7 Fundraising Event Ideas for Nonprofits of All Sizes
Plus: See Data on Which Events Produce the Best ROI for Small, Mid-size, and Large Organizations
Maybe your nonprofit has never done a fundraising event, or maybe you’re looking to try something new. Either way, figuring out which fundraising event ideas make the most sense for you isn’t simple.
Fundraising events – even the ‘easy’ ones – require a fair amount of p
lanning. Even the simplest ones will require a clear process for participants, advance communication, and good organization.
Get our free Fundraising Event Planning Guide – 15 questions to plan your next event
Broadly speaking, there are seven types of fundraising events. Here they are, in no particular order.
7 Fundraising Event Ideas
1. Runs and Walks
Image by Wendi Jackson from Pixabay
Runs and walks, like 5k races, have the advantage of being relatively easy to plan with minimal costs. The biggest challenge is getting the word out and motivating enough participants so it’s not embarrassing. If four people show up, that’s bad.
But if you have a good group of volunteers and a strong local base, and you give them enough advance notice, you should be able to get a good turnout.
That is probably the number one piece of advice for any fundraising event – plan it well in advance, at least 6 months out. Do it last minute, and you invite disaster.
2. Sports Competitions
These could be 3-on-3 basketball tournaments, golf, bowling, softball, kickball, volleyball – pretty much anything goes as long as your donor base is into it. Some are more costly and time-consuming than others to plan.
The best thing about these is, they’re fun! It gets people out there doing something together and rallying around your cause. It invites participation from the community.
You can charge an entry-fee for each team or participant, and you can also pursue sponsors.
3. Non-sports Competitions
Image by Sandra Gabriel from Pixabay
I was once part of a local scavenger hunt for a homeless nonprofit where we had to go around an area of the city to find particular items and places. And some of the places would feature someone from the nonprofit telling us about a nearby facility and how it serves homeless people.
This was a great concept, because it got teams of people and families to participate, and it connected us with the work of the nonprofit at the same time. It probably took quite a bit of planning though, and I don’t know if the ROI was worth it.
Simpler non-sports competitions could involve performances like singing, dancing, or karaoke. You could also have baking competitions, artistic competitions, or tournaments featuring various games or video games.
These are generally low-cost and relatively easy to plan.
4. Galas and Auctions
These can include everything from live auctions, silent auctions, fund-a-need auctions, dinners, special guest speakers, live performances, and many other interactive and exciting experiences.
And, the potential for raising large amounts of money is much higher for these than the previous fundraising event ideas. However, galas and auctions also require more time and expense to plan. So you have to weigh the costs and benefits.
The best financial benefit of galas that doesn’t show up immediately is that they give you a chance to ‘sell’ the vision, mission, and impact of your nonprofit to a large and captive audience. Many attendees will be first-timers and non-donors, and you have them in the room for several hours. Nothing beats a live event for engaging people with compelling presentations.
Bring real people who have been helped by your nonprofit and ask them to speak, or feature them in a video – nothing can top that in terms of demonstrating impact.
If you can turn a few event-attendees into monthly or major donors, the ROI of each event can multiply.
Our free fundraising event planning guide is especially helpful if you’re planning a gala or auction.
5. Art Exhibit
This is sort of a specialized version of a non-sports competition, because the bar for entry is a bit higher. Visual arts are not something most people can just throw together, unlike a video game competition. There is a higher skill level. To pull off a successful art exhibit, you must be in touch with the artistic community that your exhibit will be featuring so the experience will be memorable and fulfilling for the participants and attendees.
For this reason, these tend to be more accessible for larger nonprofits with longer histories and more resources.
But you can make healthy ROI from art exhibits because they are relatively easy to plan and require lower costs than a gala.
6. Benefit Concerts and Productions
Image by Thanks for your Like • donations welcome from Pixabay
If your nonprofit has connections with local venues and performers, benefit concerts and other live productions may be more accessible than you might think. You do need a healthy attendance in order to make it worth it, but with sponsorships and good marketing, you can succeed.
And, if your performers are local, securing their participation will be less costly. If they believe in your cause enough, they might even do it for free. It is not unheard of.
This category would also include live performances like stage plays, comedy improv, and puppet shows.
7. A-thon Events
The main difference between a walk-a-thon and a 5k run/walk is that with the walk-a-thon, participants get people they know to sponsor them and ‘fund’ their participation.
So, if you as the participant walk ten miles and you have someone sponsor you for $5 per mile, the nonprofit makes $50 from that sponsor. A-thons are, in effect, like live action peer-to-peer fundraising. In a bowl-a-thon, for example, you can get people to sponsor you for your score, how many strikes you get, or just about anything.
Are Fundraising Events Worth the Time and Expense?
Make no mistake – any event is a commitment, even if you’re just showing up en masse at a restaurant and getting a share of the profits, like my kid’s pre-school does a few times per year (which is a terrific fundraising event idea for small nonprofits, by the way!).
Some events require much more time to plan than others. Some events can generate far greater amounts of money than others. Software Advice did a survey of nonprofit event planners who have worked with nonprofits of all sizes.
What they found was quite insightful. Here’s a chart that compares the difficulty and cost of planning an event compared to its ROI, broken down into small, mid-sized, and large nonprofits.
You can see that certain events have much better ROI for some sizes of nonprofits than others. Take some time to study that graph and you can rule out some event ideas that might not pencil out for a nonprofit of your size.
Many Other Creative Fundraising Event Ideas and Resources!
So many other super-creative ideas for fundraising events are out there.
Here’s a page from Salsa that lists event ideas specific to certain types of nonprofits, like pictures with Santa, embarrass the authority at your workplace, flash mobs, guessing games, obstacle courses, and many more.
Here’s another resource that breaks the fundraising event ideas down into categories for faith-based orgs, cheap events, K-12 schools, and several others.
Plan It or Abandon It!
Once again – do not attempt to do a fundraising event without strong planning. We have seen the difference between well-planned and poorly-planned events. The differences in both the guest experience and the revenue generated are staggering.
That’s why we created a free fundraising event planning guide.
Because fundraising event success is all in the planning!
Our guide walks you through 15 questions that, as you answer them, ensure your event will be well-planned enough to be worth the effort it will require.
Get your free fundraising event planning guide here
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