Office Fundraising Ideas

With rooms full of adults with disposable income, the office is one of the best places to organize a simple fundraiser to benefit a local nonprofit. At the same time, fundraising events in the office is a great way to build camaraderie among co-workers, especially between departments that do not interact with each other often. With that in mind, here are a few fundraising ideas you can try out in your office:

Poker Tournament

Do co-workers brag about being the next Phil Ivey or Liv Boeree? Test everyone’s poker chops by organizing a poker tournament for the company. Consider setting a $100-$500 buy in, with the overall champion winning half the collection while the other half is donated to a nonprofit the office supports.

“Ducky Tie” Contest

Inspired by an episode from “How I Met Your Mother”, this idea involves having employees design silly neckties. The entries are then displayed in a central area for voting. Each vote costs a dollar. Once a winner has been determined, a manager or executive must wear the tie for a month.

Match It Challenge

Do you need an extra shot of inspiration? Ask an executive if the company is willing to match whatever amount you and your co-workers raise. Needless to say, this is a fantastic way to raise a large amount of money quickly.

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Rally Support for Your Cause

Every legit fundraiser pretty much supports an actual charitable cause. However, as much as donors want a good cause to succeed, they can only provide so much support. Yet you are more likely to secure people’s support by highlighting the timeliness and relevance of your campaign. Here are a few tactics you can use.

Mind the Awareness Calendar

Every month plays host to a number of cause awareness events. Congress used to delegate which event belongs to a particular month, but only the Senate maintains this practice today. Breast cancer, AIDS, and consumer protection awareness months are put in place by federal proclamations.

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Christmas Fundraising Ideas

As they say, Christmas is the season for giving—and who better to give to than to people in need. Fortunately, there are many activities you can do to raise funds for donation to charities you support. Below are a few of them:

Sell Christmas Decorations

If you’re crafty, you can create handmade decorations like ornaments or wreaths. You can then sell your finished products to friends and families to generate money. Be sure to mention that you’re doing this for charity—they’ll be more likely to support your cause.

Sponsor a Christmas party

You can also visit your local children’s center and sponsor a Christmas party there. Bring food and host games wherein kids stand to win a prize. You don’t have to go it alone, though—your friends and neighbors can cook potluck meals for the event or provide the gifts to be given away.

Sell Off Unused Stuff

Are your bookshelves laden with too many books? Is your closet barely able to close because of the sheer amount of clothes in it? Then consider selling off your unused belongings to raise cash for charity. Thankfully, there are now online platforms like eBay Giving Works where you can earmark part or all of the proceeds for one of its many partner charities and nonprofits. 

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Safe Toy & Gift Fundraisers

December is Safe Toys and Gifts Awareness Month, which makes the topic a great theme for your upcoming fundraisers. The concept would particularly be fitting if you’re planning an online fundraising for nonprofits, whose cause is related to child welfare or disabilities. Here are some ideas you can try which can be carried out (in one or more ways):

• Solicit toys or gift items that are labelled/proven safe or recommended for certain age groups, and sell them online. For instance, you can limit the donations to items for newborns or for toddlers. Aside from playthings, you can also look for accessories or apparel for children, baby essentials like strollers or diaper bags, etc. Make sure that all items are made of safe materials and designed to be non-hazardous to its users.
• Alternatively, sell appropriate toys or gifts for children with disabilities, such as talking dolls for children with blindness or interactive books and gadgets for children with autism or attention deficit disorders (ADD). Research the items that would truly be beneficial or appreciated by kids with special needs, so you know what you will solicit.
• As another variety to the selling event, let generous individuals or corporations buy these toys and gifts for the beneficiaries of your organization. If you don’t have any yet, partner with orphanages, special education schools, and other institutions to find recipients for the sponsored gifts.

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Fundraisers for Animal Welfare

Animal welfare nonprofits have always been a favorite charity, which is why it’s not surprising for such groups to be well-received and supported by philanthropic people. In fact, a nonprofit blog found that pet rescues and animal rights groups were the most popular on social media in a 2011 study. Causes like protecting either wildlife or domestic animals surely compel people to act and take a stand.

Of course, even if animal welfare groups are popular, they still need to raise ample funds for their projects and operations. Here are some charity fundraiser ideas you can take inspiration from:

Fashion for Your Furry Friends Sale

Find (donated) stylish pet clothes and chic accessories, and sell them through a popular online charity platform. If you have valuable items like apparel or carriers with designer labels, auction them off for larger proceeds.

Send-a-Snuggle Program

Take your cute and sweet pets to offices as instant pick-me-ups for employees and executives. The allotted snuggle time can be based on their donation, such as $100 for 30 minutes, $200 for an hour, etc.

Makeover a Shelter Fundraiser

Allot your proceeds to renovating a local animal shelter or clinic by selling donated items or letting your supporters buy construction materials and decorations. You can hold the sale on eBay Giving Works’ platform, so aside from buying, supporters can also donate additional money at checkout.

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Using Online Auction Sites

In the past, the traditional way for most non-profit organizations to raise funds was to hold a live auction, a concert, or a show. Unless you have loads of sponsors, you can incur a high expense in staging such events. For auctions, you have to solicit items, spend for advertisements, rent a venue, hire an auction host, and provide food. Fortunately, online auction websites do away with these expenses. Here’s how you can use an online auction:

Familiarize yourself with the site’s policy.

The World Wide Web has an abundant list of tools for you to have your online auction, but remember, each one has a different set of policies and guidelines. Before you advertise your upcoming event, be sure to learn about your preferred tool’s policies and guidelines first. This way, you can run things smoothly.

Prepare winning listings.

You may have acquired several items that many people may find interesting, but if you don’t provide attention-grabbing listings for them, you might end up with no bids. Create a title and description that’s clear and complete, and provide high-quality images. Don’t let viewers guess what the items are.

Set a listing duration.

Set a clear deadline on when your listings end. Doing so will create a sense of urgency and encourage people to constantly monitor the biddings. Some online auction websites allow listings for as long as seven days, but expect some of them to charge you fees when you want to extend.

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Two Tips for P2P Fundraising

Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising is one of the biggest trends in the nonprofit industry (think Ice Bucket Challenge). For those who do not know, P2P fundraising is when supporters raise money by reaching out to their friends and family. In that sense, P2P reaches new markets in a way that they prefer to be engaged: by learning about the nonprofit and its efforts from someone they know personally.

The benefits to P2P fundraising are obvious. People are more inclined to give money to friends and family members. As such, it appears to have a promising future when it is used as a fundraising strategy. So how do you do this approach effectively? Here are two tips:

Social media has a major impact on the effectiveness of a P2P campaign

While it may be impossible to replicate the Ice Bucket Challenge’s success, that shouldn’t discourage you to promote your cause via a strategic social media campaign. Focus on creating a campaign with a brief and simple message that can encourage and mobilize supporters to share your cause with their social media network.

Make sure your campaign catches the attention of the millennial generation

As a whole, the millennial demographic is the most connected with their social media networks. Engaging with them allows for easy promoting and sharing of your organization and its cause.

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Digital Age Philanthropy

Philanthropy, or the act of donating money or goods to benefit the lives of other people, is a practice that has gone on for ages. All sorts of entities, from large conglomerates to entire governments, to mere individuals, have been donating whatever they can since time immemorial to make life better for other people. The good news is that philanthropy has evolved with the times—as the landscape of connectivity changes because of technology, so has philanthropy.

If you work in the nonprofit industry, you’d have likely seen how a number of mainstream nonprofits and foundations started shifting their focus on ensuring the proper management of digital assets and infrastructure. Nowadays, nonprofits have specific arms whose sole purpose is to make it easy for people to donate online. As such, donating these days requires nothing more than a few clicks of a mouse.

It would be interesting to see how much the act of philanthropy would change further as technology continues to develop. Hopefully, in the future, people would integrate the act of giving into their daily activities as much as technology—and their generous hearts—would allow. This will surely generate more funds for charity, but ultimately, it’s all about knowing that you’ve done something good and you’ve done so without so much of an effort. That is technology’s greatest benefit.

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Top 2 Sources for Auction Items

Our eBay Giving Works program provides a great opportunity for you to auction great items at great prices and support a noble cause along the way. That being said, it can be a bit tricky to choose items that are guaranteed to get good bids. If you have no idea where to get your auction items, we recommend that you start with these places:

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Today’s Most Popular Charities

Charities don’t entirely rely on popularity to support their cause, but nobody can deny that some charity groups are more popular than others. For 2014, three of the most renowned nonprofits in the U.S. are The ALS Association, the Wounded Warrior Project, and the American Red Cross.

The ALS Association was created in 1985 to help rid the world of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (hence the name), a degenerative disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, eventually leading to partial or total paralysis. The Association made waves this year because of their Ice Bucket Challenge, which dared people to dump a bucket of ice water over their heads and donate to the cause.

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