Fundraising ideas for the mob I volunteer for, tombola prizes, something for our stall in 2 weeks time - ideas please?

[Vallhala]

Come on you lot, I need your help! :o Put your thinking caps on please - vet and food bills are pouring in and we need every penny we can get.

The dog rescue I help at has been offered a stall at a local agility show... in less than 2 weeks time!

We ran a stall at another show just this Sunday - raised some pennies and boy do they need it so we're incredibly grateful but we really need ideas on how to improve on it (think £900 per pallet of food for the epileptic dogs alone). We had a tombola on Sunday so we haven't sufficient prizes for another (am trying to work on that though goodness knows how so far!), we have some doggy items to sell although they don't exactly whizz off the stall and I'm just trying to drum up some donations from other PFK volunteers for a childrens' "jam jar tombola".

Has anyone any other ideas please? Asking local businesses for tombola items is almost a thankless task these days, so many either don't donate to charity any more or already have their chosen ones. I'm scouring the free samples websites for things to put in the jam jar tombola and have asked my fellow PFK rescuers to do the same... but what else?

Thanks!

Could you do a sort of how many sweets in a jar thing?

How many dog biscuits in a jar?

[useless and tubbish]

Sell home made dog treats/biscuits?

Jute bags printed up with cartoon doggy? and poss your logo on...

i have one from our local greyhound charity and i love it.

Ah, nice one Chaos! Like the dog biscuits in a jar one, a nice twist on the original. :)

Scurry, one of our ladies makes liver cake and another makes biscuits (heaps of respect to our S for the liver cake, the smell is vile and last weekend she couldn't open her windows for fear of letting out her post-op pusscat!).

Go strawberry picking then sell strawberries and cream at vasty overpriced rates

Bugger... washing machine leaking, not ignoring you, will be back asap, probably very wet when I return... :(

Not very exciting but I can send you a fluffy (stuffed toy obviously! - although thinking about it I could offer a work in progress collie only kidding) dog to name and the winner gets the dog.

Could you approach any tellington T touch or galen or massage dog therapists and see if they would give their services for free for the afternoon all proceeds go to charity and they get loads of advertising amongst agility people. Could you get in a photographer (agility may already have one) and see if they would donate a percentage of their sales if you have publicity on your stall.

Rubbish at business ideas but will keep thinking.

Sometimes worth an ask on freecycle for unwanted giftsets and birthday presents.

Cuddly dog toy and name the doggy competition?

There's the things like a treasure map where you buy a square and one's the (pre-chosen) winner.... obv needs a prize for it though.

We got a lot of gift vouchers from local businesses when we asked recently for a group tombola - places like the fish and chip shop donated a free fish supper for two, and hairdressers and the like - rather than goods as such. Mind you my mum's community group - all the committee members win the raffle, then put the prizes back in for the next raffle which kind of defeats the object.

Our local cat charities tend to rely on taking their cutest inmates with a collecting tin - got any very very cute looking amenable chaps to sit there and offer a paw to all and sundry?!

guess the weight of one of the dogs, there age, lenght, height etc

If you can find someone a facepainter racks all the kiddies in. Could you do a cake stall?
The little rescue had an a little agility run on weekend, charged a £1 a time for dog plus owner and winner of quickest time got a prize. :)

Your audience will be dog lovers so that helps - do you run any sort of dog adoption scheme for the more poorly and long term dogs? Maybe reel some people in to join that as they may only have a few pounds in their pocket at such an event.

Forgive me if i'm stating the bleeding obvious

some fab ideas here
ive gone it to pets at home before and they have given some dog treats and toys there and then to me (take letter from charity and ID)

Damn, Val.... I have just sold some brand new doggy items I got from Freegle - last weekend I asked for car boot items to be donated and I got so many I couldn't get them all in my car Sunday just gone so I have at least one more car boot to do and made around £160 from the first one. Trouble is, if you are looking for new stuff, you'd have to do the mileage to collect it which probably wouldn't work out if you are just getting one thing from one address.

My local SBT rescue recently did a charity night and they asked a lot of local businesses to donate something - so perhaps a ring around rather than a letter will get you something... the personal touch IYSWIM. Local pet shops, rather than big ones (although Petsmart are ALWAYS worth trying it seems some have chosen charities - my localish one purely supports Greyhound rescues and no other charities.

I know I can find a few new and light things to post to you but they wouldn't be dog related. If you want them pm me an address to send them to either through here or facebook and I'll get them in the post.

By the way - what's a children's jam jar tombola? I have kids stuff coming out of my ears but depends what you need??

(Hope you got your washing machine sorted)

Forgot to say... I did the car boot for an animal rescue, not my own pocket!

Val, have PMd you!

when i put an ad on freecycle for dog/cat related items i got a large car full for a rescue shelter. i got lots of plastic dog beds donated so may be worth a try as you could sell them on the day to make money for your rescue

Several of the greyhound charities I know do very well fund raising by organising things like Fun Dog Shows. Classes for Best Pair of Six Legs, Best Fancy Dress, Waggiest Tail etc. We went to one three weekends ago with our nephew - came home with a very happy nephew as he was plastered with rosettes and organiser confirmed they'd made over £600 just on class entries. Rosettes are reasonably cheap and I find the organisation is actually surprisingly straightforward - you can pick up extra revenue by inviting local ice cream vans, other dog charities to have stalls (one was doing a roaring trade offering nail clipping for dogs at £1 a go), raffle and so on. You don't actually need more people to do this than you do for an all out store collection.

Supermarket collections are really hard work as people are very rushed and ofr Tesco you have to book months in advance, and compete with many other charities. Went with third greyhound on Easter Saturday to Ikea and we did brilliantly - I was amazed by the generosity - loads of tenners going into the tin. I think people often shop at Ikea more as a "destination" so have more time and are not used to charities being there like you see at Tesco.

Other ideas, could be a quiz night/supper/raffle in a local pub, a psychic evening (not to everyone's taste but they are very, very popular). We've found our local PAH stores to be very supportive in terms of either allowing in store meet and greets, donating amounts of feed for prizes/dogs in kennels or being the nominated food collection charity where customers can leave tins/packs of food.

Plant stalls are incredibly popular, and encourage your jam makers/cake makers to get busy. Easter Fancy Dress competition/EAster egg hunt plus guided walks in certain neighbourhoods.

Quite a few of the dog food mfrs are surprisingly generous at giving out free food/samples for prizes etc.

One of the things I am just about to make a batch of are very pretty little pocket tissue holders - for those packets of paper tissues you can get. There are incredibly simple instructions floating round on the internet and I am going to make up a big batch of them, pop tissues in then can be sold at events/ in a basket at the charity shop or as tombola prize for £1 a time. Because they use quite small scraps of fabric they are ideal to make up by anyone who can operate a sewing machine. It is also very easy to make up simple, very prety tote bags if you sew.

Don't forget to approach other dog/animal charities to see if they are having events you can "piggyback" on - the cluster effect actually works very well. Also, don't have a stall that is a mismatch of odds and sods - much better to have a very clear visual identity - here is the CAKE stall, here is the PLANT stall, here is the secondhand book (another item that sells very well) stall. "New" merchandise often goes well if you are selling for a specialised market - for instance, sighthound coats, collars etc as they are a different shape and not so easy to buy for while out in the shops. I do hand made cards for the charity's shop, but not for stalls as they need to be kept dry and can blow away!

Many towns/cities have things like charities fairs/green fairs etc - again, you get access to a cluster of keen consumers. Look out for Christmas gift fairs at churches/community centres etc and sell things that people would like to buy as small presents. Stall needs to be nicely presented - Dunelm Mill excellent for buying huge swathes of fabric to cover table v cheaply.

Val, meant to add, if you would like me to make up a batch of tissue covers for your tombola, I'd be happy to.

scuttle - my sewing is basic, could you recommend any websites with easy to follow instructions for tissue covers and tote bags? hope to help organise a canine swimathon next year and need to get busy with extra fundraising ideas

I have dog food here your welcome to, :)

I don't know any websites, but I did spot a good idea the other day, using small school shirts/dresses (after removing the skirt), sewing up the bottom (very basic!), inserting a hanger and selling them as peg bags. I thought it was a great idea as you can buy the shirts etc for around 50p from a lot of charity shops so the profit is good.

Chick, one of the best and nicest websites for ideas on things to sew is the Moda Bakeshop one - I regularly look at it. Link here to the item with the tote bag recipe. I didn't bother with any templates, and certainly didn't use any posh fat quarters, just a nice assortment of printed cotton florals. Dunelm do an interfacing by the metre which is v cheap. I followed this recipe for making a bag for my MIL for Mother's Day - she loved it, and I was delighted with how it turned out an how it was surprisingly easy to do. Not sure how I can put up a pic of it?

For tissue holders, see here or here for version without fancy edging - looks pretty straightforward. These would make lovely gifts for a teacher at end of term, or stocking fillers. I went on a day trip with our local quilt shop last year to the V & A quilt exhibition, and the lovely organiser had made one of these for every lady on the coach!! What a star.

Arts and Crafts forum might also be a good place for ideas.

There is another idea I have that I have been mulling over for a while - I haven't been able to think of a way to successfully market it through what I have done so far but I think the PFK rescue could be good as they have a lot of lifers, plus you would be able to lay something out on a stall (but it is something that would need actively selling, otherwise you would get no takers). I was thinking along the lines of the Dogs Trust where you "adopt" a dog and get a certificate, photo and a pin badge or something for your "adoption" fee and an update on the dogs progress... about 11 months in (along with a nice little reminder to renew the adoption fee for the next year).

Mother, our greyhound charity does something very similar with three "lifers" that are in long term foster care, because of severe medical/behavioural issues - the charity just felt it wasn't fair on them to go to a home, IYSWIM. Sponsor a dog gets regular updates, photos of dog at Xmas, reminders, Birthday cards if adopter is under 18 (why stop at 18, say i?) and so on. Tis an excellent gift for a child who cannot have a dog of their own, and helps with longer term vets bills etc. Val's dog Fish, who is a long term foster because of his epi would be a typical candidate - can imagine Val doing a little update once a quarter and some nice pics - can work very very well.