Fundraising Ideas

For people who work to save homeless animals, 2009 has been a rough year. Donations are down and the number of animals coming into shelters and rescue groups is up. Humane and animal rescue organizations that devise creative fundraising strategies now are more likely to hit their fundraising targets in 2010.

Author and founder of the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals Susan Daffron offers seven tips for how rescue groups can raise more money in 2010, based on her book “Funds to the Rescue: 101 Fundraising Ideas for Humane and Animal Rescue Groups” (ISBN: 978-0-9749245-9-5).

1. Craft a Clear Message. If people don’t understand the rescue organization’s mission and message, they won’t donate. In some communities, humane groups struggle for donations simply because no one knows who they are, or because they are being confused with another animal-related organization. Ensure your message is clear and differentiated from others.

2. Increase Outreach. Many rescue groups rely on the same outreach techniques they have used for years. In an increasingly cluttered world full of marketing messages, rescue groups must explore new ways of connecting with potential donors. If you don’t have an online presence, get one.

3. Embrace Planning. Humane and Rescue organizations that struggle financially inevitably have not crafted a fundraising plan. Create a calendar and plot out all of the organization’s 2010 fundraising activities. Then methodically work the plan month by month.

4. Partner with Other Animal Organizations. The amount of petty political infighting in the humane world does nothing to help the animals. Reach out to other organizations and work together on fundraising events. Multiple groups working together can generate more exposure for everyone.

5. Stay Alert for New Opportunities to Connect. The more ways people can engage with a rescue organization, the more fundraising opportunities can result.

6. Set Goals. Each fundraising activity should have written financial goals and objectives. Understanding the “why” and “how much” of the activity helps keeps everyone on track.

7. Work with Others in the Community. Many of the ideas in “Funds to the Rescue” are partnerships between a local business and a humane group. The type of business is almost irrelevant. Everyone from hair salons to car dealers has been recruited to raise money for animals.

The author of Funds to the Rescue, Susan Daffron says, “The money is out there, but people need to get creative in their fundraising to attract attention.”

About Funds to the Rescue

“Funds to the Rescue: 101 Fundraising Ideas for Humane and Animal Rescue Groups” is $19.95 and available through major online booksellers and www.FundstotheRescue.com. At the book Web site, visitors also can receive a free special report called “Paws-i-tively Easy Fundraising Ideas: 5 Simple and Fun Fundraisers You Can Put Together Quickly.” For information on other products, visit the publisher’s Web site at www.logicalexpressions.com

About Susan Daffron

Susan Daffron is founder of the National Association of Pet Rescue Professionals, a membership association made up of people who are working for animal shelters, humane societies or rescue groups. Daffron is also the author of 11 books, including two books on caring for adopted pets. She is a former veterinary assistant, animal shelter volunteer, employee, and board member. She also owns a publishing and software company called Logical Expressions, Inc.

Young people in Heywood are flocking to Old Hucky’s for a slice of mentoring, a dash of education, and a heap of fun.

Heywood Youth Link is a one-to-one mentoring service for young people aged 10 and up at the centre on York Street.

Jenny Kennedy, 57, the project manager, said: “It’s named after Old Hucky’s, which used to be a restaurant here well-known amongst young people. Mike Huck, the former owner is patron to the charity.”

“Projects are run everyday. Last week, we had 56 different young people attending, some nights we would welcome over 100 in as many come along each night.

“One of our aims is to get young people back into education, training or employment, but even more importantly, we are here to guide and support young people through any issues they may be facing.”

On a Monday evening they hold a body image and healthy living session. About 15 young people come along to discuss smoking, drugs and alcohol, and how to look after themselves.

Young people attend voluntarily, and come to the centre for a variety of reasons.

They run a New Roots program on Tuesday afternoons for young ex-offenders, with referrals made by the Youth Offenders Team.

They have also been working with the Halle Orchestra education programme.

By February, one group of youngsters will have produced a DVD, after taking part in a specialist project which looks at poetry, music and behaviour.

On Wednesdays, ‘Dream Scheme’ enables young people to perform jobs, visit old people’s homes and make things. Each task earns points for the group which are exchanged for money for a group trip.

Ms Kennedy continued: “At the moment they are making Christmas tree decorations. They don’t get the money, they have to decide how to use the money. They may choose to go ice-skating for example, so they have to think about the cost of a minibus too.”

“On Saturdays, lots of young people drop-in. Some stay all day and they have fun.

“We have a cellar which we’re hoping to make into a recording studio, so they are helping to clear it out at the moment.”

By January, the Youth Link is hoping to become a registered charity. They have just been accredited with the Open College Network award despite only opening on York Street at the end of October.

They receive donations and sponsorship but as a non-profit organisation, they are in need of more funds and are looking for local businesses to sponsor them.

Ms Kennedy said: “We are relying on the good will of the local community and as a token of our appreciation we will add the businesses name to our roll of honour within the centre.”

All mentors and staff are volunteers, and as a qualified tutor, Ms Kennedy trains mentors for programmes such as ‘At Work’ and ‘Skills for You’ at the centre, generating income for the mentoring service.

Most volunteers help for 3-4 hours a week and many adults from Heywood have furthered their success by gaining paid work in the youth sector. “The charity trains local people,” said Ms Kennedy. “Four adult mentors have gone onto university and have taken further qualifications in youth work.”

As an adult mentor you are trained in Level 3 OCN with mentoring, which is an accredited course.

The next training course will run in February and March.

Jenny said: “We also do other courses such as the Inside Out course to build people’s self esteem.

“I could see there was a desperate need for this in the town. Many see their parents on benefits and don’t realise they can break the cycle.

“We’re giving adults opportunities in the town as well as young people. I have been really pleased with the outcome. We have 25 volunteers but need more.”

Jenny and her team are even opening up on Christmas Eve because one young person had been thinking of coming in to wrap Christmas presents there.

“That just shows how much we want to support them. We have to be flexible in the way we work,” she said.

“It is about occupying them to keep them out of trouble or occupying them to stop their isolation.”

“They don’t think they’re going to benefit from things. It’s about looking at their thought processes and empowering people to feel good about themselves.”

A lot of the fundraising ideas also come from the young people. They will be holding monthly coffee mornings on the first Saturday of each month, with the next being held on 2 January.

“I can’t believe how quickly it has got off the ground. Teachers were telling the young people we were here and one teacher donated to help get the centre open.

“If they are struggling in school, kids are brought in and do school work via a computer. We have two young people doing that at the moment.”

“It’s the young people who think of fundraising ideas like the ‘old broken gold’ jewellery exchange. We raised £320 last week I have seen a difference in the kids. They want to own it. They feel it is theirs. They have the confidence and want to do things.”

The centre is open from 2pm till 9pm Monday to Friday, and 10.30am till 4.30pm on Saturdays. For more information go to www.heywoodyouthlink.org or call 01706 360108.

An ugly dog contest allows for people in the community with dogs to show off their dogs to the rest of the community. This is a great fundraiser in communities where a lot of people have dogs because it allows all the participants to become actively involved in the fundraiser.

The unusual name of the fundraiser would also help draw a lot of attention to the event, but prizes can include “best looking” dog as well. The different prizes and awards you wish to provide are completely up to you!

Finding a Venue

You will need a location that can comfortably have all your participant’s dogs to walk around. Ideally, an outdoor location would be best. You can try contacting your local government to use their parks.

Once you have your venue secure, guesstimate how many dogs it can hold and be sure to cap off your registration at that number.

Finding Participants

It’s a general rule that people love getting the chance to show off their pets, no matter how pretty or ugly they are. If you have a marketing budget, take out an ad in the local paper to reach out to the entire community. If you have no marketing budget, you can always try finding dog owners in front of pet stores. If you’re able to talk to the owner of pet stores or veterinarians, explain your fundraiser to them and ask if they’ll let you hang  a flyer in front.

If you find that you’re not able to find enough pets to fill up your venue, try contacting your local animal shelter to see if they’d like to enter some of the dogs into the contest. This would also help them gain exposure for their dogs that need to be adopted.

Charge an entry fee to all participants as this would weed out a lot of people that will back out the last minute. The shelters should not be charged a fee as they are helping you fill out your venue.

Vendor Tables

Have vendor tables set up throughout the venue. You can charge vendors a set amount to secure a spot at your fundraiser. The price you set per table should be based on expected turnout.

Prizes

Ask pet stores or local vets if they would be able to donate prizes in exchange for publicity in the program or for a vendor table. If need be, purchase the prizes as greater prizes draw in larger crowds.

Judges

You will need 3-5 judges. You can ask veterinarians, local animal shelter employeers, local city officials, or anyone notable to be your judge.

Creating Buzz for the Event and the Future
Taking lots of pictures at the event will help you advertise should you decide to throw this event again next year. Press releases in advance of your event would also help stir buzz and increase publicity.

Additional Fundraisers

Sell food and beverages at the event. This will increase your overall profit for the day. You can either set up the carts yourself, or have a vendor provide the service in exchange for a percentage of his profits from the event.

A really great fundraiser to get those in your community, as well as friends and family involved is a Talent Show Fundraiser. Not only are you able to raise money, but you can also have a lot of fun doing so, unearthing the hidden talents of those around you. Moreover, people love watching their loved one (cousins, nephews, nieces, children, grandchildern, etc.) perform so an audience is guaranteed!

Advertising for the Big Event

Use any channel of advertising you can get your hands on to promote this event. School newsletters, local papers, church bulletins are all great ways to get the word out. If you can advertise early enough, you can build up the anticipation, drawing an even bigger crowd to your event. Also, don’t forget to give yourself enough time for auditions, securing the venue, getting local sponsors, etc. Rushing any of these or not giving yourself enough time to prepare can easily be avoided by good planning.

Auditions: Open up auditions to anyone and everyone. Closing off or limiting the talent show will only decrease event moral and limit your reach of talented individuals.

Venue: Be sure to secure a venue large enough to accommodate the expected audience size. One good idea is to wait until you’ve gotten a good survey of people that would potentially want to come to the event, and add ~10 people to that, in case of late additions. If you’re uncertain of the turnout, it is always much better to secure a larger venue than playing it safe and securing a smaller venue. Even if you have a very large room for only 30 or so audience members, you can always group the chairs together to make it seem more intimate.

Local Sponsors: You can always try talking to local businesses to see if they would like to help sponsor the event in exchange for an advertisement banner placement at the event, or even a “shout out” during the event itself. When talking to them, let them now that any amount of money will help, which will help encourage them to potentially become a sponsor.

Fundraising: A bulk of the fundraising amount will come from ticket sales, so be sure you market and advertise as much as you can. Charge a price you feel will draw the most amount of people, but at the same time, will be enough to make this into a great fundraiser. At the event, you can try making extra money by providing snacks and refreshments (akin to a movie theater showing!) You can also videotape the event and sell copies to audience members (take down interested patron’s contact information throughout the event).

Competition

Award prizes based on different categories, and one grand prize to an overall “best” performer. This will help you make this into an annual event, which will only help you in the long run!

Good luck!

A very personal type of fundraiser would be to sell homemade stationery and greeting cards. This raises both school and community spirit as well as money at the same time!

These type of fundraisers are most common throughout the holidays (Valentines Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hannakuh, etc.) They are also rather simple to organize without the need of a lot of advance planning.

The greatest part of this fundraiser is how great both sides of the fundraiser feel from the sale of custom and homemade stationery. Buyers feel like they’re buying a quality product that took both time and effort to make, and sellers have a great time making them.

Spelling Bee fundraisers require little work (aside from promotional efforts) and are a lot of fun for everyone. Especially for adults, it lets them relive their spelling bee years when they were kids and student themselves.

The planning stages of this type of fundraiser are the most difficult part. Finding people or teams to participate in the spelling bee and publicizing your event will likely be the main challenges that you face.

Get some great prizes lined up that people would be excited for! Prizes that are great incentives are trips, gift cards, money, shopping sprees, and movie theater tickets.

How It Works

A Spelling Bee fundraiser is different than a traditional spelling bee in that it should strive to be comical and interesting. Teams of participants instead of individual entrants heat up the competition and will give everyone a good laugh, because the contestants are not singled out! If a team misses two words they are disqualified from that round! The winning team goes on and the last team standing wins!

A bulk of the fundraising funds will come from entrant fees. However, you can always advertise to have tables that vendors can rent out. Selling drinks and food can bring in additional funds as well.

This type of fundraiser is incredibly unique and can draw in a large crowd quickly.

Scrip is a certificate or a card, that businesses offer fundraising groups to be used instead of cash or given as a gift. Scrip deals can be worked out with a lot of local businesses. The scrips are purchased at a discounted rate from the businesses, and are then resold at face value to friends and family! People are willing to buy scrips as they are going to buy from local businesses anyways. Local businesses are attracted to this type of fundraiser as they’re able to gain more publicity.

Scratch card fundraising is a really easy and highly profitable fundraiser. All different types of groups (youth groups, bands, sports teams, etc.) use this fundraiser and are successful every time.

Basis of the fundraiser: “Scratch cards are an easy way to ask for donations. Supporters scratch your personalized fundraising card, give a small donation up to $3.00, and receive a small gift in return for their donation. Raise $100 per card!”

Different fundraising companies offer different programs, so search around before deciding on what is the best fit for your company. The maximum donation about varies from $3.00 to $5.00 and prizes range from a small gift (silicone bracelet) to a discount sheet full of coupons.

This type of fundraiser can also be used as an “add on” to a different fundraiser. The small donation amount encourages donors to participate!

A scavenger hunt requires initial investment in both time and money, but is always a memorable, fun, and unique fundraiser enjoyed by all.

Individuals and/or teams will need to pay an entrance fee to take part in the scavenger hunt. Each team is then given a list of items they need to find as well as a list of rules. Each person or team must return to the starting location by a specified time. Anyone late will be disqualified (rules can be changed according to how you want the fundraiser to be run)

The winner is the team or participant who returns with the most items found in the given amount of time. In the event of a tie, the team or participant that returned faster are the winners.

It would also be a good idea to assign points to everything on the list. Harder to find objects (the business card of a business owner) should be worth more than easier items (empty soda cans).

Depending on how well you advertise and market this event, the scavenger hunt can raise a lot of money. It’s also a lot more fun and memorable than a traditional candy fundraiser

The rubber duck race fundraiser is a really great fundraiser that can be thrown year after year. Participants look forward to events like these year after year, and each year adds on from the year before due to the added publicity and word-of-mouth buzz.

Basics of a Rubber Duck Race Fundraiser:

Rubber ducks are sold to entrants who then write their contact information on each duck they choose to purchase. Make sure that the contact information is written with permanent marker. Test some under running water to be sure that the names/contact information does not rub off.

At the day of the event, the ducks are placed on a river or a pond. With a preset “finish line” in place, the duck that reaches it first is the winner!

Be sure that: 1) You test out to see that the ducks are indeed able to get to the finish line (no branches/logs that obstruct the path completely) and that you obtain the necessary permissions or permits from a city official before the event.

To make the event more interesting, you can try placing “obstacles” that trap some ducks, so that those in front are not always guaranteed to win!

As for prizes, it is a good idea to offer a 2nd place and a 3rd place prize as well, so that there isn’t only one winner. Prizes can be donated from local businesses in exchange for sponsorship.

Making this fundraiser as a community event is crucial to its success. Invite friends and family to the event and make it a city-wide competition. You can use local newspapers, radio stations, school and church bulletin boards to build up anticipation prior to the event. Having nice prizes would also draw more attention from more people.

Having local sponsors sponsor this event monetarily or with supplies should be relatively easy. Simply explain to them the fundraiser as well as the potential reach they have in the community. Invite the local television stations to cover the event to help build a stronger reputation for the following years. The key to the event is also to make it as festive and fun as possible. Helium filled balloons and streamers are cheap but very effective in making any venue look more lively. Having food and beverage carts also help raise the festive mood as well as additional funds.

Sources for rubber ducks: Oriental Trading, Price Hot, Century Novelty