In these times, most people don’t have the spare cash for donating, even if it is for school or charity or a sports club. But all those things need money to run.
What if you could fundraise and not only make money for your club/school/charity but also make money for those donating instead of costing them?
Instead of selling raffle tickets, doing a car wash, a Go Fund Me page or similar, there are a few ways you can raise money without selling anything.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for products and services we use.
How to Make These Fundraising Ideas Work
These fundraising ideas aren’t your usual bake sale/car wash/everyone has to be involved and doing stuff.
You don’t need to sell anything but you will need to share it, promote it and use your networks.
Fundraising is hard work and only donations to registered organisations get the tax benefit, so fundraising for other things can be harder.
That’s why the following ideas are so much easier but they are not managed in the same way.
You can’t generally have the whole committee involved and it might not be as transparent immediately but there are ways to track it all and get the money you need while also helping others.
The Entertainment App
Anyone who gets this and uses it is going to save money even if they only use it to buy discounted gift cards for places such as Woolworths.
You can get 4% to 10% off a lot of gift cards for stores including Woolworths, Big W, BWS, Rebel Sport, BCF, Lorna Jane, Harvey Norman etc.
So if anyone is shopping in those stores ever, they will automatically save.
Not to mention restaurant deals of up to 50% off meals, cinema discounts, accommodation, car hire and more.
Your organisation can get 20% of each membership sold.
We are using ours to raise money for a new robotics team. Check out The Entertainment App here.
Note: you must sell a minimum of 10 memberships to be paid.
Bank Referrals
Some banks offer referral bonuses when you refer a friend and not all of them require you to do much.
Depending on the bank, their offer and how much people want to do, you can get from $5 to $100 from the options below.
Up: $5+ in minutes
This takes as long as a regular donation (so a few minutes to fill in details).
When someone joins Up through your referral code, you BOTH get the referral bonus.
Up are fee-free, easy to use and online only.
If anyone in your group is a member of Up, you can run the promotion through their account if they are comfortable with that.
If you join through my link you get $8 and can get started making your own money this way.
The longer the member has been with Up, the higher the bonus. I have been with them over 3 years, hence the $8 bonus on offer.
Or you could check if your own bank offers any bonuses. E.g. ING
Get A $75 Bonus From ING
ING has their $75 Orange Everyday sign-up offer on. They share different rewards at different times and right now you can get $75.
If you are a new customer of ING you can get $75 for opening an everyday account with them. Here’s what you need to do:
- Open an everyday account, put the promo code CNW116 in the promo box (you must use the code to get the $75 bonus), and complete all the steps below in the first month.
- Deposit $1,000 into the account such as your income or Centrelink payments
- Make 5 settled transactions
- Open a Savings Maximiser (current interest rate is 5.5%)
- Make a deposit into the Savings Maximiser
Then you get your $75 the following month when the promotion is running. Promotion periods vary. The current promotion runs until 31 March 2024.
Ask Companies
Many companies have funds where they donate to good causes.
Some companies with refer a friend programs are also willing to set up a fundraiser of sorts.
Since they already have the option to refer a friend, you could opt to donate the money you make or save with the refer a friend option.
Otherwise, you can ask them directly if you could create a fundraiser where the club gets a donation for anyone who uses their services.
Check if they have an affiliate program and you might be able to use that to fundraise.
A few examples:
HelloFresh offers a free box to new customers as a referral program but they also have an affiliate program.
EveryPlate offers a free box to new customers through their program and have an affiliate option.
Many companies have offers like this and if you have a good way to promote it, you can generate some money for your fundraiser while saving people money too.
Resell
Have a huge online or in-person garage sale.
Ask anyone to donate things they don’t want anymore then sell them on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Gumtree, niche Facebook groups and so on.
Make it clear this is what you are doing with any donations and have a central place for them to be dropped off.
Or offer to pick up if you have the time and capacity to do that. It takes a bit of work but can make decent money.
Everything will need to be cleaned, photographed and listed. I share how I do it and all my tips in How to Make Over $10,000 a Month Reselling.
Cash in Cans
Ask friends, family and neighbours for their cans and cash them in.
It costs them nothing and you can get 10c per can. It might not seem like a lot but it can add up quickly.
We often collect cans on walks and usually cash in about $30 worth each time we do it.
My kids enjoy collecting them and putting them into the machine.
Books
It used to be difficult to put together fundraiser books such as cookbooks with everyone’s favourite recipes.
Now, if you can get the recipes or images it is easy to sell them on Amazon. Plus they can continue to be sold and raise funds from complete strangers.
You don’t need to print them and try to sell all of the copies. Instead, you upload the file and can sell either eBooks or print books.
If you have the time, you can record and turn it into an audiobook as well.
There is no cost other than time to set it all up. You get charged a fee per sale but can make good money with this if you market it well.
Note: The recipe book example is just one idea. You can do it on anything related to your club such as best cricketing tips or 101 ideas to do XYZ.
Other Methods
The above are easier, less stressful ways for people to fundraise that don’t put pressure on anyone’s finances.
However, if you prefer there are loads of traditional options for fundraising such as food drives, trivia nights, raffles, fetes, beauty products etc.
What you do and how effective it is will depend on who you are trying to get to donate, what matters to them and what they are interested.
The more aligned a cause and the form of fundraising is to them, the more likely they are to get involved.
How do you fundraise and what do you fundraise for?
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