Church Fundraising Ideas Online

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Church fundraising ideas aren't thin on the ground, but it is hard to find ideas that haven't been done a thousand times before. This doesn't matter if being original isn't a priority for you; if sticking with tried and tested ideas means raising plenty of money for your cause, that's fine. However, more unusual ideas do tend to capture people's interest, and hopefully some of their cash, too. The church fundraising ideas here vary from the predictable to the unusual.

Sponsored clean-up

People pay you and your fundraising team to make your neighbourhood a better place. You can arrange to be sponsored per street, or charge people an extra sum to name the street they'd most like to be cleaned up. Then you go ahead with picking up litter and washing away graffiti. Remember to take the obvious precautions when litter-picking. Don't touch anything with your hands directly - wear gloves and use a litter-picking tool. This is a great way to get kids involved, although you may hear parents groaning, "If only he could clean up around the house too!"

Pancake flipping

You can make Shrove Tuesday into a fundraising event by selling pancakes. Customise them with different fillings and flavourings, or hold a pancake-flipping competition. Whoever can throw a pancake in the air, turn it over and catch it again the most times in a row is the winner.

Easter cards

Raise money, and mark Easter at the same time, by making cards featuring Easter chicks, symbolic of new life and hope. It makes an excellent activity for Sunday School.

Method 1:

Each child dips a foot into yellow paint and then makes a footprint on a piece of paper.

Cut out the footprint and add it to a Happy Easter card with the heel at the top. With any luck, the upside-down footprint will roughly resemble the outline of a chick, with the heel as the head.

Stick on the eyes. Goggly eyes can be bought in bulk from craft shops and glued on. Alternatively, simply draw on some eyes.

Make the beak. Cut out a diamond of orange paper and fold it in half, then glue it on.

Method 2:

Cut an egg shape from yellow paper.

Stick the egg shape to a card and add legs. Either draw the legs on, or make them from orange paper.

Eyes and beak can be added as before.

Then take handprints from each child in yellow paint.

Cut out the handprints and glue them on to the chicks where the wings should be.

The advantage of both methods is that parents won't be able to resist buying a card as a memento of how cute and small their child is.

Bake sale

Other church fundraising ideas may be more original, but this old favourite is a winner, particularly if there are a large number of traditionally-minded people in your church community. For many, a fundraiser isn't a fundraiser without a bake sale, and this will be where you pick up a lot of support and money. Go for a combination of easy-to-make items, like Rice Krispies treats, and more sophisticated items like Black Forest gateau. Enlist as many friends as possible, and ask them to bake one or two items each. Research has shown that the wider the choice of foods available, the more we tend to eat overall. If you're charging for each slice of cake or each brownie, you want people to buy and eat as much as possible, so having plenty of choice is crucial. Variety may be bad news for dieters, but it is the key to a successful bake sale. Even having two different flavors of brownies, like orange chocolate and plain chocolate, creates a sense of choice.

Treasure hunt

Divide people into teams, and try to make sure that each team has a good mix of age groups. That way the younger members of each group can draw on the local knowledge of older members. Include a riddle or two which refers to the history of your church, but make sure the answers aren't too hard to find. It is a good idea to leave a little mini-prize with each riddle, to keep up interest and morale.

The church fundraising ideas above are to get you started, so feel free to adapt them to suit your needs. For extra inspiration, our page on Christian fundraising gives a couple of Christian twists on traditional fundraising methods.