Summer is finally here! No more cold winter days and grey skies, it’s time to get outside and get some sunshine. Although the winter holiday season is famously the best time to fundraise, summertime provides many great opportunities to mobilize your base of supporters. Since donors are focusing on their vacations, your nonprofit will need to step up its game and design creative summer fundraising ideas to leverage during the upcoming months.
Luckily, longer days and warmer weather present a lot of fundraising opportunities, especially outdoors. Whether your organization’s mission is focused on sports, animal welfare, or the church, we’re sure you’ll find something here to spark your interest!
These seven summer fundraiser ideas are guaranteed to help your fundraising plan work harder during the summer months and boost your income while enjoying time in the sun with your donors!
1. Water Balloon Fight
Nothing says summer more than a water balloon fight! This is a great summer fundraising idea, especially if you are trying to raise funds for a school or a college society. Everyone will appreciate the opportunity to get outside, have fun, and cool down during a hot summer day.
A water balloon fight is also a fundraiser idea with a great return on investment. It’s relatively time-efficient to organize and has the potential to raise a lot of funds.
For example, you could charge an event admission fee to join the fun or you could charge $1 for every water balloon.
You can organize the water balloon fight as a standalone event or as part of a bigger summer event (e.g. a party or a summer picnic).
For this event, you’ll need:
- A location where water balloons won’t cause damage and you can easily clean up afterward (try a local park and make sure you get the official permission first)
- A few hundred balloons
- The help of volunteers
- Containers to store the water balloons in
On the day of the event, make sure you set up a booth where participants can register for the event. You can also set up a separate booth where participants and visitors can inform themselves about the work of your organization and donate more if they wish.
Then, fill all the balloons with water and set up stations for drinking water, especially if your event is on a hot day.
Pro tip: Fundraising doesn’t have to stop after your tickets are sold! Use Donorbox Live™ Kiosk to gather donations during the event. Not sure how to get started? This guide will walk you through the ins and outs of live donation kiosks and explain why Donorbox Live™ Kiosk stands out from the rest.
2. Ice-Cream Party
Another summertime favorite Thankfully, there’s no age limit on the enjoyment of ice cream, and an ice cream social is the perfect theme to pair with another fundraising event like an auction or raffle.
To organize an ice cream social:
- Pick a location (an ice cream shop, a local café, or a park will all do great)
- Choose a time (Saturday and Sunday work well because that’s when most people have a day off)
- Be mindful of the weather (you want to choose a hot day)
In addition to securing volunteers to help on the day, you’ll need to set up a sanitary serving station and secure the right equipment to keep the ice cream cool. Your venue should have enough space to accommodate these requirements and provide ample space for attendees to mingle and chat.
Promoting your event on social media and within your community is critical. Several factors will influence your event attendance numbers, this blog post offers six great tips to help ensure you’re meeting those attendance goals!
Don’t forget about sponsorships and in-kind donations: Partnering with a local ice cream store or an ice cream producer will help offset some of the costs associated with hosting your event. Here are five steps to follow when trying to secure event sponsorships.
3. Open-Air Movie Screening
An outdoor movie screening is a great, family-friendly summer fundraising event that has the potential to raise a lot of funds while providing a wonderful evening of entertainment for your entire community.
An outdoor movie night is also a relatively low-stress fundraiser that can be easily used in conjunction with other fundraising ideas such as raffles, auctions, and trivia nights.
To organize an open-air movie screening:
- Decide on a location and a date
- Organize the venue or screen and projector
- Organize ticketing
- Mobilize volunteers to help
- Set out any food and beverages that will be for sale
- Promote the event
Consider the weather, sunset times, and other events in your local community (i.e. if your fundraiser clashes with other big community events). The recommended time to start an outdoor movie is 15-30 minutes after sunset.
When choosing a location, ensure you select one that is large, flat, grassy, and easily accessible. Think about whether participants will have access to safe and secure toilets, and whether there will be enough parking if you are advertising to the wider community.
Another thing to consider is noise control if you are screening in a residential area.
For an outdoor movie screening, a couple of other things to have in mind are:
- Lightning: is there enough light for people to reach the parking after the screening?
- Power: where will the power come from and will you require any generators, extension cords, or adapters?
- Food and Drinks: will you need access to water for food stalls? Will you serve food and do you need to refrigerate it?
- Trash Disposal: do you have an adequate system in place (e.g. enough trash and recycling bins)?
- Ticketing: how do you plan to ticket? Will you rope off the seating area somehow?
- Licenses: do you understand the PPL (Public Performance Licence) requirements and do you have the proper permissions to screen the movie?
4. Barbecue Extravaganza
Barbecues are a great way to attract a big crowd during the summer. It’s also a family-friendly summer fundraising idea. There are several ways to raise funds at a barbecue: selling barbecue plates (‘to stay’ and ‘to go’), selling barbecue sauces and drinks, and organizing raffles and auctions.
Plan to include additional activities that add value to the event and charge a small fee for these. Consider things like craft beer tasting, eating contests, or grilling classes in parallel.
For kids, you can organize ball and bucket toss, floating duck pond, turtle races, or whack-a-mole. This is especially important as, if you don’t have any additional activities organized, you might come into a situation where people get their meal and leave – which means you’re not utilizing your fundraising potential.
If you organize activities like these, you can also make the event a whole day thing by serving lunch and dinner since people will have something to do between the two meals.
Alternatively, you can organize a market and raise additional money by charging vendors a flat fee to set up a stall.
Important things to remember when planning a barbecue fundraiser
To get an array of goods for your barbecue event, approach local butchers, grocery stores, markets, farmers, and restaurants, and ask them to sponsor food, condiments, and buns in exchange for promoting them at your barbecue.
Make sure there are options for everyone. Source vegetarian and vegan hamburgers hot dogs, vegetables, and gluten-free buns. Catering to as many different people as possible helps you attract a bigger crowd.
If you organize the barbecue well in advance, you can also source additional sponsors. For large donations, you can display your donors’ logos on aprons, banners, tents, or other displays.
An important consideration when organizing a barbecue is food safety. Ensure the food, especially meat, is of good quality and preserved appropriately. Begin cooking before the official start time so that some food is ready when people arrive. Side dishes such as beans, coleslaw, and salad can be prepared in advance.
Make sure you have a lot of volunteers available. Ask them to arrive early on the big day. Volunteers should regularly monitor the area and pick up tables, chairs, barbecues, and trash. They can also be in charge of the music for the event. Naturally, make sure to thank your contributors and volunteers for their time and contribution.
Pro tip: Set a fundraising goal and announce it during the promotional campaign. For example, you can set out to raise 10,000 dollars for remodeling your animal shelter or school playground. This not only helps determine the level of activities for the barbecue fundraiser but also lets people know what their money is going towards (which can help raise even more funds) and creates a sense of urgency.
5. Swim-a-Thon
“A-Thons” are an increasingly popular fundraising concept. In the past, we’ve talked about walk-a-thons and read-a-thons, but what is a summer fundraising ideas article without a water-related activity?
Swim-a-Thon is an in-pool fundraiser challenge where participants earn money by swimming lengths of the pool. Swimmers ask family members, friends, neighbors, or businesses to pledge a certain amount of money per length or make a flat donation in support of a team.
It’s important to note that Swim-a-Thon is a registered trademark that is owned by USA Swimming. Contact USA Swimming prior to hosting a Swim-a-Thon in order to complete a contract with USA Swimming that states certain conditions to follow. USA Swimming will provide promotional materials for the event, which takes away a massive task off your to-do list. Use the promotional materials provided by USA Swimming to promote participation in your Swim-a-Thon.
Before organizing a swim-a-thon, assess your capacity. What’s the size of the pool you will be using? How many swimmers can it comfortably fit? Could you organize several races throughout the day and then end with a race between all the winners?
Ensure your participants are appropriately dressed (swimsuit, goggles, bathing cap, towel) to participate. If you have the time, get corporate sponsors to donate these or pay for them in exchange for logos displayed on those items.
Since swim-a-thons are essentially based on the peer-to-peer fundraising concept, you need to encourage your participants to actively collect pledges from their network, and provide them with all the support they need to do that.
Not sure how to make peer-to-peer fundraising work? Check out this guide for the answer!
6. Outdoor Fitness Club
After months of being cooped up inside, people are excited to get outside and get moving. Utilize this zest and organize an outdoor fitness club.
Instead of organizing a single outdoor exercise class (which is still a great fundraising idea), go the extra mile and organize an outdoor fitness program. To make it fun, make it into a challenge.
The key to this summer fundraiser is promotion, and for this particular one, social media will be your best friend. Promote it on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube and reach out to social media influencers. Having them publicly join your challenge will attract huge crowds. Devise a hashtag and announce it everywhere.
For a small registration fee, you will provide the exercise instructions and/or lead any physical classes. Depending on the size and reach of your organization, you can make this challenge virtual, physical, or a combination of the two.
If you make the challenge virtual, you’ll need to send detailed exercise instructions to participants’ email inboxes for the duration of the challenge and provide motivation and incentives via rewards.
A virtual challenge is perfect if your organization has an international audience or donor base. It also requires less investment on your end, and it can reach more people.
If your nonprofit is community-based, a physical outdoor fitness challenge might work better. Get a local fitness expert, yoga teacher, or personal wellness coach to lead the daily exercises as a volunteer or for a small percentage of the total funds raised.
A fitness expert must design the exercise program since you want to prevent injuries and ensure success.
The fitness club challenge should culminate in a celebration to announce the achievements of all the participants and the total funds raised. This event can be a fundraiser in itself.
7. Summer Excursions
As the days get warmer, more and more people look for ways to get out of the city.
A great way to respond to this need is to organize summer camping or summer hiking. This is a great fundraising idea for almost any age group, which makes it simple to customize depending on your nonprofit’s audience and mission.
This summer fundraising idea has a lot of potential. The simplest one to organize is a one-day excursion to a nearby forest or a national park. You can also organize a camping excursion. To take it up a notch, you could add these to your hike/camping:
- Wildflower hikes: Follow the blooms with a guide.
- Waterfall hikes: Visit several waterfalls in one trip.
- Mushroom picking: Pick mushrooms with an expert.
With this type of summer field day, it’s best to have a local guide who knows the ins and outs of the planned trail. Also, make sure one person is first aid certified in case of an incident while hiking or camping. And don’t forget to create and distribute the necessary indemnity forms.
If camping, try to have the equipment borrowed from local companies to minimize costs.
Charge a participation fee depending on the activity you choose to organize (i.e. if you choose to organize the walk, you’ll charge less than if you organized camping).
Consider what you have planned for the field trip, depending on the exact activities, you might need to limit the age and fitness levels of your participants.
If you are looking for more fundraising ideas, we have a list of 100+ effective fundraising ideas.
Conclusion
Summer fundraising doesn’t need to be daunting! It’s the perfect time to enjoy the sunshine with your supporters and raise funds. No matter what cause you’re raising funds for, you’re sure to find these ideas helpful. But these ideas are just the tip of the snow cone, don’t forget to brainstorm with your staff, volunteers, your board, and your supporters. Great ideas come from many different places!
Regardless of your summer fundraising plans, Donorbox is here to help every step of the way! Whether you need dynamic ticketing solutions, a great platform to host your crowdfunding or peer-to-peer campaigns, or tools like Donorbox Live™ Kiosk and Text-to-Give to support you in gathering those vital donations on the day – we’ve got you covered!
Our Nonprofit Blog is packed with tips, tools, and resources to make planning your summer fundraising campaigns easier.
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Ilma Ibrisevic
