters. We’ve seen chains like Cici’s and Pizza Huts support local groups this way. The other option is to have a pizza night at your school or church. Order lots of pizza and sell if by the slice. This method works best if its done in conjunction with some other event that draws people to your facility.

2. Car Wash – On a typical sunny Saturday in many towns you won’t have to drive very far to pass a group raising money by washing cars. You just need to find a business on a well traveled street with access to a water hose that will let you set up in front of their store. Get a bunch of brightly colored signs and wash some cars. You can either charge a fee for the wash or promote it as a FREE car wash that requests donations instead of collecting a specific fee.

3. Bake Sale – We wrote about some towns banning bake sales recently but we still believe it is one of the easiest do it yourself fundraising ideas available especially for young families. Get the each family to bake some goods and offer them for sale with the proceeds going to the group.

4. Cookie Dough Fundraiser – One of the easiest fundraisers to organize for your group is selling cookie dough. Get each member of your group a brochure and order form, sell as much cookie dough as possible and make some money. You might even combine this with a bake sale.

5. Raffle – There are lots of ways to hold raffles but they are tried and proven to raise money. You might get a local restaurant to become a sponsor and pay to print the raffle tickets where they can advertise their business. You should get another local business to either donate a good prize or allocate a portion of the cash collected as the prize the raffle winner is given.

6. Read-a-thons – This is a perfect fundraiser for schools. It combines educational pursuits with fundraising. Get kids to request donations for each book they read during a semester or school year. Each student should be able to read 10 books or more in a school year. If each one got 5 people to donate a dollar a book you could raise some serious money and promote reading at the same time.

7. Carnivals – You would be shocked if you knew how much money some schools make holding carnivals. The best ones have lots of fun events and things to do. It does take lots of volunteer hours but its one of those fundraising events that, when done right, can raise a whole lot of money.

8. Weight Loss Challenge – We love this idea. You probably want to limit participation to adults and older children. It would work a lot like a read a thon. People go a weigh in on the first day of the fundraiser and set a goal of the number of pounds they would like to lose. They can people to make a donation for every pound lost. Lots of people will support an event like this. Just imagine how much money a motivated group could make if they raise a few dollars for every pound lost.

9. Money Bottle – This works well with those large 5 gallon water bottles used on water fountains. Decorate the bottle with signs showing why you’re wanting to raise money and then get everyone in your group to toss their loose chain into the bottle whenever they pass by. When you will the bottle you can have a money counting event and see how much money you’ve raised.

10. Discount Cards – One of the best do it yourself fundraisers is to sign up 10 or 12 local businesses to advertise on a discount card for your group. The cards work well because your group makes lots of money selling the cards. The businesses can get lots of new customers by supporting your group. And the people that buy the cards get some great savings from owning the cards. Everyone wins.

This is just our first installment of fundraising ideas you can consider. Now we’d love to hear from you. Have any good fundraising ideas? Let us know and we will share them with everyone.