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Are you looking for creative ways to give back to the community? This post covers five crafty fundraising ideas that you can use to raise money for your favorite cause or charity.
Sell Your Crafts/Art
If you’re already crafting and want to raise money for a local charity/cause, you can donate a portion of your sales to that organization. Or you can create a new product available for a limited time, where all the profit goes to the charity of your choice.
Where I am, churches host pierogi fundraisers where individual church members get together, make pierogies, and sell them. (Also, if you haven’t tasted pierogies, you’re missing out, I promise you.) Why don’t you do the same thing with handmade goods? Get a group together and make catnip stuffed cat toys, cloth dolls, wooden toys, etc., then sell them with the intent to support a charity. Consider making a craft that is in some way relevant to the charity – pet toys for an animal shelter, scrunchies to support a women’s organization, lanyards or keychains to support an organization that works with the homeless population in your city, etc. There are tons of options; get creative!
Host a Craft-a-thon
There are two main ways to organize a “craft-a-thon”.
In the first, people would register and pay a fee to participate. On the day of the event, everyone would gather at the event venue, and over a predetermined period (like 24 hours!), they would craft. You can either have them bring their own crafting projects/materials, or you can provide the project and the materials. People are eliminated when they fall asleep, stop crafting, or give up. The last one crafting gets a prize. (Perhaps a gift certificate to your local arts & crafts store!) Good times to hold a craft-a-thon like this, particularly if people are working on their own crafts, would be late September/early October when the handmade businesses are working on prepping their holiday stock.
In the second craft-a-thon, you have people collect pledges. You can have everyone working on the same type of thing (think the Gilmore Girls knit-a-thon!) or everyone can work on their own projects. If someone is knitting they might collect pledges by the skein of yarn, for example, and if someone is sewing, they might collect pledges by the number of completed projects. There are tons of options; choose one that you think will appeal most to your local community.
Why not try both and see which one works better for your cause?
Paint a Brick, Tile, or Handprint Mural
If you’re fundraising for an organization that has property and is fundraising for some sort of construction—a new facility, a new playground, etc.—this is a fun option that will showcase the contribution of donors for years to come.
The general idea is that you offer donors the opportunity to paint a brick, add to a mural, add their handprint to a mural, or decorate a tile that will be featured in the new construction. The bricks could be used to build a fancy, decorative half-wall along the walkway to the new playground or park. Maybe you have room for a handprint mural inside (or outside!) the front doors of the new building welcoming visitors with bright colors. Or perhaps you get people to paint tiles that can be incorporated into a new floor that leads to the volunteer center or some other specific place.
Assign a value to each brick, tile, or handprint. For example, a donation of $50 or more could be the cut-off for decorating a brick or tile. Donors can decorate the brick themselves, or let someone else—like a friend, their kid, etc.—decorate it in their place.
Make sure you know how you’ll preserve the artwork. Get the appropriate paint for the surface, and look into what methods you’ll need to seal the paint against the elements if it’s outside.
Have a Paint Night
Paint night fundraisers are great because they require very little prep, and they don’t have to cost much to run. Get a space (community centers are often relatively inexpensive), some supplies, and someone to lead the session. You’ll likely have to pay them some sort of honorarium or fee unless you’re fundraising for a cause they also support and they want to instruct the class for free. (But assume that you’ll be paying them. Always assume you’re paying someone!) Depending on your location, you can sell tickets between $20 and $50. Attendees will come and be guided in painting their own masterpieces.
You can also do this with other mediums—clay, other types of paper crafts, beading, etc. Make sure whatever you’re charging not only covers all your expenses but leaves room for profit. This is, after all, a fundraiser. A good benchmark is 50%. If the event costs you $10 per person to run, for example, your ticket price should be at least $20.
Host a Craft Sale
Craft sales are an awesome way to fundraise and support your local crafting community—but they’re a time-consuming project that can also be quite expensive depending on whether or not you have a venue you can use and channels for free advertising. (Click here to check out my post on what it cost to run the last craft sale I organized.)
However, if you’re fundraising for a charity that has a space you can use, and they have a large social media following to which you can advertise the event, a craft sale can be a fun option for a larger fundraising event. Crafters pay for their space, you can charge an admission fee (although if you can avoid it, you’ll get more people in the door to shop!)
You can make a difference with your art!
Have you ever hosted a fundraiser before? Will you try any of these fun ideas and if so, what charity will it be in support of? Let me know in the comments!
PS. I sell a digital event planning workbook on one of my Etsy shops; it’s one of my best-selling digital products! Check it out here, and use the code SERIALCREATIVE for 25% off!
