Fundraising doesn’t have to be drudge work, especially on a tight budget. It can be fun and profitable with a little enthusiasm and creativity!
Hosting fundraisers is a great way to bring in money for your community and boost your Activity Program budget, while also providing fun and purpose for residents. Planning and deciding what to do for fundraisers can be an activity on its own. Letting residents choose what type of events to have and deciding who will participate makes them feel involved and excited to make them a success and contribute to your community.
Whether it’s an in-house fundraiser where family members tend to make purchases or outside fundraisers where marketing directors make flyers to send mass emails to their contacts, every dollar of donation counts.
Where to start: Partner with prominent businesses
Partnering with prominent businesses in the community will help to jumpstart your fundraising efforts. Building relationships with local farms, grocery stores, coffee shops, target fundraising boards, and the local chamber of commerce will help you gain access to a wider audience that may not be able to make it to your community to donate. And don’t forget to utilize social media!
Remember: Consider asking for in-kind donations from local businesses in exchange for sponsorships or visibility within your community. Many companies are willing to share things like discount coupons or promotional items. If your community is not eligible for in-kind donations, consider asking local businesses to donate materials they may throw away such as flowers at grocery stores.
The holidays are a great time to fundraise because it presents an opportunity to ask for the gift of giving. It also inspires ways to connect with your community and helps you maximize your fundraising profit potential by hosting the event when your community gets a lot of traffic (e.g., during your annual holiday party for residents and family members).
Here are 10 ideas for fundraisers all year round:
- A Holiday Cookbook is always a hit. Invite residents to offer up their famous family recipes to include in a cookbook that can be sold at your annual holiday party.
- Resident gift-wrapping events connect residents and families who need all those gifts wrapped for the holidays. Have family members bring in gifts they need to be wrapped and let your residents earn some money for the community. Festive wrapping paper, tape, and smiles on your residents’ faces will go a long way!
- Bake Sales are great because you can utilize the facility’s kitchen staff to help bake tasty goodies to sell. Consider hosting these throughout the year to tie into the season. For example, host a Thanksgiving Pie Sale featuring pumpkin pies and apple pies during the Thanksgiving season.
- Sell Caramel apple kits or host a pumpkin carving contest during the Halloween season ($10 per kit or pumpkin.) You could offer small gift card prizes for the best pumpkin (remember those partnerships?) or market it as a fun family experience!
- Candy Grams for Valentine’s Day. Have residents assemble them and let family members purchase one to be presented at their door.
- Easter egg decorating. Have residents dye and decorate eggs to sell ($10/dozen), or assemble Easter baskets and include local donations from those partnerships!
- Dine-n-dash fundraisers give folks a chance to quickly contribute to your fundraiser without needing to come through the doors. Dry recipes like hot cocoa in a bag, chicken soup in a jar, or pumpkin bread in a tin are always easy and low-cost to assemble and make for a quick buck.
- Greeting cards. Have residents that love crafts? Give them some templates to paint, color, and create homemade cards! Keep them at the front desk for family and prospective tours to see the heartfelt creations.
- Host a craft fair. Let residents do some self-expression and reconnect with some hobbies they used to partake in. Peanut butter birdhouses, bookmarks for back to school, and hand-knit blankets make for some great items. They’re fairly inexpensive and enable your residents to create something personal and tangible. (Plus, it’s also extremely good for mental acuity!)
- Community Bingo. Sell each Bingo card for $5. Residents will love a friendly competition game of chance! Create funky bingo cards here. (And pass out Eversound headphones and printed bingo sheets to participating residents within a 300-400 foot range!)
Check out these helpful resources to get creative and find innovative ways to save money on crafts supplies and prizes.
Fundraising with Eversound
The way to make these fundraising events successful is to make sure residents are engaged and enjoying themselves. However, hearing loss can make it harder for your residents to stay active and fully participate.
The Eversound wireless headphone system relieves the burden of communication barriers between your staff or volunteers and residents to facilitate better interactions during activities. Eversound helps activity teams deliver quality fundraising events which help keep residents present, involved, and as active members of the community even when living with hearing impairment or focus issues. Perhaps part of your fundraising focus can be on raising awareness to the challenges residents face when they are living with hearing loss and raising money to get Eversound for your community.
Interested in learning how Eversound can improve the success of your fundraising events? Get more information here.
