Fundraisers

Food for Auctions!

I come from a small church, and we maybe have 8-10 youth in our core youth group. This is a great fundraiser for smaller youth groups. It tends to work better with pre-teens and teenagers.

We have a gentleman in our church who is a local auctioneer. Each year, he allows our youth group to sell the concessions during some of the auctions. Ask around; chances are there are auctions locally that need your help selling concessions. A lot of the auctions we’ve done are all-day events beginning early in the morning and lasting into the evening. A couple hundred people usually attend each auction.

We are set up prior to the auction selling coffee and donuts. Shortly after, we begin selling hot dogs, chili dogs, chips, cookies, other baked goods, and drinks (water goes well, especially during hot days!) Some local businesses will even donate items if it’s for a good cause. We ask ladies of the church to donate donuts, baked goods, cookies, and chili sauce. We also hand out tracks and invitations to church with their purchase of food.

Each person is assigned tasks during the auction: one person mans the George Foreman grill and grills hot dogs, one person prepares the chili dogs, one person is the cashier and keeps track of the money, one person is in charge of drinks, and one person hands out tracks/invitations. It’s a great time to fellowship together and invite others to our church. We spend about $300 for supplies prior to the auction, but we make anywhere between $900-$1,600 selling concessions!

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Chili Cookoff

Get an appropriate number of volunteers to make appropriate size batches of chili. Number the pots of chili and serve \”samples\” (2oz. cups are great) with the corresponding chili pot number on the sample cup.

After the samples are eaten allow everyone to go through the line and get a bowl of the chili they liked best. Have a donation plate in front of each pot of chili and people vote with their donations – the chili whose plate has the most money in it is the winner. You hope for a couple of families to try and \”buy\” the chili champ title and watch the money roll in.

This is a lot of fun!

Caution: Please inform any serious / sensitive cooks that the best chili doesn\’t always win – it\’s a fundraiser!

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Bowl-a-thon

Have the youth go out, and find people to sponsor them a certain amount per pin. For example, if they were sponsored a penny per pin, and they knock down 200 pins altogether, they get $2.00 from that sponsor. Kids can get as many sponsors as they want, and include information for the sponsors. (What the money is going towards, what the group is doing, and stuff like that).
If everyone could get 10 sponsors for a nickel a pin, and got 200 pins, they could bring in a $100 minus the $5 it takes to play the game. Kids get to benefit from fellowship, as well as raise money for activities.

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Pink Flamingos

Buy a few dozen pink lawn flamingos. About 3 dozen would be good. Then at night select church members homes to place the flamingos at. Leave a note letting them know the youth group will come remove the flamingos for a set price. Like ten dollars. The students will get a kick out of sneaking around setting the flamingos up and it will raise money as well! It would probably be best to inform the church about the fund raiser before hand! Perhaps people would even sign up their homes.

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Yard Sale & BBQ Sandwiches

We did this fundraiser just a few weeks ago and it did really well. About 4 weeks prior to the yard sale start asking members of the church to bring any items they would like to get rid of. We then had a room designated where they could drop off their items. We then had the youth sign up to bring plates, napkins, chips, soda, onions, choppped bbq, etc.
We chose a Saturday morning to hold our sale. We placed an announcement in the local paper and hung signs all over town. Then, instead of pricing each item individually, we had tables set up on the covered sidewalk outside with one price for that table. (ex: 5, 10, 15, 25 cent table, etc). We had the youth sell tickets for the bbq beforehand for #3.00 per plate.
This included a sandwich, chips, soda, and the extras. We also brought enough to sell to the public. Even though it rained, we still collected over $400.00 in one day. The items that were not sold were taken by van to women’s shelters and apartment complexes in town. The youth loved every minute of it, and the money is going towards their youth camp fund.

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Valentine’s Day Banquet

Put on a Valentine’s banquet for the couples in your church. Have finger foods that they go through a line to select, but the youth will serve them drinks, take their plates away for them, get dessert, and etc. Put on some entertainment such as: select members from the audience for the dating game, put on a beauty contest with the youth leader dressed up as the UGLIEST girl you ever saw, do a skit, or whatever you want. Ask for food donations from the church members. Charge $10 per couple. It is lots of fun for everyone & can draw in quite a bit of money.

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Penny Wars

This idea plays on the natural competitive spirit of our youth. You need two teams – we did boys vs. girls, but you can also do jr. high vs. senior high, sunday school class vs. sunday school class, etc. Each team was given a jar that was kept in the youth area.

The challenge is to collect as many pennies as possible in a set amount of time (we did it in one month). One penny = one point. The catch is, silver money (nickels, dimes, quarters) and bills subtract from the point value. So if one team collects 200 pennies but one dollar bill and one quarter, they only get 75 points. Competition was kept high by announcing each team’s score every Sunday morning service and Wednesday night meeting. This also got the congregation involved. The winning team was treated to a pizza party. This made us about $500, all from just spare change!

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Help! I Need Bail!

Allow your youth or members of the church to issue a warrant for other members arrest. They also set a “bail” amount upon filling out a warrant. Then on a particular day, go to their house and have them “arrested” by officers of the church. Those that are arrested are brought back to the church where they must call everyone they know to try and raise their preset “bail”. The “bail” that is collected is actually the funds you raise for the youth group!

Get the kids involved by having them make a mock jail cell and take photos of the Pastor, Deacons, and Church Organist behind bars!

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P.I.G. – Pennies in God

Divide your youth group into teams. About one or two months before the funds are needed, give each youth member something to put coins in (e.g., jars, piggybanks, plastic containers, etc.). Each team member tries to collect as much change as possible from friends, family, etc. We had 20 youth participating in this fundraiser and raised over $300! The winning team were treated to a nice dinner and night out with the youth leaders! Easy and inexpensive, but brings great returns!

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Prayer Picture

For this fundraiser you will need to take pictures of each student or the group of students who are trying to raise money. It is best to use a digital camera for the pictures as it will cut down on your overall cost. You will then print out several 4×6 pictures (We printed in black & white to save money) of each student or group picture, place it in a cheap frame, and sell them for donations during or after a church function. Have a list detailing the pictures you are selling and who is buying them and have the purchaser sign the sheet and commit to pray for the student(s) in the picture they purchased. You can put personal information on the actual picture so that the purchaser will know something about the student they are supporting. Obviously, you can change things to fit your particular group. It might be helpful to contact local craft stores and ask for donations of cheap frames or paper to print on. This fundraiser is a great way to connect the adult congregation with the youth in your church and to promote prayer rather that simply solicit financial aid. Enjoy!

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