Fundraising Ideas

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T-Shirt Sales

High quality clothing though.

Ongoing subscriptions

Art sales

Art donations from artists, sold, and proceeds split

Art services

Youtube channel

Art prints auctions

Design services

Inkscape Donations


This file outlines some thoughts regarding handling of donations and other income for the Inkscape Project.

As you can see, almost all of these strategies involve asking for money and giving money yourself. These are the basic premises of fundraising - you must ask, you must give. Everything after that involves creativity, imagination and a sense of fun.

Income Sources

==
  • Direct donations
  • Fundathon - call for donations to increase the fund by $5k
  • Investment pool funding
  • Sales of T-Shirts, Hats, Mugs, etc. cafepress.com
  • Printed version of manual
  • Logothon - we enlist our users in producing logos for other open
 source projects or companies.  50% goes to artist, 50% to Inkscape.
  • CD's of Inkscape + Open Clip Art Library for $20, split 50/50
  • Art auctions
  • Amazon.com affiliate (2.5-6.0% commission)

Art Auctions - Ask artists to donate a work to the project, and then have a charity auction for the pieces (including the copyright??) Use the proceeds to fund development projects.

Print nice donation envelopes to include in our conference booths. Give some to conservancy to have at their booths.

Send people to events to man booths with the express aim of raising money and spreading awareness. Maybe do in conjunction with conservancy?

Business Card Designs - Recruit our artists to do business card design services, with a portion of the proceeds returned to the project. Serve as a broker to match design needs with artists.


More ideas: http://www.nonprofitalliance.org/system/res/25/original/Board_Member_Packet.pdf

2. List all your friends who are interested in your organization or similar organizations. Decide how much you want to ask each one for. If you are not sure of an amount, use a range. Write to them on your own stationery, include a brochure from the organization and a return envelope. Phone those people who don’t respond in two weeks. Some people will need 10 friends to give $100, and some people need 50 friends to give $20. Most people will need a combi nation of gifts of $100, $50 and $25.

3. Give part of the $1000. Then ask your friends to join you in giving $50, $100, or whatever amount you gave. This is most effective because you are not asking them to do anything you haven’t done.

4. Set up a challenge campaign. Challenge gifts can be quite small. Tell people you’ll give $5 for every $25 they give, or will match every $50 gift up to ten gifts. For added suspense, make this challenge during a fundraising event. You or the host can announce, “We now have the Dave Buckstretch Challenge. For the next five minutes, Dave will give $5 for every new member that joins Worthy Cause.”

9. Pledge $28 a month, and get two others to do likewise.

10. Teach a seminar on a topic you know: fundraising, knitting, organi c gardening, organizing, proposal writing, environmental im pact reports, gourmet cooking, dog grooming, starting your own business. Charge $50-75 per per son, with a goal of 15 to 20 people. Either absorb the cost of promotion, or have enough participants to cover it.

18. Solicit small businesses, churches, synagogues or service clubs for $1000. If you are active in a church or you own your own busin ess and are involved in business organizations or service clubs, this can be very effective. You can often raise $200-$1000 with a simple proposal and oral presentation.

20. Ask five to ten people to save all their change for three to five months.

23. Sell buttons, T-shirts, etc. Distribute to bookstores or novelty

   shops

25. Get a famous or popular person to do a special event. Watch the costs on this, or you may lose money.

26. Invite people to your birthday party and ask that in lieu of gifts they give money to your organization. Encourage members to request donations to their organization as Christmas presents.

28. Lead or get someone to lead a nature walk, an architectural tour, a historic tour, a sailing trip, a rafting trip, or a horseback ride. Charge $15-$25 per pers on, or charge $35 and provide lunch. Advertise the event in the newspaper to draw in people from outside your organization.

31. Sell your frequent flyer miles to friends or donate them to the organization for a raffle. Watch the rules of the airline on this, but some airlines let you give away miles, and you may be able to sell your miles as long as you don’t go through a mileage broker.

33. Organize a service raffle. Get four people (one can be you) to donate a simple but valuable service that many people could use and sell raffl e tickets for $10-$20 each. Keep the price a little high so you don’t have to sell so many and so that the buyers have a higher chance of winning. Services can include childcare for a weekend or for any weekend night two weekends in a row; one day of housecleaning; yard work; house painting (interior or ex terior), etc. Sell the tickets to neighbors, work mates and to other board members. Encourage people to buy several by offering discounts for multiple purchases, such as one for $10, 2 for $20, but 3 for $25, 4 for $35, 5 for $40. If you are really bold or live in a more affluent area, or have few friends, sell the tickets for $50 each. A full day of housecleaning for $50 is a real bargain, and buyers have a high chance of winning with fewer tickets sold

36. If you or someone you know owns a small business that has regular customers who receive a catalog or announcements of sales, write them an appeal letter for the organization. Your letter can say something like, “You are one of my best customers. As such, I let you know about sales coming up and good things happening in my store. Today, I want to tell you about another good thing—what I do when I am not minding the store.” Then go on to describe the group and ask for a donation.

37. Similar to #36, post this letter on your Web site. Link to the organization’s Web site and ask people to donate.

41. Get members and friends to include the group for bequests in their wills.

47. If you have an artistic bent, offer to design greeting cards to specification for organizations or individuals for a fee. If you are good at calligraphy, sell your skills to schools for graduation announcements, friends for classy but low-cost wedding invitations, or just fun certificates such as “World’s Greatest Dad” for Father’s Day or “O utstanding Friend.” Create unique Halloween costumes or masks. Donat e the proceeds from your artistry.

48. Create a take-off on the “adopt-a-highway” technique by naming budget items of your group as available for adoption. You could develop a flyer that reads, “The following items have been found near death from negligence and abuse. Won’t y ou help? $25 per month will ensure that our computer is maintained. $10 0 per month will release our photocopy machine from toiling with no toner and a dying motor. (We can lease a new one.)”

50. Hold an “I’m Not Afraid” Auction. You can do this with just a few friends or hundreds of people if you have enough items to auction. You survey a few people (and use your own common sense) about what things need to be done in t heir home of office that they are afraid of or would really rather not do. This is different from a service auction - t here has to be an element of dread in the activity. For example, some people cannot wash their windows because their apartment is too high or the seco nd story of their house is too hi gh and they suffer from vertigo. If you are not afraid of height s, you can sell your window-washing service (bring a sturdy ladder). This goes for drain cleaning, minor r oof repairs, antenna fixing, etc. Or, if you are unafraid of cockroaches or spider s, you can offer to clean out that dark corner or garage or basement for a small fee. Snakes can be f ound in gardens and woodsheds, but maybe that doesn’t bother you. The problem doesn’t need to be as serious as phobia. How about allergies to dust, pollen, weeds? If you don’t have them , you can mow, sweep, clean for a fee. By marketing it as an “I’m Not Afraid” Auction, you also have the option for people to name something they need done to a group of volunteer s, and then have a volunt eer say, “I’m not afraid to do that.” In that case , you will need a set fee for service.

51. Similar to the suggestion a bove is the “Details Auction.” This is for all your friends whose desks are overflowing with papers or who can’t get their receipts in order to give to the tax preparer or who complain t hey can never find anything. If you are a well-organized person, offer to clean up their desk, get their Rolodex in or der, file their papers, etc. If you like to shop, sell that to people who don’t and do their holiday shopping for them, or buy birthday, baby shower or niece/nephew presents for them. Anything that people f eel they cannot control is the organized person’s fundraisi ng dream come true.

52. Find out which of your friends (perhaps this is true for you also) work in corporations with matching gift programs. Then ask them to donate and get their gift matched for your organization and ask them to ask their co-wor kers to donate and get their gifts matched.

53. Think of a store or service related to your organizati on or where a lot of your members shop. Ask the store to donate a percentage of profits for a certain day or week, or even forever. You can also explore this with mail-order firms. Then you advertise widely to friends, family and members that Joe’s Florist will give 2% of each sale during Valentine’s weekend to anyone identifying themselves with your group.