It’s fairly obvious that while businesses chase profits and growth, churches have a totally different aim. Regardless of the denomination or creed most churches are in the business of saving souls and bettering people. Despite the huge difference in the underlying goal there is a commonality between churches and businesses that many overlook, and even non-profits, they all need cash and capital to achieve their goals!
Churches need capital for a wide variety of purposes including: buildings and vehicles, on-going maintenance, pamphlets, teaching materials, canonical books, salaries of paid clergy, and even in some cases a marketing or advertising budget to help spread the word and grow their congregation.
While religious organizations receive a tremendous amount of charitable donations (105.53 billion in 2013!), as of 2013 this amount has seen a decline for five years in a row. Further, while 105.53 billion may seem like an astronomical figure there are by some accounts at least 327,000 religious organizations in the United States. All of this simply means that excepting the megachurches many small churches struggle to raise the funds needed to effectively run their organization. Consequently, in addition to tithes, offerings and other charitable donations, an ubiquitous part of churches and religious organizations are fundraisers. In order to help churches better raise funds we’ve put together a huge list of church fundraisers and fundraising ideas. church fundraisers ideas
Church Fundraiser Ideas
Fundraisers are fantastic events beyond the cash or capital aspect because they bring people with various talents together, create relationships and worthwhile memories, and do a lot of good for your church, your community and whomever else you might be helping. But planning and organizing a fundraiser can seem like an overwhelming task. As they say the devil is in the details and there are plenty of details to be considered when planning out fundraising events!
Oftentimes the biggest challenge with church fundraisers is choosing a fun, creative, meaningful activity that motivates your congregation and community to get involved. To help make your fundraiser successful and a less stressful process, below is a list of 78 church fundraising ideas, along with a brief explanation and pros and cons of each idea so you can choose the ideas you think will work the best for your church or organization.
While our main intent is to provide churches with ideas there is no doubt that many if not all of these would work in a variety of settings. Whether it be a school, club, sports team, high school or non-profit, these fundraisers would probably work. So whatever your situation might be, if you’re in need of fundraiser ideas then look no more! Don’t forget to also check out these five online fundraising tools that can be used for both churches and non-profits.