To ask for fundraising ideas for a charity night I'm hosting

[soloula]

Posting here for traffic as I'm beginning to panic at the task ahead...

Holding a fundraiser next weekend in a local hall and we're trying to think of games and activities to raise a wee bit more money on the night o or and above the ticket sales. So far we've got standing bingo, a table quiz, find the joker card board, guess the dolls name and a raffle. Is there anything else that would be fun for people to join in with that wouldn't take to much effort/outlay to run and not interrupt the flow of the night too much? Or anything better than what we've got planned already. I'm not used to going to nights like this, never mind organising it so I don't know what works or not.

Any ideas really appreciated. We're trying to raise funds for my friend who needs treatment for stage 4 cervical cancer. She's only 25 and its horrible what shes had to deal with since her diagnosis last year. Hoping to make our wee night a night success for her.

Silent auction? If you can get a couple of decent prizes donated people can write their best bid (and contact details) in an envelope over the evening. At the end of the night, the highest bid for each wins. I’ve seen this done for things like sports memorabilia, balloon rides, magnums of champagne etc. Maybe a tombola for other lower value prizes (chocolates, wine, perfume etc)

Tombola - bottle tombola goes well at our school fayre

Get a bottle of vodka or whisky something thats expensive and people wont just buy donated from somewhere they get people to chuck a £1 coin at it and the closest wins
We made over £200 doing that with a bottle of whisky

Guess the number of sweets in a jar? Wine or water stall...name the teddy bear,,,face painting...cake stall..

£50 note in an envelope, numbers 00 through to 99 on the outside of the envelope. £1 a go, the winner is the person who has the last 2 serial numbers correct on the £50 note. They win the £50 note, you make £50.

Wine or water stall? Not heard of that one. Off to Google it just now...

Loving some of the other suggestions too - the £1 to the bottle. Dead simple but I can see folk getting quite competitive with that and spending more money.

Keep the ideas coming...

Definitely ask local business to donate prizes.

We've got loads of raffle prizes. That's one thing we've definitely got covered. Fortunately. Should make a decent amount from the raffle hopefully.

What do you have as your main raffle prize?

How about the heads/ tails game .
www.fundraiserinsight.org/ideas/heads-or-tails.html

Is fun and is easy.

Was also going to suggest heads/tails. It’s quick and gets you a lot of money as long as all or most of your guests don’t mind paying up to play.

I know you said you have lots of raffle prizes but one we've used that always makes enormous amounts of money in ticket sales is the wheelbarrow of booze (all donated). It's something that lots of people want to win and will spend much more on tickets than for just a normal raffle. Another option could be a promise auction. People donate things like a day's gardening, a night's babysitting, a homemade cake, a week's dog walking, a day's cleaning, use of holiday home, catering for a dinner party, etc, whatever their skill set is and then people bid for them in an auction or you could do a silent auction for them. Good luck!

Main raffle prize is a weekend hire of a luxury camper van. Have a couple of other overnights, mini spa breaks, theatre tickets and other higher end prizes as well as your usual beauty, restaurant etc vouchers. We've been really lucky how generous everyone has been :)

Loving the heads and tails. Will suggest that to my friends.

Barrow of booze is brilliant too.

Probably a bit too late for a promise auction but that could be something we do for a future fundraiser.

OP HI ..the wine and water stall is something our school do...It comprises of bottles of wine say 20 bottles hidden in upside down bottle bags...then maybe 50 bottles of water hidden in upside down wine bags,,,all you can see is the bottom of bottles covered by the wine bags so you pay your £1 and pick a bottle bag! Personally though I have never won any wine! Its good fun though and if people donate empty bottles of wine for you in advance it helps cos these can be filled with water if you take the labels off...please note this is not an excuse should you decide to try this to go out and drink 50 bottles f wine for your stall next week...however tempting it might be!!!!!!!!!! Good Luck what ever you do and I wish you loads of success

I think a raffle with big ticket items is a good low effort/high return way to raise money. People will be more willing to buy a handful of low cost tickets then to commit to the time and cost of a big event.

The trick is setting your sights high in terms of the prizes. Go to local businesses that your ticket holders would frequent anyway- emphasise the publicity and free advertising they will get if their prize is advertised on every flyer, ticket, Facebook post etc. also go to large businesses- ask Apple for iPads etc. start early, be persuasive, show up in person don't just email.

Good luck raising money for your poor friend. How heartbreaking

Human fruit machine can be popular, although it needs three people. People pay to have a go on the machine: have three volunteers side by side, each with a box of fruits (or pictures of fruit). On a signal such as a punter ringing a bell, they each make fruit machine noises, and hold up a piece of fruit: three matching fruits are a win, or two matching fruits could mean another go. Those holding up the fruit shouldn't be able to see what the others are holding up, so you need partitions between them, or they can be blindfolded.

Heads and tails raises a fortune at our sports club end of season dinner 👍 £1 to play, champagne to the dinner. Usually gave about 3 games :)

Dinner? Winner!

A bottle of alcohol. Everyone rolls £1 coins towards it. Whoever is the closest wins.

100 square... write numbers 1-100 on a whiteboard everyone pays 1 quid to guess a square.. pick a square before hand as the winner write down in an envelope. Once all the squares are bought a winner is picked to win 50 quid with the other 50 going to the fund.. can do it over and over if there are still people wanting to play after the first round.

Throw wet sponges at someone?? 3 sponges for a pound. Person sits in chair and allows sponges to be thrown at them... helps if you have a local teacher, vicar, or group leader willing to sit in the chair.

You should make the best raffle prizes a silent auction.

One of the best fundraising things I have ever seen was at a small festival in aid of the local lifeboat. They had a couple of people dressed as Star Wars storm troopers and a small "jail" set up. People could fill an "arrest warrant" and pay a pound and the storm troopers would then go "arrest" the person they nominated and take them to the jail ( they didn't have to stay in). Everyone saw the funny side and a lot of people paid to get out, many photos taken of people in the jail etc. You had to put a reason on the form such as "burning the sausages on last weeks bbq" , "having an untidy bedroom etc" some of them were quite funny.

They raised thousands over the course of a weekend

Oh, also an auction of promises is quite good. Washing windows, painting, weeding the garden etc. Very cheap to do too. You don't have to interrupt the proceedings as you can have tables at the back with pieces of paper with them on and people bid against each other over the course of the evening

The jail one reminds me of one I saw: a game where you'd pay to sit in a chair to be asked a few questions by someone in costume. But the twist was that you had to wear a sleeping mask, and the questions would be about things you couldn't see, such as what you or your friends were wearing! Small prizes were given if you answered correctly.