Please help me come up with some great fundraising ideas so my co-workers and I can help feed DC's homeless.

November 17, 2009 10:55 AM

I need some fundraising ideas to help feed DC's homeless.

Every year, my office of roughly 200 people is split into two teams to "compete" against each other to see who can raise more money to donate to the DC Central Kitchen. It's a great cause, and the competition is very friendly. I've been tasked with coming up with a few good ideas to raise money.

So far, here's my ideas:

- Charity Kareoke - everyone who attends has the option to buy songs at $5 a pop. The twist is that you don't have to sing, but can choose to assign the song to someone else.

- Keg Party - after work happy hour, charging $10 at the door. We're able to get a good deal on a keg though a contact at a beer distributor.

- Book sale - We're encouraging people to bring in books that they've read to sell to they're co-workers.


Has anyone had success with office wide fundraising?

posted by DrDreidel to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Raffles are easy, because they're open to anything you provide. Get a couple of baskets, fill them with things people like (themes are helpful if people are working together to get items without planning things in detail). Talk to local businesses and tell them that you're raffling the items in-office to raise funds, and tell them the success from prior years, and you could get some freebies.

If you have a few particularly crafty folks, they could sell their goods (or add them to raffle baskets). I know some knitters who will churn out scarves like nothing, often as a way to pass time or something to do while watching TV. You might have a few such folks in your office.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2009

The organization I volunteer with one brick (they have a presence in dc and you may want to contact them for help) recently held a fundraising gala with a raffle and silent auction to great sucess. We charged $60 for tickets offered cheap drinks and a dj.
posted by bananafish at 1:16 PM on November 17, 2009

You should talk to Greg Bloom at Bread for the City (mefi name snortlebort) he started a highly innovative program for volunteers to go to local farms called Glean for the City that is a great volunteer effort. Give him a shout, it deserves a glance.
posted by parmanparman at 1:35 PM on November 17, 2009

we recently ran an auction. I'm in a bigger workplace than you, but 200 should be a reasonable audience - get people to donate stuff and put up a website for the month. Some examples we had were 'an hour driving someone's awesome car' (audi? something other people were impressed by but I have no clue), a package of homemade biscuits every week for a month (or every month for a year!), a weekend in someone's holiday home, etc. It made heaps of money. If you get cool enough items your opposing coworkers won't be able to resist bidding, right? :)
posted by jacalata at 5:26 PM on November 17, 2009