Fund Raising (church, recall, service, convention)

[Trey of Diamonds]

Hey everyone,

Our little UU Church is looking for new and inventive fund raising ideas. What UU church isn't? Anybody have any they would like to share?

[des]

The biggest deal in my old church which was UCC but it would work anyway was a big auction. We mostly did various cultural events or dinners. But a few people had some more valuable items (there were 5 ballots from the first democratic election in South Africa). Anyway, we also had some silent auctions where people would donate stuff little things. I did five computer lessons. There were things like bike ride to somewhere and then large brunch ... stuff like that. Or a docent in museum might give a behind the scenes tour. This works best if you have some really well-off members to drive the price up. It kind of cuts out the more middle income folks but nobody minded as everybody had fun. We had someone who had done auctioneering. But you could do well with someone who had an ease with an audience and likes to tell jokes.

Actually it worked pretty well for a dog group-- somebody donated this wild decorated dog house that just made tons of money. People will buy the darnest things.:-)

--des

[Shadow Wolf]

Auctions, services, car wash, candy bars, pop corn, candles, donations.
You could have a band play, and have a certain amount of ticket sales go to the church.

[Trey of Diamonds]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, we have been considering a service auction and we're going to host a pop culture convention since we have a large space for vendors and such.

[des]

It's a good idea, but I wouldn't limit it to services. You could get everybody out there to be creative. Think of some skill, some thing you could do that someone else might enjoy or use. It might be anything from teaching something, to hosting a fancy dinner, to a doing an oil change. We had just about everybody participating-- offering something, etc. If people feel it has to be a genuine skill they might not offer something. We had a really tiny church-- under 100 active members and I think we raised something like $8000, which is amazing. But we did that well because it was very open. We also had a silent auction so that those of us who didn't feel our offerings were so wonderful could still donate something. We did have a few things as well. Not really that many though. I specifically recall the ballots for the South African election, someone had gone down there for voter education. I know we had some art work, jewelry, and the like that members made.

The other thing that helped was that we had a guy who had really done auctions. But you would just need someone who could keep the pace going, and be funny. Corny is ok, too.


--des

Originally Posted by Trey of Diamonds

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, we have been considering a service auction and we're going to host a pop culture convention since we have a large space for vendors and such.