Fundraising companies are organizations that are involved in gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies.
Even though fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather money for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for for-profit enterprises. Fundraising companies make loads of money annually in the United States.
Statistics show that charitable giving by individuals in the U.S. was estimated to be $286.65 billion in 2017. Stock giving is the fastest growing form of donation. It was up 62 percent year over year to $21.07 billion, compared to the 1.5 percent for all of charity fundraising activities.
There are many reasons why an organization may want to raise funds and interestingly, when the reasons for raising the funds is towards the benefit of the larger community, it makes it easier for people in the community to rally round the organization to contribute their quota no matter how little it is.
Fundraising organizations make money mostly by asking for donations through face-to-face fundraising, such as door-knocking and selling of goods and services.
In recent years though, newer forms such as online fundraising or reformed version of grassroots fundraising have emerged. Having said that, here are some of the ways or better still ideas a fundraising company can leverage on to make money.
44 Smart Ways Fundraising Companies Make Money
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Organize Alumni Networking Luncheon
Fundraising companies make money by organizing alumni networking luncheon with the sole aim of raising money for their organization.
The fact is that when you bring together a group of alumni for a dinner or luncheon, it will give you the opportunity to ask for donations especially if you have a project that they can easily buy into. Your ability to reach out to loads of people who are in your network will go a long way to determine the amount of money you can raise.
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Organize Annual Collection Event
Fundraising companies make money by organizing an annual collection event. An annual collection event is like a piggy bank approach of raising money. You can either do it on an individual, family, or community basis. Just ensure you devote a donation box, and keep making donations every now and then when you come across an unspent penny or a cent in your pocket.
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Organize Matching Gift
Fundraising companies make money by organizing matching gift. With this idea, all you have to do is to ask a corporation or an individual to match any donation your organization collects in a specified amount of time. Then, you go ahead to contact potential donors to match the gift as listed.
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Anniversary or Birthday Pledge
As a fundraising firm owner, if you usually receive gifts from your family and friends during your birthday or anniversary, all you need to do if you want to raise funds for your organization is to ask for donations to a favorite cause instead of birthday gifts or anniversary gifts.
You will be amazed at how much you can raise from this idea especially if you have rich people or organizations in your network who usually give you gifts during your birthday or anniversary.
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Organize Who’s Got Talent Show
Fundraising companies make money by organizing events such as who’s got talent show. With this type of event, you should make sure that the participants come from various interests as it relates to their talents. With that, you can easily seek sponsorship and also collect entry fee for each act and sell tickets.
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Give it Up
Fundraising companies make money by leveraging on the Give it Up Idea. All you need to do in this regard is to appeal to sponsors to give up a regular activity for a month and donate the money they save to the designated cause you are pursuing.
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Organize Capital Campaign
Fundraising companies make money by organizing capital campaign. With capital campaign, you are expected to set a goal and ask people you know can afford to give to your cause by appealing to their goodwill. With this idea, you will be able to avoid an endless slew of small fundraisers.
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Social Media Call
Fundraising companies make money by leveraging on social media call. With social media, you can do a lot and interestingly all you need to do is to inform potential donors about your fundraising needs and what you want to use the funds generated to do, and you can do this through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter et al.
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Sell Gift Items
Another means fundraising companies make money is by selling gift items to the general public. Please note that you are not going to be selling at the regular price but at a premium price with a bid to earn more than the cost price of the gift items being sold.
You can also collect new and gently used items from your volunteers and resell them in gift baskets at a holiday shop.
10. Dance for Charity
Fundraising companies make money by organizing dance teams to dance for charity. This is one of the most fun and popular ideas. Not only does it raise funds in an interesting way, but it also provides a chance for local dancers to present their talent to the public.
Since so many groups of people are involved, it is easy to get more sponsorship. All you need to do is make arrangements for venue and logistics. The tickets, along with donations will fetch you enough funds.
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Consignment Garage Sales
Fundraising companies also make money by organizing consignment garage sales. Well, if you can gather enough sellable used items from your house, or from your neighbors’, you can do some good charity fundraising by putting them on a sale. You could invite other people to set up a stall at a minimal charge in the space you organized.
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Street Performance
Fundraising companies make money by leveraging on street dance performance. All you need to do is to ensure that you have a talented dance team that can easily entertain the public. Please note that you’ll need to find a well populated area (and make sure you have a license if needed), make a sign, and start fundraising.
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Organize Community Charity Car Wash
If your business is in and around a residential estate, then one of the ways you can fundraise for your project or your firm is to organize community charity car wash and then ask the car owners to contribute to the cause you are pursuing.
Just ensure that you create the needed awareness and go about with clearly designed and printed banners that state what you and your team members are up to.
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Organize Charity Movie Night
Fundraising companies make money by organizing charity movie night. All you need to do in this regard is to look for a location, get a projector, and have a movie night!
With this idea, you can easily raise funds via asking for entry donations and selling movie snacks; popcorn, sweets and drinks. Please note that you would have told them beforehand that you are raising money for your fundraising company.
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Design and Sell Your Company’s Customized Wrist Bands
Another way fundraising companies make money is by designing and selling their organization’s customized wrist bands to the public. Interestingly, colorful wristbands that have people’s names on them are a fun and interesting way to collect funds.
The best part is that these also create awareness about your cause. You can buy these at local stores for a pretty reasonable price when you buy wholesale.
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Partner with Telecommunication Companies
Fundraising companies can also make money by partnering with telecommunication companies to raise money via text messages. With this idea, you will be able to make use of a service that allows your organization to receive donations of $5 to $10 by text messages.
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Use of Scratch Cards
Fundraising companies can also make money with the use of scratch cards. With Scratch Cards, your donors will receive a sheet of coupons for a small donation of a few dollars. But you should be able to convince them that the monies generated will be used for a worthy cause.
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Organize Easter Egg Delivery Fundraiser
Another means fundraising companies make money is by organizing Easter egg delivery. If you wish to do something novel, something more than just painting Easter eggs, you can take orders for painting the ones filled with sweets to be delivered at clients’ doorsteps for an Easter morning surprise for their children. It doesn’t take much more effort than painting, but does fetch more donations.
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Give Away the Best Seat in the House
Fundraising companies make money by giving away the best seats in any event they organize. If you are looking towards organizing an event or competition, all you need to do is to try to get one of the local stores or to donate a comfy couch for the event. Now put up a raffle for this, the best seat in the house. This can be a regular fundraising idea each season.
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Walk for a Cause
Another make and popular means of making money by fundraising companies is by organizing walking for a cause event. Interestingly, if you walk for a cause that is dear to the heart of the community, then it will be easy for you to get sponsorship and raise funds for your firm.
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Organize Community Lawn Mowing
Fundraising companies make money by organizing community lawn mowing. Trust me, people will appreciate it if some group of people volunteer to mow their lawn without charging them but just asking for a donation.
This type of idea is suitable if you are in a community or neighborhood that is filled with people with purchasing power. But you must make sure that you sensitize the community before embarking on this exercise or else it will backlash.
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Organize Marathon for People in Your Community
Fundraising companies make money by organizing marathon for people. Organizing marathon for charity or fundraising cause is a popular fundraising idea that has always delivered. Marathons for football, tennis, table tennis, badminton, or any sport that interests a lot of people can work for you. Get sponsorships from sports related sponsors, hire a place, and get ready to raise some massive funds for your dance studio.
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Leverage on Match Giving
Fundraising companies make money by leveraging on match giving. This idea works pretty well in the United States of America and the United Kingdom and the idea has brought in a lot of money for different charities.
This is how it works; you fundraise a sum of money through another fundraising idea and you get a company to agree to match whatever sum you raise. This doubles the amount that you would have ended with. The company will get increased exposure as well as helping a great cause.
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Make Use of Payroll Donation
Fundraising companies make money by making use of payroll donation. This type of idea is suitable only if you have business relationship with a corporate organization. Trust me, fundraising within an organization is an incredible idea if you can pull it off.
If you a family member or friend own a company, a store, or any business that involves employees, you can float a program that lets them donate via payroll. As soon as their salaries are credited, the donations will be legally transferred for charity. The best part is that they do not have to pay taxes on it.
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Volunteer a Skill
Another means fundraising companies make money is by volunteering a skill in their community. If you have a team that has skills that are in high demand in your community, then you can easily leverage on this idea to raise money for your company. The best part of this is that the work involved is varied.
Just convince workers or team members to stay one extra hour, or to come in early and teach one special skill like cooking, baking, knitting, playing guitar, dancing, or whatever talent you can find at work. Colleagues who wish to learn can pay a nominal fee each week, and that is the amount that goes for charity.
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Community Cleaning Services
Fundraising companies also make money by organizing community cleaning services. You can do this by encouraging your team members, friends and family members to volunteer to clean your community for free but by asking for freewill donations from residents of the community.
The truth is that who doesn’t like a clean vicinity? So, get out on a cleaning spree, and clean up your local area. Just make sure you have your collection buckets that publicize the cause that you support. Locals, as well the passers-by, are likely to donate for such a noble gesture.
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Go The 50 – 50 Club Way
Fundraising companies make money by organizing ‘GO The 50 – 50 Club Way”. This type of fundraising idea is perhaps as old as the name fundraising; people have been using it from time immemorial. This is how it works; you get everyone to donate a pound a month.
You take out a draw every month and the winner take home half the value of the total donated amount. Interestingly, you do not need a license to organize this type of event.
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Leverage on The Unrivalled Raffle
Another means fundraising companies make money is by leveraging on the unrivalled raffle approach. All you need to do in this regard is to sell raffle tickets to people in and around your community with the hope that they are going to win gifts that will be far more than the money they spent purchasing the raffle draw ticket.
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Silent Auction
Fundraising companies make money by adopting the silent auction approach. Silent auction is a type of charity auction that does not require an auctioneer. As matter of fact, all the bids are made on bid sheets or via mobile phones. Silent auctions can be the most ideal type of auction for nonprofits because there are no overt displays of wealth. Donors can place their bids at their own discretion.
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Service Auction
Another means fundraising companies make money is via Service Auction. This is how it works; you are going to partner with local businesses that will be willing to offer an in-kind donation of their services. What you need to do is to auction off their services. The businesses get free advertising, and you raise money for your charity.
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Can and Bottle Drive Campaign
Fundraising companies make money by leveraging on the Can and Bottle Drive Campaign. This is how this idea works, encourage students in your community to collect as many used cans and bottles they can find. The student who collects the most wins a prize, and everything they collect can be turned in to a recycling center for funds – plus it helps keep parks and streets clean.
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Door-to-door for Change
Another means fundraising companies make money is via door-to-door for change. This is how this idea works, encourage your workers, team members and volunteers go door to door collecting loose change. Great as a contest to see who can collect the most. If you have kids as part of your volunteers, please make sure they go in groups of two or more, for safety.
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Have Lunch with a Celebrity
Fundraising companies make money by organizing lunch with celebrities. If you have a connection with a celebrity in your city, you can invite the celebrity to a lunch and then sell raffle tickets to people in the community and the winner wins a lunch with the celebrity.
Please note that even though you are not going to be paying the celebrity, but you must ensure that you inform the celebrity of your intention to raise money with his presence. Although some of them might want to charge appearance fee.
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Themed Gift Basket Auction
Another means fundraising companies make money is via the themed gift basket auction approach. This is how it works; you will put together themed gift baskets to auction to the general public, the themed gift basket can be dance related, Halloween, Christmas or any related theme that can attract people in your community.
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Organize Jail and Bail
Fundraising companies make money by organizing jail and bail event. If you are good at organizing events that usually attract loads of people, then one of the options you can leverage on to generate funds for your dance studio is to leverage on the jail and bail approach.
This is how it works, people at your event will pay some money to put someone in “jail”. People in jail have to pay or raise funds on your crowdfunding website to be bailed out.
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Donor Wall Recognition
Another means fundraising companies make money is the donor wall recognition approach. Trust me, donor recognition walls are an important tool for nonprofit organizations to thank their donors and inspire visitors. These walls also give organizations the chance to tell their stories.
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Mystery Box Raffle
Fundraising companies also make money via the mystery box raffle concept. All you need to do is to put together a mystery box of goods and then sell tickets to the general public especially to those who are interested in winning the mystery box. When you are done selling the tickets, then a raffle draw will be conducted and it is going to be a Winner takes all affair.
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Online and Mobile Fundraising
Another means fundraising companies make money is via online and mobile platforms. Online and mobile fundraising had become a popular fundraising method over the last few years due to its accessibility.
Fundraising organizations are using mobile and online fundraising providers to attract donors around the globe. Common online and mobile fundraising methods include online donation pages, text to give, mobile silent auctions, and peer to peer fundraising.
Since 2016, online giving has grown by 17 percent in the United States. In 2018, digital fundraising accounted for 8.5 percent percent of charitable donations and 24 percent of online donations were made on a mobile device in the United States.
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Accountable Fundraising Method
Fundraising companies also make money by leveraging on accountable fundraising method. Some non-profit organizations demonstrate greater accountability by showing donors the direct impact of their fundraising efforts. This accountability may come in the form of a vote, where the members select a specific program or charity they would like their money to go to.
Another example is put in place a mechanism which allows donors to constraint usage of funds toward a specific purpose and closely monitor/allow spending to ensure proper usage.
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Engage in Advocacy Campaign
Lastly, fundraising companies make money by engaging in advocacy campaigns. Despite the fact that advocacy is not in principle a fundraising idea, but that does not rule out the fact that raising awareness and funds go hand-in-hand.
No matter how you’re raising funds, it’s important to share your cause if you want to raise money. Plus, by creating advocacy opportunities that addresses a cause in your community, you’re providing your donors with other ways to support your nonprofit.