cooking on the grill - going beyond the burger

If your community or organization is looking for a unique way to raise money, then maybe you should consider a community contribution type of fundraiser. These are items made by the group as a whole or as individuals and sold to raise money for your group's needs. The following highlights some ways in which your group or community could accomplish this type of fundraiser.

Making a Sweets Cookbook for Sale

With all of the desktop publishing software available, it has become even easier for anyone to self-publish and print a book. Making a sweets cookbook for sale as your fundraiser is actually quite popular, especially around the holidays when so much baking of sweets and treats already occurs. You could post a call for the best sweets recipes in your community/organization with the promise to publish any and all unique and tasty recipes in the book. Additionally, you and other members could prepare some of the treats from the cookbook and use a bake sale as part of the book's promotion. If people can buy and sample some of the sweets that are in the cookbook, they may be more likely to buy the book so they can have the recipes for their own use.

Basket Raffles

Basket raffles are another popular community contribution-type of fundraiser. Several smaller groups within the main group or community work to create baskets filled with treats and prizes that would appeal to lots of people. Baskets often involve some type of theme (e.g., baking basket with a sweets cookbook, cookie sheet or cake pan, mixing bowl, etc.). Then the baskets are then tied up with fancy ribbon and/or fancy cellophane. People pay for raffle tickets that they fill out with their contact info and drop the tickets into the basket raffle boxes of their choosing. 

Silent Auctions

One final example of a wildly popular community contribution-type of fundraiser is the silent auction. Here, everything from cars to restaurant gift cards and trip packages are donated by local and/or regional businesses. Guests of the silent auctions put their names, telephone numbers and amount they are willing to bid for each of the items they want on the papers taped to spaces closest to the auction items. The highest silent bidder for each item wins, and the price paid for these auctioned and won items goes into your community or organization funds. The amounts bid can sometimes exceed the value of the items, which means that your group gets to keep the excess on top of the value of the donated items.