When you’re interested in a fundraiser to raise money for a school, church, venture, cause, or community organization, finding fundraising ideas can be a challenge. This is because people are often tired of some of the things these groups are selling. That being said, there are effective and easy fundraising ideas for teenagers and young people all over the place, which can raise significant money towards compelling causes.
If you have no clue how to start finding your own fundraiser, you’ve come to the right place because below are some great ideas to consider if you’re a teen in need of raising funds for an upcoming project. In addition to leveraging the below list, be sure to lean into your school, neighborhood, church, and other local organizations, groups, and networks that may give your fundraising efforts a boost or be willing to help share your fundraiser with their built-in audiences and tight-knit communities who already trust what they promote.
- T-Shirt Fundraiser
A t-shirt fundraiser is fun and simple, and it’s perfect for sports groups, bands, and other high school clubs and organizations, as well as for fundraising for new entrepreneurial ventures and charitable causes with meaningful slogans or messages. Everyone loves a nice t-shirt because they’re comfortable and show off your favorite hobby, club, or cause, and they can help promote the fundraising initiative, thus serving as essentially free marketing as supporters wear the conversation-starter shirts and market your cause. In addition, a nice custom t-shirt can be made for practically nothing on print-on-demand sites like Teespring and Printful, which allows you to make a good profit off of each one that you sell and avoid laying out cash or holding inventory before locking in those orders (with no minimum order quantity required).
- Bake Sale
A bake sale is an easy way to make money because you can get members of the group you’re raising funds for to donate the baked goods, which means your costs are practically nil. You can sell cakes of all sizes and shapes, cupcakes, and numerous other baked goods, and they’ll all sell quickly because people love sweets! If you like, you can even take bids on each item to raise even more money.
- Balloon Raffle
A balloon raffle is a unique and fun way to raise money. There is a prize and raffle tickets are involved, but instead of buying the tickets, they are placed in balloons and people pay $1 each to pop one of the balloons. After the balloon is popped, they get their raffle ticket and if their ticket number is pulled, they win the prize.
- Face Painting
Face painting is a lot of fun, especially for kids, so if you want to do something that’s fun and that will draw in tons of kids – and therefore tons of money – this is a great fundraising event. Even better, it’s super-easy to find a professional face painter, and they’ll have just as much fun as everybody else. They’ll supply their own materials and face paints, and they even do all of the hard work as well.
- Scavenger Hunt
If you want a unique fundraising opportunity for your group, a scavenger hunt is the perfect solution. You start by asking local businesses to donate a variety of items, and choose one of those items as the grand prize. Next, charge families a small fee to participate then let the kids search for all of the items. The one who finds the grand prize will then receive a special item for doing so. You can hold the event at your school or even at a local park.
- Coffee Fundraiser
Most adults drink coffee, so if your group sells coffee, you can make up to 45% profit, depending on the company that supplies the coffee. This is a great fundraising idea because it is simple, has a high profit margin, and let’s face it, it is a product that is super-easy to sell. Kids can sell door to door, or you can use some type of online platform (like Shopify or Etsy) to sell. Either way, it’s easy to make money selling coffee.
- Restaurant Night at Local Eateries
Oftentimes a local restaurant or two will agree to have a night devoted just to your group. Your responsibility is to promote that restaurant and tell people they should eat there on a particular night. At the end of the night, the restaurant will donate a certain percentage of its sales to your organization. They get more customers because of the promotion, and you get a lot of money in return. This also helps drum up awareness about those small businesses (assuming the restaurants are local small businesses, not large chains), and they’ll get a charitably tax write-off for the portion of sales they’re donating.
- Car Wash
A car wash is one of the easiest fundraisers to organize. You don’t even have to advertise the event because the kids washing the cars will draw enough attention on that particular day. You simply charge a certain amount of money per car and the rest of the day is super-easy. The kids do the work but will find it lots of fun every time.
- Yard Sale
Yard sales are fun and easy to organize, and you’ll start by asking everyone to bring items from home that they no longer want. On the day of the sale, arrange all of the items neatly and make some colorful signs to attract people’s attention. You’re likely to be surprised by the amount of money you’ll make, and even more surprised by the type of items you receive!
- Food Trucks
If you know someone who you can rent a food truck from, set it up for a day and serve meals or snacks to people. Food trucks tend to be very lucrative, and you can even choose a certain type of food to be served, such as tacos, funnel cakes, or corn dogs or perhaps a food related to or themed for your fundraising cause. Alternatively, you can sell a variety of different foods and likely draw in an even bigger crowd in the end.
- Shoe Drive Fundraiser
Shoe drive fundraisers require a third-party company that will set up the fundraiser for you. You simply collect gently used shoes from the public, including shoes of different sizes and designs, and the company you’re working with will pay you for every pair they receive. They will then turn around and donate the shoes to kids in developing nations.
- Hold a Field Day
Field days are good because you can hold events such as tug-of-war competitions, three-legged races, and lots more. You can also set up a concession stand to make even more money, and it’s usually easy to organize because most people you talk to will be anxious to help. It’s a super-fun day that people of all ages will enjoy, and you can come up with more types of competition if you search online.
- Selling Cookie Dough
Selling cookie dough is a lucrative fundraiser because everyone loves cookies! Most of the time, the dough is scooped out and placed on a baking tray, or they’re already cut into small pieces. Either way, it is fast and simple to get fresh delicious cookies if you get some of this dough from a child participating in this type of fundraiser.
- Kids’ Bingo Night
Bingo is a fun game to play and even kids enjoy it. You can hold a bingo night and sell tickets to the event, but you can also sell concessions and products if you have them. There are actually numerous ways you can make money off of a kids’ bingo night, especially because this is a game everyone knows how to play and which everyone loves.
- Sell Flowers
Everyone loves flowers, and once you find a company to buy the flowers wholesale from, the rest is simple. This is a very easy way to make money, especially if you choose the right flowers, meaning flowers in your school color, pink and red flowers close to Valentine’s Day, and numerous other combinations.
- Straw Draw Fundraiser
For this fundraiser, you’ll sell straws at $1 apiece, and attach a different gift to each one of the straws. Some of these gifts could include movie tickets, gift cards to a local restaurant, or even a bag of candy. People will gladly pay this price for the chance to get a special and unique prize, and you won’t have to work hard to come up with ideas for those prizes.
- Christmas Wreath Sales
Buying Christmas wreaths wholesale and selling them retail is a fairly easy fundraiser and a great option for making a little extra money during the holiday season. You can even get the kids to make the wreaths themselves. Once you buy the materials wholesale, the rest is fairly simple, and the wreaths should be gorgeous!
- Obstacle Course
Setting up an obstacle course might be a little challenging, but this is a super-fun activity that every participant will love. You’ll charge each person who participates a small fee, then let them have the fun they deserve to have. You can also sell snacks if you like if you wish to make even more money, and you can use inflatables for a lot of the items used in the course.
- Gift Wrapping Services
If it’s the holidays or Mother’s Day or something similar, people need their gifts wrapped, and you can charge a small fee for anyone who wants this done. If you can get set up in a mall or shopping center, you’ll get tons of customers, and most customers are more than happy to pay for this much-needed service. Aside from the minimal cost of wrapping supplies and your and your volunteers’ time to do the wrapping, this is a high-profit fundraising opportunity with low capital overhead.
- Silent Auction
A silent auction is usually a high-class event, but it can bring in tons of money. You can get fancy items donated by local business-people and charge people a certain amount to buy a ticket. At the event, people will bid on each item and the highest bidder will win that particular item. The items can be in any price range and don’t have to be super-expensive items such as jewelry and others.
- Sell Candy Grams
Candy grams are tons of fun and kids love selling them. Set up a table and some chairs and let the kids take orders for candy grams. Customers will order the candy grams to send to their special someone, and you can even let them write a special message to the recipient. Charge a fee for each candy gram and of course, make sure that you deliver all of them on time.
- Challenge a Teacher or Principal
Kids love this game, and you can execute it in one of several ways. You can set up a dunking booth or a booth that allows kids to throw a pie in the teacher’s face. Charge each child that comes up to the booth and let them have their fun. You can make up other challenges as well because anything that allows the kids to get “one over” on the teachers or principal should make you some money.
- Sell Singing Telegrams
If you belong to a choir and need a good fundraiser, this one is unbeatable. Sell singing telegrams (with the school’s permission, of course), then have various choir members go up to an unsuspecting soul and sing them a song. It’ll be a great opportunity to show off your crooning skills, and you won’t have to sell a lot of them in order to make lots of money.
- Golf Tournament
Lots of people will appreciate a good golf tournament, and if you get some local celebrities to sign up and play, most of them will jump at the chance. Charge each of the attendees a small fee and ask the participants to volunteer their time. The price of the tickets alone should be enough to help you make the event worthwhile financially.
- Trivia Night
Everyone loves a good trivia game, and there are certainly enough of them out there to enjoy. Or, you can simply make up your own game. Charge people to come and see the game and make sure you sell snacks and drinks to make a little extra money. You can even choose a trivia game based on a certain theme, and make sure the game is challenging enough to have the watchers on the edge of their seats.
- One-Mile or 5K Run
A run is a great way to make some money, and all you have to do is decide if the runners should be kids or adults. You can create a one-mile “fun” run for the kids and a 5K race for the adults. Charge each participant an entry fee and make sure you have a packet of materials for each one of them, including an identifying number and maybe even a lanyard or lapel sticker.
- Movie Night
Movie Night is similar to restaurant night, meaning you arrange to invite people to go and see a certain movie and then the manager donates a certain percentage of that night’s income to your group or organization at the end of the night. Seeing a movie is a fun event, so it shouldn’t take you long to find tons of people who are eager to visit the movie theater that night.
- Used Book Sale
You start this event by soliciting donations from community members and parents, then arrange a day or night for people to come by and purchase the books. The more people who donate books, the more variety you’ll end up with, and this will make your book sale a lot more fun and productive. If you like, you can concentrate on a certain genre only, such as science fiction, mystery, etc.
- Talent Show
A talent show is a lot of fun. Even if the students at the school seem to have no talent, they can still perform and turn the event into a comedy special! However you decide to set it up, it’ll be a fun night for all, and you won’t have to charge a lot of money per-person to have tons of money in the end. Talent shows are also events that everyone loves to attend, so they are easy to organize for little to no cost, though they’re also easy to upsell with food and drinks for purchase.
- Cookie-Decorating Contest
Get your best decorators together and charge people to come and participate in the event. Go ahead and supply all of the supplies for them so they won’t have to bring them themselves. Have enough icing and decorations to allow the decorators to get very creative, and have tons of cookies so that you don’t run out. This is a super-fun event that’s especially exciting when both kids and adults participate!
- Walk-a-Thon Fundraiser
This one is similar to the one-mile or 5K run except it’s easier because everyone will be walking and not running. You can charge each participant for the event and ask the community to come and watch. Don’t forget to give them numbers for their shirts, and you can also add concessions, door prizes, and many other items if you want to make even more money, as well as further promote the fundraising cause with built-in branding.
- Penny Drive
This can be any type of drive – penny drive, nickel drive, or any denomination. It can also go on for a certain length of time, and you can set up jars in strategic places so that over that time frame, anybody who wants to can put a few coins inside and feel like they’re donating to something important. The benefit of a coin or cash drive is that people can easily contribute their spare change without going out of their way, though the down side is that you may not make quite as much as a larger production fundraiser would bring in (particularly one promoted with flyers, emails, and social media).
- Potluck Dinner
Everyone loves a good potluck dinner, and it’s a great place to start when you want an inexpensive fundraiser that has the potential to make lots of money. Have people bring a certain dish that night so there’s plenty of food to eat, and charge people a small fee for enjoying the dinner. It’s also a great time for people to relax, get to know one another better, and have a lot of fun.
- Theme Party
This is a great activity that the whole family can enjoy, and your theme can be a certain decade, a certain style of clothing, or any area of interest that is shared by a lot of people or related to the cause at hand. The only thing you might want to remember is that it can get a little pricey when you go to buy decorations and accessories, so try not to go overboard. Sell tickets to everyone who wants to go and have a good time!
- Football Player Ballet
People will gladly pay money to see football players try to dance the ballet, and most athletes are happy to participate, especially if they know it’s a fundraiser. You’ll have to organize a team to plan and coordinate the event, then you’ll be selling tickets to anyone who wants to attend. It makes for a lot of laughs and should be not only lucrative for you, but a lot of fun as well.
- Read-a-Thon
If you want your kids to get away from their electronics for a while, a read-a-thon is perfect. Make the event last for a week so that kids get to read more than one book, and have them ask people to donate a certain amount of money for each page or each book that they read over that period of time. You can even have them set up their own fundraising page so everyone can tell how they’re doing and they can publicly track their progress.
- Cleanup Challenge
This is a great activity for a youth group or other club to participate in, and it involves getting a group of people together and doing a little volunteer work. Decide on a park or other public location that needs to be cleaned and made neater, and have each participant pay a certain amount of money to take advantage of the activity. You can even clean the inside of a building if you like, including a school, hospital, or library.
- Concession Stand
Next time your local sports teams have a game, set up a concession or snack stand somewhere nearby, and make sure there’s a variety of foods for everyone to enjoy. Make sure you buy everything at wholesale prices (often also in bulk online) so you can make even more money, but you also need to check with the team or school to make sure they don’t already have this type of stand at their games and ensure that you’re allowed to post up there for your good cause.
- Calendars
Everyone needs a calendar, and even in today’s digital age, a wall calendar is something most people enjoy having. If your club belongs to a church or school, make each picture in the calendar something unique to that particular organization. VistaPrint and Canva are just two of the sites that allow you to make calendars cheaply, and you can sell them just about anywhere when you’re done.
- Bowl-a-Thon
People love to bowl, and high school students can get their friends and family together for a night of bowling that makes it easy to use as a fundraiser. Just devote one night to bowling and charge everyone who attends a small fee for participating. If you like, you can even make and sell memorabilia for the event, such as lapel pins, stickers, lanyards, or stress balls.
- Student Art Exhibit
The artists in your school can get together and put on an art exhibit to show off their work, and selling tickets for this type of event is never difficult. If your school is too small, check with a community center and ask if they will donate some space for you to hold the event. If you end up with a lot of different artist platforms, you’ll be able to attract even more people in the end.
- Product Fundraisers
When you’re thinking of effective ways to raise money, direct selling is often the easiest way to do this. What’s even better is the fact that there are tons of items you can sell to bring joy to others. These include candles, pot holders, posters, bracelets, bookmarks, and even bird houses. If you brainstorm a little with others, you should be able to come up with a lot of great ideas that can make you tons of money.
- Regular Raffle
You can also hold a standard raffle if you like. Choose a grand prize that is either donated or purchased by someone, then sell raffle tickets to see who wins it. It can be something such as a piece of jewelry or a weekend getaway trip – it’s up to you and your group. The raffle tickets should be relatively cheap, but of course, the ultimate price will be based in part on the price of the item being raffled.
- Put the Principal in Jail
This is the perfect fundraiser for friends, family, and anyone who works at or attends your school. All you do is put the principal in a makeshift jail and tell the school that only a certain amount of money being raised will be able to unlock that jail. The students will enjoy knowing that they’re keeping their principal in jail for a while, and it’s a fun activity from start to finish.
- Color Run
Grade school kids love this activity, but so do other kids and even adults. You coordinate the event and instruct the participants to wear white shirts. At the race, hand spectators colorful chalk powder to throw at the runners as they run by, which means their white shirts will no longer be white once they go across the finish line. This event is tons of fun for everyone involved! People can pay to sponsor runners, pay to attend, pay to run, and/or pay to buy the colorful chalk to throw, so there are many ways to make money through this event, in addition to selling concessions at the actual event.
- Cookbook Sale
For this fundraiser, solicit recipes from family members and their friends so that you can combine the recipes with the ones other kids have collected. Have someone type up the cookbook and make tons of copies – or do this online – and then start selling them. Make sure each recipe has the name of the person donating it, which will be fun to read once the book is all put together.
- Dog Wash
A car wash is always popular with kids wanting to raise funds for their organization or school, but a dog wash can be just as much fun. Just advertise the event and charge each dog-owner a certain amount of money, then give their furry family members a good bath. It’s a lot of fun for both the pet parents and the kids washing the dogs, but don’t forget to have the event supervised by adults!
- Do an Online Fundraiser
Our world is becoming more virtual all the time, so why not use social media, e-commerce, or digital fundraising platforms to do your fundraising for you? There are tons of products you can find and sell online, and most of the companies that you’ll be buying them from allow you to have your own personalized selling site. With these, all you do is spread the word and direct everyone to that website. It’s easy for the customers and easy for the school, so it is definitely a win-win situation. This could be done with an easy-to-build e-commerce platform integrated with print-on-demand products relevant to your cause, or you could use a crowdfunding type of platform like Indiegogo or Gofundme.
- Family Photo Day
Everyone wants more pictures of their kids, so you might consider hiring a photographer for the day and letting him take pictures of all the kids who come by that day. They can take family photos as well, and if you schedule the event near the end of the year or end of the school year, parents will be more inclined to take advantage of it. You can encourage them to make a donation to the school, and most of them probably will.
- Lawn Care
For this, you should sell raffle tickets and the winner gets their lawn detailed. When the time comes, get a group of students together, go to that person’s yard, and mow, trim, plant, and weed so that the yard looks perfect in the end. You’ll want to do a good job at this task because they’ll be expecting their yard to look amazing when you’re done. And the more tickets you sell, the closer you’ll be to your fundraising goals, without having to detail a ton of individual lawns.
Conclusion
When looking for fundraising ideas for teenagers, you should first consider the kids’ or teens’ ages, as well as the likely audience who would be in support of your cause, event, or fundraising venture. If you want your fundraising efforts to be successful, a little research has to be done so that you can choose the most effective one in the end, as well as orchestrate the most effective marketing to ensure enough people actually know about and are able to support your cause.
It’s also good if you put everything in writing, from your budget to your final goal and everything else that is involved in the fundraising. Finally, you should start early so there’s enough time to plan everything properly. If you follow these tips, you should be able to make some money on the event regardless of what it is, but it all has to start with some planning and specific goal-setting, among other things.
