10 November 2015
The festive spirit that Christmas brings, makes this season a great time to have a fundraising event and raise the much needed money for your chosen charity or cause. There are plenty of tried and tested fundraising ideas that will ensure your event is a success, but why not make the most of the Christmas season and create themed and festive events that will guarantee a big turn out and consequently a large sum of money raised.
Don’t fret if your stuck for ideas, we have put together some festive, fun and simple Christmas Fundraising Ideas that you can try this year!
Christmas Jumper Day
Get your colleagues, pupils, friends or local community to wear a Christmas jumper, on a specified day, and to donate towards the charity to take part and simply raise money through a bit of cosy, Christmas fun. You could even have a competition for the best jumper and award the winner with a small prize. Minimal effort, great results.
Bake Sale
Christmas is the perfect excuse to eat sweets treats so why not bake your own biscuits or cakes and sell them throughout your school or work place. (Keep an eye out for our future blog post on Christmas biscuit recipes!) Even if your not that confident in the kitchen, you can always purchase shop prepared cakes and biscuits and sell them on. Perhaps you could decorate them to make them extra special or allow your pupils to decorate them themselves. Donating to a charity or cause and getting a sweet festive treat in return is the biggest reward and will certainly persuade them to donate more! A bake sale can easily be paired with other fundraising ideas if you were planning to dedicate a day or an event to raising money. Why not wear a Christmas Jumper, bake and sell gingerbread men? Perfect.
Gift Wrapping Service
Wrapping the Christmas presents to go under the tree can be a nightmare for some and perhaps there is some one you know who has a true talent for wrapping any gift, no matter the size, to perfection. So why not organise a gift wrapping service where people can hand over their Christmas presents and have them wrapped for a small fee. You could have a range of decorations, papers, bows and ribbons that will add onto the cost of wrapping to make the gifts seem extra special as well as increasing the amount donated. Planning on doing this on a larger scale? Get a team together of ‘gift wrappers’ as well as some ‘helpers’ to make sure the process runs smoothly. You could even advertise this at your local church hall or community centre and go large on your fundraising gift wrap event.
Host a Christmas Dinner
Depending on who you are and where you are hosting the event, a Christmas Dinner can be easier that it sounds. If you are a team of work colleagues looking to raise money you could host a dinner party at someones house and invite everybody over, or if cooking seems like too much hard work, organise a meal at a local restaurant to pub and get everybody to essentially purchase tickets to attend, which will cover the cost of the meal (cooked at home or bought out at a pub) as well as donate towards the cause. If you organising it at school, put on a Christmas dinner spread in the canteen and, again, get children to purchase tickets that will cover the cost of the meal and donate extra to the charity. No one can turn down a traditional turkey dinner!
Christmas Raffle Prizes
Throwing a raffle is an easy task but some times getting together some good creative prizes can be difficult. However, finding a reasonable priced, amazing gift at Christmas is super easy to do! So many retailers have new festive stock in and often put together gift guides containing ideas for ‘gifts under £10’, which makes it super easy to find great gifts for your prizes. As well as Christmas gifts, hampers are a great excuse to put together a festive-themed basket filled with traditional, seasonal goodies. Another idea is to make home-made, DIY gifts that could include baked goods, handmade decorations or personal services like a photoshoot. These gifts could be made and produced by friends and given away as prizes. Winning a family photoshoot and receiving printed images is a great prize for a family at Christmas and if you know a photographer willing to help out, then even better!
We love to hear about your fundraising ideas and successes, so be sure to tweet us with your ideas, advice and photographs of your festive fundraising fun.