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Creative Fundraising

Fundraising can become, particularly if the organization has to rely on this type of funding fairly often and they continually use the same fundraisers. The fundraising volunteers as well as the community become bored and the success begins to falter. Creative fundraising ideas can help bring the fun and funds flowing from the fundraiser again.

Typical fundraisers include carwashes, candy bar sales, and gift-wrap and novelty catalog sales. These have been used so many times that many people simply hate to see a student coming toward them armed with goodies and a big smile. Sometimes they will purchase the least expensive item they can find simply to be donating to the cause.

A more successful fundraising scenario would be one where the event or project is creative and new, whether it is a new fundraising event or a new product that is being sold.

There are many creative fundraising ideas that have already been shown to be effective at raising funds. When the community is accepting of the fundraising project they will ultimately spend more money and increase the project's success exponentially.

Creative fundraising ideas include festivals that are family friendly. These can be centered on a competition such as a barbecue cook-off or simply be a day of arts, crafts, food and fun with all proceeds going to the fundraiser. Groups can add their own creative ideas to these types of events by adding entertainment such as music, magicians or other arts.

Sales fundraisers will always be a part of the fundraising process. However, to make a sales fundraiser works requires being more creative than ever. If the product being sold is not something that the community wants or uses then the sales of that product are going to be excellent.

The best example of a creative sales fundraising project that supplies people with a product that they will use is Fun Pasta. This fundraiser is a catalog sales fundraiser for pasta in a variety of fun shapes.

Pasta is a nutritious product that can be found in the pantries of most every home. It is served in such a variety of dishes that often there is more than one package on the shelf. This alone makes Fun Pasta a fundraising project with a successful outcome right from the start.

The fun shapes that are featured, over two hundred to choose from, make the product both creative and useful at the same time. Furthermore, because the pasta has a shelf life of up to two years, customers will feel secure purchasing several different shapes to use throughout the year.

Other creative sales ideas for fundraisers don't have to come from fundraising companies. Organizations can draw on the talent and creativity of their members to come up with fundraising ideas such as handcrafted hair barrettes, Christmas ornaments that are handmade and a host of other craft ideas that can be made and donated to the fundraiser.

These types of fundraisers can be handled one or two ways. The group members can volunteer their time and supplies to the fundraiser or the group can agree to subsidize the materials for the craft and volunteers only have to donate their time. Of course, total donation of both materials and time results in a higher profit, but this might not always be feasible.

The bottom line remains the same, in order to collect the most funds from the project it needs to be a creative project that offers something new and different or is a project that offers something that people use often. A creative fundraising project will keep friends and family from turning the lights off and pretending not to be home when volunteers go knocking.