Fundraising ideas for work

Silent Auction

A Silent auction can be a great fundraising idea for work, and an opportunity to clear out the cupboards. You could contact your suppliers and customers to donate for a worthy cause.

• Recruit some volunteers to help organise and set up to help the auction run smoothly
• Obtain 10+ desirable items. This could be from the office, event tickets, or donations from the directors.
• Choose an area to display the items, so they can be reviewed and inspected
• Provide bid sheets. Include the name of the item, starting bid and bid increments
• Choose the starting date and the precise closing date & time. Best if run for at least 3 days
• On start, circulate an email to all employees with featured items, and listing everything for auction
• On close, collect all the bid sheets.
• Time to collect and hand over the items to the winning bids. Expect to deal with cash, cheques and even PayPal.

Board Game Tournament

From backgammon, checkers, and chess to hungry hippo’s, board game tournaments are great fun. In an organisation, it’s best to run as a Grand Slam over 1 month with games arranged by the competitors.

• Choose 1 or 2 tournaments to run at the same time, and a month when will be run.
• For fast games like backgammon are played best of 3 in early rounds, then best of 5 in the last 3 rounds.
• Arrange prizes for the winner, you may wish to organise a trophy
• All entrants pay a fee, and this is either split 50/50 prize & charity or 100% charity if prizes have been donated
• Print your grand slam tournament sheets, and separate tournament rules
• Entrants add their name to the tournament sheet, and fees paid before the tournament closes
• Provide the boardgames and place in the company kitchen, or rest area. You may also provide rules for dispute resolution!
• Encourage everyone to play as soon as possible and record who wins updating the tournament sheet
• Any first and second round matches not played by the end of the 1st and 2nd respectively should be resolved with a coin toss to keep the tournament progressing. Later stage games not played should be resolved by email agreement
• Be prepared to get involved to resolve unplayed games in later stages of the tournament
• Make a big deal of the winner. Take a photo with prize and pin to the notice board, how much was raised and when the next tournament will take place

Of all the fundraising ideas for work, board game tournaments could last for years with regular funds being raised. And a lot of fun along the way.

Casual dress-down day

If you have a formal dress code, everyone can relax and have fun with a dress-down day. When your business is customer facing you could make it a fancy dress day and make a bigger event.

• Let everyone know in advance, the fee to participate and fundraising purpose
• Advise what isn’t acceptable to wear, especially if there is the potential of clients in the office
• Make a bigger deal by providing lunchtime pizza, or organise after-work drinks
• Add some lunchtime fun and games to boost

Office Great Bake-Off

Stemming from the popularity of the TV show, hosting your own bake-off with prizes is always fun, and yummy. You could open the competition to any type of cake, or have a number of categories so budding-bakers can attempt something new. Even a show-stopper category may spark interest in the creatives in the company.

• Set a date and email colleagues (star bakers) to enter the competition
• Find three judges who all love cake
• Source a prize for the winner
• Advertise to everyone to come along to judging, and meet the winner
• Let judging commence, with some guidelines to help them choose a worthy winner
• Charge people per slice, you could provide a nice cafetiere of coffee to sell with the cake
• Don’t forget to organise some petty-cash to handle the transactions

Although this is one of the greatest fundraising ideas for work, we don’t recommend doing this too often for health reasons…