5 Fun and Interesting Ways to Have a Fundraiser in the Workplace

Raffles can be fun for all involved while raising money. Depending on your type of business you could have a raffle now and then, monthly or even weekly. You could raffle off all sorts of fun stuff like products ranging from gift cards to DVD players, TV's, the list is endless! If you're in the business of making a certain type of product, raffle it off (it will cost you less to make as well). You could also raffle off extra paid days off or paid dinner for two for example.

For the raffle you need to decide how much you want each entry to cost, and if there is a minimum. For example each entry is $1.00, with a $10 minimum entry purchase. This means if 100 employees enter that's a minimum of $1,000. If the prize costs you $100, that's $900 raised.

Depending on the size of your company and the prize you may want to charge more per entry. Fewer employees means everyone has a better chance so charge more per entry, and more employees means less chance, charge less per entry.

Ask employees (or anyone) to donate old or slightly used books as a fundraiser for you to sell. You could sell them for different prices depending on the condition and title of the books. On average a good price would be $1.00 for common paperbacks, up to $5.00 for popular hardcover's. If you get enough donations you may even try doing a bag deal where you let them fill a bag and charge a flat price for the bag!

Say you have 1,000 books donated, at $1-$5 that's $1,000-$5,000 raised. Let's say you do a bag deal for $10per bag, say an average grocery sack will hold 20 books, that's $500 raised.

After that decide which day(s) you would like to make Recycling Day and let people know about it, let them know where to bring stuff like soda cans, tin cans, plastic and so on. Then you can decide when you are going to take it to be recycled. This is a good idea for a fundraiser, and staying green at the same time. First if you don't know already you should do a little research to find your local recycling center and seeing what they recycle as not all places recycle the same things. For example, some areas may have a place that you can recycle plastic, where some do not. Once you find out what they recycle ask if they pay and how much as some places may not "buy" the recycled material.

Say you have 100 people bring in 27 soda cans each week, that's 2,700 cans (roughly 100lbs). If the current giving price for aluminum cans is $0.55 like in my area, that's $55. Food cans are tin, which the price is usually per 100lbs.

Note: If you choose to have this weekly, you may only want to make trips to the recycling center once a month to allow for bigger loads each trip, and less use on gas.

• What are some fundraising ideas your business has used in the past?
• Did you take part in them, why or why not?

Do you work in a business setting, everyone always required to have suits or business attire? You could throw a Dress Casual Day Fundraiser! Simply choose a day for this to happen, decide an entry cost, for example $5. Each person who would like to dress causal that day would have to buy an entry ticket for $5. If you have 100 employees enter that's $500 raised with no overhead!

If you have a business that is face to face with your customers, you can use the same method to have a fundraiser. Instead of having a Dress Down Day, have a Dress Up Day Fundraiser, only difference is that employees can enter to dress up in costume that day.

No matter the business you have, chances are you have certain words such as foul language and cussing that is not allowed in the workplace. Why fie the person for slipping up when chances are the next person you hire may do the same thing from time to time. Instead, creating a swear box lets them keep their job, teaches them a lesson and raises money at the same time.

Simply have a locked box in an employee only area and label it "The Swear Box". You may put short instructions on it depending how you would like it done. Usually the person has to put a certain amount of money in the swear box each time they slip up, or you may choose that they simply write a note and drop it in to be counted later and withheld from their check.

So if the cost per slip up is $1 and employee's slip up an average of 1 time per day, 5 days a week. If you have 100 employees, that is $500 a week raised. Depending on how strict you are about the language policy you may even put $5 for slip up, that's still $500 a week if 100 employees slip up once per week.

Note: The bare basic of this works as a trust system, if your business has cameras with sound another way is to ask employees to drop notes including name and time when they hear co-workers break the swear box rules. Then you can later go back and review the camera at that time.