Oct 18, 2019

7 Additional Fundraising Opportunities at your Event

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Guests Checking In

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Looking for ways to bring your audience excitement and increase revenue at your next fundraising event?

Fixed-price opportunities of chance are a great way to do so!

There are many different kinds of opportunities. Some of the more popular ones are explained below. Keep in mind that you don’t want to overwhelm your audience; pick three or less for your event, depending on your audience size.

  1. Mystery Box: This can be executed in many ways to best fit the theme of your event and your audience. For example, you can gather jewelry donations from local jewelers and sell each box for a flat fee. Donors won’t learn what’s inside their box until after they purchased in to participate, adding to the element of surprise!
  2. Heads or Tails: Participants will pay a flat fee. You can either use the honor system or give each participant a pin/necklace/etc. to denote that they are a participant. There are several spots in your event program where you can incorporate this. Your guests guess whether or not the coin the auctioneer flips will come up heads or tails. If they think heads, they put their hands on their head. Tails? Their hands go on their “tail”. If they guess wrong, they sit down. Keep flipping until there is only one person remains standing, and they win a small prize!
  3. Selling Commemorative Gear: Do you have leftover shirts, bags, or other swag from previous events? Did you decide to create a special sweatshirt for your organization’s anniversary? You can sell these at your event, or pre-purchase on the site, to increase revenue and allow guests to spread awareness for your organization!
  4. Wine Pull: There are several ways to execute a wine pull, but the concept is the same. Like with the mystery box, guests will pay a flat fee for a random bottle of wine. You can partner with local liquor shops to get bottles donated in a range of values from $10 to $100. Set the price per pull and guests will have the opportunity to win a bottle in varying price ranges and types.
  5. Raffles/Opportunity Draw: Sell tickets, which give guests the opportunity to win a basket of goods or an item. You can pull the winning raffle/opportunity draw ticket at the end of the silent auction or general donation campaign when you have the attention of the whole audience!
  6. Cakewalk: Very similar to musical chairs; the game begins when the music starts and participants walk in a circle on a path of numbers. When the music stops, every participant stays on the number they are on. The person who is running the event then pulls a number from a container and determines the winner of the cakewalk! The prize is traditionally a cake, but other baked goods work as well. You can charge a fee to play the game and receive donated cakes from bakeries or volunteers to increase event revenue with a fun game!
  7. Sign-Up Party: You will need a volunteer, community, or board member that is willing to host a small party on a set date for a limited number of guests. You can then sell the “invites” to this party at a flat price. The party could include dinner, drinks, and/or an activity like a movie or dancing. Use fun party themes to encourage guests to sign-up!

GiveSmart’s software makes it easy for you to offer these additional fundraising opportunities at your events using the already-present technology. Request a demo from GiveSmart today to learn more about how you can streamline event processes and increase event revenue using mobile bidding and fundraising technology.

If you have any questions about any of the fundraising opportunities listed above or want to discuss other possible ideas and how best to implement them through GiveSmart, please reach out to your Account Manager.

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What our clients say

We needed a platform to make sales online and to track and display ads for our sponsors. GiveSmart was perfect. We ended up making close to $15,000 more than we had hoped for. Definite better ROI than we anticipated. The interface is easy to use and provides plenty of options to get help if needed.

Michelle M.

The Rotary Club of South Whidbey Island

Using GS has created ease in auction bookkeeping, payments, and generating post-event thank you/tax letters. While we were online during COVID, our interactions with our GiveSmart via phone, email, and zoom were seamless. A representative always got back to us within the day. I would recommend GiveSmart to anyone doing a large online event.

Julie G.

MicroFinancing Partners in Africa

GiveSmart is highly flexible - you can use it for [a] simple registration and check-in, to full-scale galas with complex order forms, onsite upsells, live auctions, seating management, and more.

Jamie F.

Hope Chest for Breast Cancer

GiveSmart is easy to use and ideal for virtual events and can be used for in-person events to manage the silent auction, seating charts, and check-in to the event. Being able to use the platform for unlimited events within the contract year is very useful and being able to add other users and volunteers for different levels of access is helpful as well.

Dawn L.

Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County