How do you rally your team together for a fundraiser?
Fundraising as a team is not only fun but also effective. With everyone working towards the same goal, you’ll be able to lean on one another for support and share fundraising responsibilities.
To make things even easier, consider using GoFundMe Team Fundraising. With GoFundMe Team Fundraising, you have all the same features as individual fundraisers, plus additional tools to foster collaboration. One of these tools is dashboards to track each team member’s fundraising progress.
To ensure your team is on the right path to fundraising success, follow these team fundraising tips and apply them to one of our workplace fundraising ideas. To start:
- Gather your team so that you can add each member’s name and photo to your fundraiser.
- Assign team responsibilities, such as someone who will post fundraiser updates, someone who will send thank you notes, and so on.
- Create your GoFundMe fundraising page by adding your team name and photo. We suggest using your work’s logo as your team photo. Additionally, brainstorm a captivating title, story, and add any other photos and videos you’d like to include.
- Strategize how to share your fundraiser with your friends and family, on social media, by having a livestream, and beyond. With crowdfunding, you’ll be able to reach an even wider audience. Don’t forget to use your hashtags!
- Keep your donors informed by posting regular fundraising updates and explaining how your team is making an impact with the money that is raised.
- Promote consistent small acts of giving with easy ideas, like putting a QR code of your GoFundMe donation page around the office.
Workplace fundraising ideas
We’ve gathered some of the best fundraising ideas for employees. These are mostly suited to in-person events, but we’ve included suggestions for how to tweak fundraising activities to include remote workers, too.
1. Host a pancake breakfast or bake sale
For a tasty and effective office fundraising idea, gather your office together for a coffee morning or pancake breakfast. Encourage donations to attend with suggested amounts.
Another way to raise money is to host a full bake sale. Encourage employees and their families to bring in baked goods and sell them for a suggested small donation. You could even host a bake-off or cook-off and let the office vote on their favorites. If you’ve no keen bakers in the workplace, partner with a local business that could provide them for you.
To cater to your remote workers, consider sending recipe cards around ahead of time or gathering for a group breakfast on a video call. A coffee morning chat would also work well as virtual fundraising, where employees gather to have coffee and can make donations if they please.
2. Organize a trivia night
Friendly competition during a trivia night can motivate employees and build rapport. Charge participants an entry fee to play. The money that is collected will go towards a charity that matters to your team. You can either have people participate individually or in groups.
Come up with fun questions or look online for questions testing general knowledge. You could also include a baby photo round, where employees share baby photos and their colleagues need to guess who’s who.
A quiz night is an easy event to run online if your workers are remote. Simply set up a team video call and host the quiz as you would IRL. Make sure everyone is on mute, so no answers are given away.
3. Run a food drive
Find a local charity or food bank that helps feed those in need. It’s important to reach out to the organization to make sure they accept donations and fundraising support, and ask if there is anything they need in particular.
Once you have that all sorted out, easily encourage in-person donations in the office with an online fundraiser. Set a goal for how much your company would like to raise and create a donation page. Pair it with a yard sale, and have local philanthropy enthusiasts donate items to sell. Read our blog to learn more about how to plan a donation drive.
4. Coordinate an inter-department sporting event
Hit the field (or the parking lot) with an Office Olympics. This gives your colleagues the opportunity to bond while getting some exercise away from the office. Have participants pay an entrance fee so that the money collected will go toward a charity.
You can choose from a variety of fun activities, such as an obstacle course, softball match, or golf tournament (if you really want to have some fun, set up a dunk tank!) — it depends on what your workplace would most enjoy. The main thing is building teamwork and communication throughout the event. Have a team that isn’t up for a lot of physical activity? Try switching it up with board games or a leisurely scavenger hunt.
Charge a small fee to take part, and encourage some friendly competition between teams to boost your fundraising efforts. You could make team t-shirts and sell them on the day as another way to boost fundraising.
5. Set up a community service day
Taking part in community service is an impactful way to help your community members. This gives your team a hands-on experience to do work that is making a difference.
Make a list of local charities and have your team vote for which one they’d like to volunteer for. The charity with the most votes will be the one your team does community service for. We recommend choosing one nonprofit organization for this so that your entire team can be together while volunteering. Volunteering as a group will form stronger connections.
6. Plan an office party for a cause
An office party guarantees a good time. This can just be an informal gathering if your team prefers. Brainstorm different dress-up themes, like a disco or superhero party. You could even do themes based on different holidays, like Halloween or Valentine’s Day. Regardless of what fancy dress theme your team chooses, make sure everyone dresses for the occasion.
Once you have a theme, decide on what kind of food and drinks to serve. You could make it a potluck party or karaoke event, depending on what your workplace would enjoy.
Raise money for a cause by either setting up a donation jar or selling tickets to attendees. Check out our top fundraising event ideas for more fun ways your team can come together to give back.
7. Host a movie night
Hosting a movie night is a great way to get everyone together and is relatively easy to do, especially if you host it in your office, as there will already be big screens or projectors to show the movie. Get the team to vote for a film ahead of time, to build anticipation, and make sure you’ve got plenty of popcorn, ice cream, and other goodies stocked up.
If you want to have it outside the office, head over to a local venue and have it there. Ask local businesses to get involved with sponsorships, where they can have their merch there for purchase or to give out in goodie bags. For a team that is 21+, combine movie night with a food or wine tasting for extra fun. Raise money by asking for a small donation to attend.
8. Dress down day
For a super-easy fundraising idea, look no further than a dress-down day. Invite your colleagues to come into work wearing comfortable clothes, from pajamas to sweatpants, and enjoy the working day. You could also host a best-dressed competition.
Get your team together for a good cause
Workplace fundraising has many advantages, ranging from team building to bettering the community. It also breaks up the work week for your team while practicing corporate social responsibility.
GoFundMe is here to help your team fundraise together. Before you get started, take a peek at our blog for easy steps on how to raise money. Sign up today to start workplace fundraising for an important cause.
Didn’t find the right idea for your workplace? Check out our blog for easy fundraising ideas, including hosting a simple car wash, silent auction, or walk-a-thon.