Every year, I participate in the University of South Carolina’s Dance Marathon, where I raise money for the Child Life Program at Palmetto Heath Children’s Hospital. The Child Life program works to improve the lives of children undergoing difficult treatments at the hospital. It includes projects that make kids feel like kids in such a difficult place. Some of these projects include the building of a playground with wheelchair accessibility and providing wagons for kids to ride in to surgery. It is such an amazing program so it is important that we raise as much money as possible, but it is so hard to find time, ideas, and motivation to fundraise as a full time student.
Over the past two years, I have learned that fundraising doesn’t happen in the hundreds. There are things that can be done to achieve these high numbers, but most of the individual fundraising efforts I have involved myself in amount to no more than $20. Even so, doing many of these small things build up to the hundreds with time. One way to make it easier to achieve these high goals is to set small goals with time. Convincing yourself to make $15 a week is much easier than convincing yourself to make $300 in five months. The small goals give you a reason to celebrate more often, because they are easier to achieve!
Another thing I have learned is that people are more likely to donate if your promotions are creative. Something as simple as a dog picture with your Facebook post will attract more attention than a wordy explanation of how to donate. Incentives and rewards are a good way to get creative. For example, offer to post ugly pictures of you on social media if you raise a certain amount of money, or chip in a little bit of your own money to buy a prize for a random person who donated.
When I first joined Dance Marathon, I began researching fundraising ideas but I was dissatisfied with what I found – they were not fit for a college student. I must have seen “Host a game night at your place with an entry fee” a hundred times, but no college student would pay the little money they have to play “Life” in a dorm room. I decided to make my own list of college-appropriate fundraising ideas that are easy to put together and involve little time to execute. With many of these little ideas put to action, the end goal will not seem so out-of-reach.
- Send emails to friends and family asking for a donation
- Even better, write handwritten letters with photos inside
- Address holiday cards for a donation
- Coordinate with a company to match donations
- Ask for donations instead of gifts for your birthday/Christmas
- Have a lifestyle competition with a friend (for example, each time the friend eats junk food they donate a dollar to you, and when you eat junk food you donate a dollar to them)
- Send pictures of puppies for donations
- Send inspirational quotes for donations
- Promise to wear a funny costume to class for donations
- Drive people to class for donations
- Post on Facebook
- Sell old clothes
- Tutor people for donations
- If you are good with finding new music, make a custom playlist for someone for a donation
- Wrap Christmas gifts for people
- Auction off homemade art
- Sell handmade jewelry
- Sell handmade ornaments
- Offer to pick up a friend’s food for a small donation
- Babysit
- Pet sit
- House sit
- Do unusual chores for your family (like cleaning the attic) for a donation
- Set up a curse jar with your roommates (every time someone curses, put a dollar in a jar and that money is donated at the end of the month)
- Bake and sell sweet treats
- Drive friends downtown for a night
- Coordinate a 50/50 raffle (where half the pot goes to charity and half goes to someone who donated)
- Walk dogs
- Make Boo-Baskets for a donation
- Make holiday-themed candy grams
- Sell old books and movies
- Give out your Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime password for a donation
- Make and sell candles
- Ask your parents to donate for every “A” you receive
- Promise to polar plunge if you receive a large donation
- Donate 10% of every paycheck for a year
- Buy antiques at a flee market, refurnish them, and sell for more money (flee market flip!)
- Buy something in bulk and sell individually at regular price (the extra money made goes to charity)
- Ask local restaurants if you can set up a donation jar at the register
- Wash cars
- Sell food to drunk people
- Rent out your clothes (like formal dresses and themed outfits)
- Cook for your roommates for a donation
- Have someone sponsor you by donating for every mile you run
- Offer to decorate for holidays
- Deliver someone breakfast in bed
- Paint someone’s nails for them
- Hold a dish smashing event (people pay to break plates)
- Set up a percent night
- Have someone sponsor you by donating for each 1,000 steps you achieve
- Clean someone’s house
- Allow people to pet your dog for a donation
- Sell flowers
- Sell “reindeer food” (granola and sparkles) to families before Christmas
- Sell greeting cards
- Offer yourself as a personal assistant for the day for a large donation
- Offer yourself to be pied in the face for a donation
- Eat in and donate the money you would have spent eating out
- Organize someone’s sloppy notes for them
- Create an Instagram story voting poll where each vote is a small donation (for example, Duke vs. UNC, or Apple vs. Android)
- Do someone’s grocery shopping for a donation
- Make a March Madness Bracket Pool where the money goes to charity
- Do someone’s homework for them (*I don’t condone this but if it’s going to happen anyway, there might as well be a donation involved)
- Check someone as present in class (*I don’t condone this but if it’s going to happen anyway, there might as well be a donation involved)
- If you are good at photography, take senior pictures for donations
- Rent out unique equipment you might have (a camera, sander, blender, etc.)
- Offer to do hair or makeup for a formal
- Make and sell spa bags
- Be the deliverer of secret Valentine’s notes for a donation
- Teach an exercise class
- Sell hot chocolate on cold days
- Walk around the farmer’s market or a sporting event with a donation bucket
- Buy donuts and sell them on campus
- Sell painted sorority canvases for Big Little Reveal
- Sell textbooks for donations
- Pass around a donation bucket in church
- Sit at a donation table outside a grocery store
- Post an Instagram story shouting out everyone who donates
- Make and sell a cookbook of family recipes
- Match donations yourself
- Invest in a monogram machine and do monograms for donations
- Offer to do meal prep for your parents (like cutting vegetables and getting seeds from pomegranates) for a donation
- Make coloring sheets for kids and sell them at a church or grocery store
- Sell study guides and notes
- Host a neighborhood parents night out and take care of all the kids for a donation
- Make and sell an essentials kit (like nail clippers, tampons, floss, tide-to-go stick, etc.)
- Drive people home over breaks for donations
- Sell cookies or pizza in the library at night
- Rent your car out
- Sell your free student tickets to sporting events
- Get paid taking online surveys on Survey Junkie
- Resell unused giftcards
- Work overtime
- Dye someone’s hair for them
- Shovel leaves and snow for donations
- Have a garage sale
- Reach out to a local radio station and ask them to make an announcement
- Ask someone famous to make an announcement on Twitter (it never hurts to try!)
- Reach out to elementary school teachers and ask them to send a note to parents
- Start buying store brands and donate the difference you would have spent with a name brand
There are hundreds of opportunities for fundraising and donations with the little things that can be done on a daily basis. It only takes some love for an organization and a little bit of creativity!
