Tech-Easy Online Fundraising Event Ideas

July 8, 2022

Fundraising events are back in full swing. 

I just interviewed Enola White with Columbia Entertainment Company, a local theatre. They’ve been doing their live performances in person for a while now. But their recent Trivia Night night fundraiser was in person for the first time in two years. And she said planning it was a brain jump.

It was a brain jump for us to get into doing online fundraising events, and now it feels like we have to do another brain jump going back to in-person events. 

While everything is getting back to “normal,” I don’t want you to forget the things you learned when you couldn’t fundraise the same way you always had. 

We shouldn’t leave the skills we developed out of necessity on the table. 

Let’s review some tech-easy online fundraising event ideas we talked about way back in 2020. Those events, those activities, can fill in the gap for you. They can boost your fundraising. 

Before I start giving too many ideas to digest, remember our free download, 14 Tech-Easy Online Fundraising Event Ideas. Inside the guide, you’ll find ideas, plus the people who shared them. 

Let’s kick this off with the three things you should be thinking about as you decide what type of fundraiser or online event you might do. 

The right online event for you is going to:

1. Teach people about your organization – The perfect fundraiser will teach people about your organization. Your event shouldn’t be everyone else’s event. It should be something that embodies your organization’s values and helps you connect with people who have the same values. (For more on this topic check out: Don’t Make this Mistake in Your Marketing or Fundraising Events.)
2. Match with your team’s strengths – If your team hates it, don’t do it. There are so many ideas out there, certainly you can find one that you’re good at and can get excited about. Give yourself permission to walk away from the ideas that aren’t in your strengths zone. 
3. Maximize your assets – If what you’re trying to do doesn’t match your assets, meaning the things you have already at your disposal to help you meet people and communicate with people; it’s not the right fundraiser for you. You can build assets during your other fundraisers or events and leverage one asset to build another. (For more on this topic check out Where to Start – Zero to Marketing Superhero – Part 1.)

Now, on to the fundraising ideas!

I have four big buckets with ideas for you to take away. 

1. The Non-Event
2. Peer-to-Peer
3. The Event-a-Thon
4. Kits

Each can work for your organization, depending on your team’s strengths and assets. Read through and pick one to try!

The Non-Event

The first is for non-tech-savvy people. You’re going to do what my friend Jamie Freidrichs calls a non-event. Jamie has been a guest on my podcast multiple times. She’s a phenomenal fundraiser and coaches nonprofits on how to fundraise. 

To host a non-event, you’re going to ask for donations and not actually do an event. No people need to show up anywhere or interact with you. Think of a way you can ask for donations wrapped in a beautiful package that will attract people and teach them about your organization. 

Online Lemonade Stand

One member of our Nonprofit Marketing with Purpose community, Betsy Kamara with Hillcrest Platte County, told me about this idea a few years ago. They did it all via email, through their database of repeat donors, and raised over $30,000! 

The lemonade stand concept allowed her to create different giving tiers and help people conceptualize what she was asking for.

It was set up for supporters to “pour themselves a cup” for $5, have two cups for $10, a whole pitcher for $100 or purchase a lemon tree for $300. Once people donated, she emailed them a recipe for the best lemonade in the world. It was a super fun twist on the non-event with cute packaging. 

Downloadable Content – A Commemorative Cookbook

Lizzy’s Walk of Faith, involved their junior board in their year end fundraiser a few years back. 

Lizzy passed away at an early age. Now her friends are in high school, so they cooked her favorite recipes and put together pictures of themselves doing it. 

They shared the recipes and photos and that was their non-event. They asked for donations, and part of the perk was sharing these beautiful memories that they had of Lizzy. 

Peer-to-Peer

If you’re not familiar with the term, a peer to peer fundraiser is when a supporter fundraises on your behalf. 

Because all nonprofits are pressed for time (and if you’re not I want to know ALL your secrets!) one of the mantras we focus on in our year-end giving training is “you don’t have to do it all yourself, and you shouldn’t do it all yourself”. 

Remember – you have a team of people who want to help you. You just have to ask. There are all kinds of different ways to engage your supporters and have them help you fundraise for you. 

Peer-to-peers are a double win.

They are a great opportunity because you get to meet those who donate because they have a relationship with the person who asked them to donate. You can build your donor list through these peer-to-peers and raise money. 

Facebook Birthday Campaigns

People can set up their own campaign if your organization has a Facebook Page, and the donations come straight to you. It’s probably the most straightforward peer-to-peer. 

So give them a nudge in your direction!

Set up a monthly email to supporters who have a birthday that month and say, “Hey, would you guys be willing to skip the gifts and set up an online fundraiser on Facebook on behalf of our organization?” Be sure to include instructions on exactly how to do it. 

Then, when these people’s friends go to their timeline and wish them happy birthday, they’re going to see your organization’s name and potentially make a donation. 

If you have people’s birthdays, this is a great and easy thing. If you don’t have people’s birthdays, this could be something that you can build. The next time you have people sign up for an event, you could ask them for their birthday. Or you could just send it out once a quarter to everyone as a reminder. 

Capitalize on Volunteer Strengths

Think through your Rolodex of amazing volunteers and consider their strengths. What are the things they’re good at they might be willing to donate on your behalf? They may be willing to donate time or services to other people. 

Some of the best peer-to-peers are those that are challenge/reward. People will donate online, then with a challenge/reward campaign, they say, “Hey, if you donate X number of dollars, then I’ll do Y.” 

We’ve seen this work so well in our CoMoGives campaign, our year-end, month long online giving campaign. We have a peer-to-peer component where the participating organizations reach out to their volunteers and ask if they would put on a fundraiser on their behalf. 

One person, Joe, shaved off his beard, and he raised over $500. 

Annette last year had a chicken petting party and raised thousands of dollars for the organization that she’s the executive director of, which was formerly PedNet and now is Local Motion. 

Look around at your volunteers and ask who has these amazing talents? 

Who would be willing to donate their time and talents as an offering to our donors? 

You have all these volunteers who have these amazing talents, and they’re more than happy to donate them to you. Let’s say you have a volunteer who is a fantastic beer brewer, and they’re willing to do a beer brewing class for you. You could set up events for them to do it online and “charge” a donation to participate. 

Last year, I did an awesome guest interview with Stacey Pottinger with Ragtag Film Society. She says you just need to look for an idea that already fits your volunteer’s life. 

For example, I am an aerialist, which means I hang out in a hoop, and I spin really fast and wrap myself up in fabric, then drop from the ceiling. Think Cirque du Soleil. 

So she says, “Well, Monica, something that would fit into your life is you’re already doing aerial, right? So imagine that you just let somebody pay to pick a song. If they paid $50, they could pick a song, and you would do a freestyle for it, record it and post it up on Facebook.” There’s a peer-to-peer campaign that I already do anyway. 

Or, let’s say you are an animal rescue organization, and you are always training dogs. Maybe you even do live dog training classes. Why not record them, and offer them to people to buy online? Then you can further your mission because it’s telling people about your organization. Maybe you could have an auxiliary set of training classes they can purchase online with a donation. 

Those are things you would talk about all the time. You wouldn’t necessarily just do one fundraiser for them. You could talk about them constantly, at all of your events, in every email newsletter. It could become another stream of income for your organization.

The Event-a-Thon

I know you’ve heard of them, but there are all kinds of different ones. Even-a-thons are actually peer-to-peer fundraisers at their best. They’re easy for participants to understand, can be done enmasse and you can motivate and support all your campaigners at once.

Think about your organization’s core values and what kind of a-thon you could do. 

What do your donors enjoy? 

You could do anything as an a-thon, a jump-a-thon, a rock-a-thon, a bake-a-thon, a candle making-a-thon, a crochet-a-thon, you name it. 

My kids just did one for their school, a read-a-thon. They set it up through an online system, and each kid had their own little link. 

Each child emailed or texted the link to friends and family asking for donations. They raised so much money through their read-a-thon that they fulfilled all of the goals for the library and each classroom, and they still had money left over to contribute to their missions projects. 

Kits

Kits are so big right now. Everybody is buying all kinds of subscription services, but let’s roll this into the nonprofit universe. 

Giving Tuesday Tea Party

You probably wouldn’t have the bandwidth to do this all the time, but one of the things I thought about doing is a Giving Tuesday Tea Party Kit because we kick off the CoMoGives Campaign on Giving Tuesday.

I thought it would be cool if we could sell ready made tea party kit for families. It would include a script about what Giving Tuesday is and how it’s such a powerful day of giving. Share activities to do as a family to give back to their community. There could be little treats for the kids and suggestions of easy things that they could do for Giving Tuesday and maybe give them some of the supplies. 

Time Capsules

Another idea is from my client, the Boone County History & Culture Center. They offered a time capsule themed activity book for kids during COVID. Maybe they could continue to spin out that idea to educate kids and preserve our county’s history with a time capsule kit. It could pair their activity book idea with fun pictures of people from back in the day and show a kid’s life in the time period and directions to preserve their items or even a capsule to bury. 

Products as Fundraisers

What items do you have at your disposal that could be turned into a fundraiser?  

I recently also spoke with Boone History about their little known gift shop. It’s a hidden treasure for locally authored books, christmas ornaments and more. 

They have spoken about having an online store to sell all these cool things, but an online store is a lot of money to set up. 

What if, instead they promote one item per month via social media and email? Telling the audience about the cool thing and asking if they’d like to purchase it. They could sell it on a simple email form or just let people respond to the email and mail in a check (lots of the Boone History donors are fans of mailing in a check, yours might be too).

It might amount to nothing, but at least Boone History wouldn’t have invested a lot of money in setting up an online store when they don’t know if it will work. 

If it goes well Boone History could offer a locally authored book subscription club. Mailing a  book by a Missouri author or about Missouri history every month for a year. 

The fundraising possibilities are endless. 

1. You can skip the event all together and just pose a nice creative ask.
2. Ask for the help of your supporters and tackle a peer-to-peer initiative that pairs with their interests and your core values.
3. Host an a-thon reflecting your values that can teach people about your organization. Then rally your volunteers around it and have them each text a few people.
4. Offer a kit. You could do any type of swag or kit, using either the things you already have or go back and look at what you have from past events you could offer. 

And always remember that whatever idea you pick should match the magic three things: 

1. It should teach people about your organization
2. It should match the strengths of your team
3. It should maximize and capitalize on the assets that you already have. 

And boom, there you go, now go forth and fundraise!