Keeping the fundraiser itself simple means more time to spend doing the most important work: approaching individuals, entrepreneurs and executives to ask for their support, namely charitable donations. The lower the level of difficulty and the less time the event takes, the better – especially when you’re a busy businessperson yourself.
Avoiding Legal Issues
Before you begin asking strangers or friends for donations, make sure you’re not unknowingly breaking any laws. Get in touch with your state department to ask about, for example, obtaining a permit to hold a raffle. Raffles are a form of lottery, which is banned in some areas.
Contact the association for which you want to raise funds or visit its website. Typically, fundraising councils are happy to offer information and ideas. Some health organizations, such as the American Cancer Society, provide fundraising kits that include signage, pamphlets or printed balloons to help you raise awareness for their cause.
After you have all your legal ducks in a row, you’re ready to go.
Hold an Online Auction
Other than creating awareness through social media and by word of mouth, holding an online auction is relatively easy to do by yourself right from home. As long as you have an item to auction off to the highest bidder and a social platform or website from which to host the event, you’re pretty much set.
To make the process even simpler for yourself, consider using an online charity-auction vendor, such as Winspire and eBay for Charity. Compare a few of your favorites for price, ease of use, bid alerts and payment of the funds raised.
Host a Street Party
When a calamity occurs, people naturally want to band together to help the impacted person, family or town. If a neighbor lost her home to a fire, for instance, holding a street party is one way to help raise money and gather items that she might need, such as nonperishable foods, toiletries, clothes, furniture, dishes, cookware and small appliances.
Hosting a street or block party might seem like quite an undertaking for a single person, but it is not if you send out invitations with a what-to-bring list (besides donations). By advertising the party as potluck style and asking everyone to bring his own lawn chair and maybe a family friendly game, you will have little to do except provide disposable dishware and utensils unless you add these to the list too.
To make this type of get-together even easier to handle alone, consider holding it at a local park. Discuss how to handle the funds raised and where to deliver donated items for the person who will be receiving them. Opening a bank account for cash donations is a good idea. That way, the community can continue to make deposits or e-transfers long after the party is over.
Have a Garage Sale
Can one person handle a garage sale by herself? Absolutely, assuming you have a garage, carport or yard to fill with things donated by friends, family, neighbors and yourself. Post signs in your locale the night before the sale, advertising the address, start time and the cause you’re supporting.
No space to set up tables or spread items around? No problem. You can rent table space at a local flea market. If you let the market organizer know you’re donating the money raised to a good cause, she might waive the rental fee and even let you set up in a prime location where your signage will get lots of attention.
Raffle Off a Prize
Asking local retailers for donations to put in a gift basket to raffle off is easy for one person to do. Making large, poster-paper signs that explain your raffle, its entry fee and the cause it supports is also not difficult to do alone. Setting up a folding table and chair near the entryway of a supermarket, big-box store or mall (with approval from management, of course) is easy to do solo.
Again, check your state laws to see if raffles are permitted or banned in your area.
If you’re holding a fundraiser for cancer research, for example, raffle off a gift basket filled with appropriate items, such as sun-protection stuff like sunblock, a sun hat, a “sun”brella and a gift card for a pair of sunglasses.
Consider Crowdfunding for Your Cause
Essentially, crowdfunding or crowdsourcing is fundraising handled through online platforms, such as FundedByMe or YouCaring. It’s used to collect money for various charity or funding needs, including to raise startup capital for a new business, to pay a medical bill that’s causing hardship, to put someone through college who would otherwise be unable to attend or even when an entire community is in dire need of financial aid.
After Hurricane Harvey’s destruction, for example, crowdfunding was used to raise millions of dollars to help residents rebuild affected parts of Texas.
Other than registering your cause, you have little more to do but wait for donations to roll in and then see that the intended recipient receives them.