3 fool proof fundraising ideas – plus, share your ideas here!
It’s almost July and that means it’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s kick-off season. I’ve been travelling around to all our walk communities to attend kick-off events where I get a chance to meet walkers and team captains and provide yard signs, car magnets, posters and buttons to all those participants who want to help us spread the word about the Walk.
After visits to kick-offs in Petaluma, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, I’ve already accumulated a wealth of new fundraising ideas to share with everyone. I thought I’d just share with you a few of my favorites here today with a promise of more to come in the future.
Idea #1: Embarrass your Exec
Ever wonder how much your colleagues would pay to see your CEO dye his hair purple? I can tell you . . . A LOT. This is an easy way to raise funds and have fun. In the past couple of years I’ve heard all kinds of great stories of these types of fundraisers. One CEO dyed his hair purple, another offered to shave his head, and rumor has it our own CEO may agree to make a rap video – all in the name of the cause. It’s pretty easy to execute an idea like this – simply set a fundraising goal and ask colleagues to donate to get to that level. If the goal is reached, your leader will perform whatever feat of embarrassment was set forth. If the feat is embarrassing enough, I can assure you that your colleagues will donate to reach that goal.
Idea #2: High Five a Colleague
This one I picked up at the Elan Team Kick-Off. Remember in high school in February you could buy a flower for someone and they would deliver it to their classroom on Valentine’s Day? This is a similar concept. For $5 you can “High Five” a colleague. Staff organizing the fundraiser will then deliver a little congratulatory note to that colleague on a particular Friday. Donate $10 and the colleague gets a note and a cookie! Elan raised over $3000 with this fundraiser. I thought it was a really creative and easy to execute idea.
Idea #3: Keep the Change
At our kick-off in San Francisco, one of our top team captains, Joanne Dowell, shared this idea with me. Joanne owns a shop and she asks customers who are paying by credit card if they’d like to round up their total with the extra change going into a Walk to End Alzheimer’s donation jar on her counter. Almost all customers say yes and sometimes even decide to put more in the jar then the change their donating by rounding up. Joanne has already raised $30 this month with her keep the change fundraiser.
What great fundraising idea do you have to share? We are always looking for creative ideas to share with other team captains and walkers so feel free to email us at walk@alznorcal.org with your great ones.
And be sure to come to a kick-off event near you! We’ve got kick-offs coming up in Monterey, Manteca, Redding, San Jose, Reno, Fresno, and Sacramento.
Thanks for sharing these great ideas! I hope to get busy and try a few!!