Host a House Party

By hosting a party in your home, you can create a great atmosphere for raising awareness, engaging in meaningful discussion, and raising money for the issue you care about most. You can make the event even more cost-effective by turning it into a potluck and inviting people to bring an appetizer, entrée or dessert. If your guests are interested in donating to MADRE via check or credit card at the event, have them fill out a donation slip with their information. We’ll provide copies upon request.

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Launch a Charity Walk/Run

Short distance charity walk/run events, or even endurance competitions, are incredibly easy to join. Fun Runs, Walk-a-thons, 5K and 10K races, and endurance competitions (like triathlons) happen all the time in every city across the United States. It's even possible to start a charity walk/run of your own just by gathering friends or community members to walk together to raise funds for MADRE. All you have to do is sign up for a walk or create your own, set a personal goal and start fundraising. If you decide to create your own walk-a-thon or charity run make sure you first talk to your local city government for permits.

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Organize a Garage, Yard or Stoop Sale

This is a great way to raise money, reduce, reuse and recycle! You can put an ad in the local newspaper one week before the big event and decorate fun posters to put on street corners to attract customers. Make sure you have small bills and coins for change before the event starts.

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Start a Bake Sale

Combine a traditional bake sale with your group’s awareness raising efforts to create an easy fundraiser. A great incentive for people to buy your delicious goods is to show people where the money goes. Check with your university or city’s regulations about selling items in public spaces, especially if it is going to be homemade food (sometimes only pre-packaged food is allowed).

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Manage a Benefit Concert or Battle of the Bands

A fun and exciting way to make a lot of money in one night is through a concert. To host a benefit concert reserve space in an easily accessible location (usually a local club, bar or concert hall), find some recognizable bands or musicians to volunteer their talent, set up a table to advertise your campaign with a big bucket to collect pocket donations, and charge a ticket price at the door. You may also want to try and get the venue to donate their space, especially if they have a bar that will still make profits from the event. If you can get the venue to offer drink specials that night that might also help attract a bigger crowd. During the concert, be sure to make a brief announcement about your group and what issue you are raising money for and thank the bands for participating and the venue for the space.

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Coordinate a Restaurant Night

Ask local restaurants if they would be willing to donate a portion of their earnings on a specific night to your cause or organization. Create flyers for the events and advertise heavily in your school and neighborhood for that night. Ask if the restaurant can advertise on their tables for you leading up to and during the night. Also, if they offer specials that night, that might create further incentive for people to come and enjoy a good meal for a good cause.

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Produce a Fashion Show

An exciting event like a fashion show can create a lot of buzz and participation for your cause. You can make a casting call for student models, advertise in the art or fashion programs at your school for designers, ask recognizable people on campus (like athletes, favorite professors or even the dean) to come and act as judges or to give a speech. Between certain model walks (as they are dressing into a different theme for instance or for a different designer) you can have local dance groups or a cappella groups perform. 

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Do a Car Wash

A car wash is a fast and cheap way to raise money for a great cause. All you need is a space to wash and line up cars that is highly trafficked, buckets of water, soap, sponges, towels and a couple of hand made signs.

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Create a Bucketing Event and “Awareness Day”

Fundraising could not get any simpler than a bucketing event or awareness day. Once you have permission from your school or city to "bucket" or "can" for money, grab your container of choice and start collect donations! It’s best to create an “Awareness Day” around your collecting efforts to generate interest and provide more information and/or materials to inform others of why you are collecting money. Also, if you have games with prizes and free items for people to take they are more likely to stop and listen to what you have to say.

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Design an Art Exhibit

If creating an art exhibit fundraiser, first decide whether or not you want your art exhibit to focus on a specific theme. You can design the whole event around one message, bringing in artists, musicians or speakers to address one common cause. You can have people purchase tickets in advance, at the door or leave out a bucket or jar for donations. Make sure you pick an easily accessible location and have room for an information table to advertise the campaign for which you are fundraising. Offering free finger food and drinks is also a great way to bring in crowds and keep people mingling at your event.

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Organize a Silent Auction

A silent auction is a great way to get the whole community involved in your cause. Items sure to get high bids are packages of classes from local yoga studios, gyms or art centers, family meals and wine tasting at local restaurants, movie passes with snacks and drinks, autographed pictures and memorabilia from local athletes, art pieces from galleries or local artists and more. You can try and get a famous local restaurant to host the silent auction and include a dinner with the ticket price to increase interest in the event.