What's better than a stack of delicious flapjacks? Flapjacks with a mission! Pancake fundraising is a fun and inexpensive way to raise more for your cause and connect with your community. Read on to learn the six steps to host a pancake fundraising event and three ideas to bring in even more money.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s especially the case when you throw a pancake fundraising event to garner support for your organization!
In fundraising, it’s important to stay creative and try new things. If you’ve been curious about pancake fundraising but aren’t sure where to get started, this is the article for you.
We’re going to talk about some pancake breakfast ideas for fundraising, including six steps to host a successful event.
It’s time to rise and shine with a pancake fundraiser!
Pancake fundraising is a type of food fundraiser that involves hosting a breakfast where pancakes, fruit, meats, and other breakfast items are available.
For example, Healdsburg Kiwanis Club has been hosting pancake breakfast fundraisers for 67 years! Last year, they had over 400 attendees. They sold tickets using Donorbox Events with two tiers – $10 for adults and $5 for kids.
These events are great because they bring the community together for a fun meal and they’re relatively inexpensive for organizations to host.
A pancake fundraiser is great for any kind of organization but works best for organizations already connected to the community in some way. Think schools, churches, fire or police departments, community centers, etc. This helps ensure a big turnout!
For example, check out how the Orient Fire Department sold tickets for their pancake fundraiser.
We love the added appeal of checking out their newest fire truck, too!
Planning a fundraising event can feel daunting at first, so we’ve broken the process down into six steps.
First, you’ll need somewhere to host the event. Typically, you’ll want to choose somewhere that has a kitchen, like a restaurant, school cafeteria, or a hall available for rent. But that’s not necessarily required, especially if you get the event catered. You can also purchase or borrow electric skillets to make cooking pancakes easy anywhere – as long as you have outlets!
To make the most out of your event, it’s best if your venue is free (space you already have) or inexpensive (like renting a community center).
First, you’ll want to establish your event pricing. Maybe you’ll have an all-you-can-eat event, where one price gets you in the door and all the pancakes you want. Or, maybe you’ll sell one ticket for each stack of pancakes. You can also choose to offer free tickets and encourage donations either online or at your event.
Whatever you decide, you’ll need to find an easy way to create and sell tickets so you can make your pancake breakfast fundraiser as successful as possible. This is where Donorbox Events helps!
Donorbox Events is an all-in-one events tool that makes selling and distributing tickets a breeze. Creating your event page takes only a few minutes. Choose as many ticket tiers as you’d like and customize each with pricing and details. You can even offer free tickets, enabling you to track attendance while still offering free entry.
Plus, let your donors know how much of each ticket is tax-deductible by simply adding the fair market value of each ticket when you set up the tier. This is an additional incentive for people to purchase tickets. Here’s what it looks like on your end –
Next, select a ticket quantity for each tier to ensure you won’t sell too many tickets. Set a deadline for the last day to buy tickets to help you determine exactly how many people you can expect. This makes buying supplies so much easier!
You can choose to enable the option for donors to include an additional donation with their ticket purchase. This boosts your fundraising significantly – before your event has even started! Here’s what it looks like for your donors –
Get started with Donorbox Events
Then, either embed the Events form on your website or host it as a page on Donorbox. Simply share the link to get the word out and start selling tickets! Each Event page also comes with its own QR code to make sharing and accessing your form even easier.
Once someone makes a ticket purchase, they’ll receive an email with their receipt and their tickets. Each ticket also comes with a unique numerical code and QR code that you can enter or scan to check your guests in on the day of your event! You can also manually add any offline ticket transactions to keep all of your ticket sales data in one place and more effectively track your success.
Check out our handy step-by-step guide to setting up an event with Donorbox Events.
Volunteers are key to this kind of event. You’ll need to consider filling the following positions with volunteers:
You need as many hands as you can get to make this event a success.
Once you have a rough idea of how many people you’ll need to feed, it’s time to purchase supplies. You’ll likely want to wait until a few days beforehand so your ingredients are fresh and so you have a better sense of attendance numbers.
To figure out how much food to purchase, you can use online resources like this Pancake Recipe Calculator.
In addition to food and beverages, you’ll need to remember things like plates, cups, plasticware, napkins, tablecloths, and supplies to serve the food like chafing dishes. If you have the budget, you may also want to decorate to make the space more inviting!
Pro tip: Find a sponsor to help you secure supplies at a free or discounted rate.
Don’t miss out on additional fundraising potential by not offering multiple ways to give during the event. We recommend using some combination of these handy in-person giving strategies.
Everyone has a smartphone these days, which is why text-to-give is such a useful tool to amp up in-person giving at pancake breakfast fundraisers.
With Donorbox Text-to-Give enabled on your campaign, you’ll receive a unique campaign ID that your attendees can send to the text-to-give number. They’ll receive a message back with a link to your online donation page. Here’s what it looks like for them –
Enabling UltraSwift™ Pay on your donation form allows your donors to check out using a digital wallet. This means they don’t have to spend time entering their information or credit card details and can get back to enjoying your delicious pancakes!
QR codes allow attendees to quickly access your online donation form through their smartphones.
Every Donorbox campaign gets a free QR code that you can post around your event. Since QR codes are so common these days, your attendees will know how to scan them to access your online donation form.
A donation kiosk is a fantastic way to quickly collect in-person donations without requiring someone to use their phone or cash.
The Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app is easy to use with a tablet and card reader. Simply set it up and start collecting payments with cards, smartphones, and smartwatches.
All donations get collected in the same way as they would on your online form, so there’s no need to manually track donations.
Once you’ve hosted your successful event, don’t forget to send thank-you notes to acknowledge how grateful you are for the support.
An easy way to do this is to create an email list based on everyone who purchased tickets or donated. Then, send a personalized email with a thank-you message as well as an image or two from the event.
With Donorbox, you can easily sort all donor data by campaign, including events. This will give you the list you need to send your heartfelt appreciation – and increase your fundraising event conversion.
In addition to your basic ticket levels, consider adding a deluxe add-on for a specialty beverage or food item.
For example, an extra $3 a ticket could get someone a frosted donut from a local bakery or a coffee or smoothie from a shop in the area.
This makes the event more fun for your attendees while boosting your fundraising potential!
Any added incentive to attend your event will both increase your attendance and make for a more dynamic event. One great option is to raffle off an attractive item or two.
You can choose whether you want to include raffle tickets with the cost of admission or if you’d like to sell them separately, but selling them separately will increase your fundraising opportunities.
Pro tip: Work with your community partners to get some raffle items donated. Items can be as simple as a t-shirt with your logo on it to high-ticket items like an iPad or a weekend getaway.
Getting creative, like how the Orient Fire Department included checking out their new fire truck in their pancake fundraising event, will draw more attendees.
Some ideas to give your event a boost include –
The possibilities are endless! Just be sure whatever you choose makes sense with your event and won’t get in the way of your main goal – raising money for your organization.
Pancake breakfast fundraisers are fun, relatively inexpensive, and popular events. They work best for community organizations but can work for any nonprofit willing to try.
The best way to fundraise for these events is to sell tickets using Donorbox Events. This seamless system will save you time and energy that you can spend making sure your pancakes are the best out there. It’s easy for your supporters, too, which means more attendance and more support for your great organization.
To learn more about creative fundraising events, check out the rest of our Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive curated blog content in your inbox every month.
Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
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Lindsey Baker Bower