Updated July 2024
Here’s a list of 15 fundraising ideas that coincide perfectly with the month of October. From hosting a Trunk-or-Treat event or a pumpkin carving contest, these ideas are perfect for PTAs and PTOs that want to make a real difference for their school and reach their fundraising goals.Are you looking for more fundraising ideas?
Check out 20 Fall Fundraising Ideas for Your School for more autumn-inspired fun!
Every week we bring hands-on fundraising advice meant to help K-12 school groups smash their fundraising goals. Join our 10,000+ member community!
Our platform comes with powerful tools that can help you fundraise for your school throughout October. These include:
Get started with FutureFund today or book a demo to see how it can work for you.
These campaigns encourage parents and volunteers to donate directly to your school group. FutureFund makes it easy to collect money online during the campaign, but you can also include an in-person October-inspired event to make your fundraiser more meaningful.
Learn how to run a donation campaign with FutureFund here.
Tip: Use FutureFund’s messaging system to announce the fundraiser and include a link to the online campaign so that people can still donate even if they can’t attend the event.
Take donations for a PJ and Halloween-themed movie event! Guests can come rocking their favorite October-inspired pajamas and find a spot for the night’s entertainment. You can set up the fun in the gym, outside on the football field, or in another spot that can welcome a lot of families.
The PTO/PTA can also sell some “spooky” snacks for the event as well as spirit wear for another fundraising stream.
Organizing a trunk-or-treat event is a fun and festive way to raise funds during October. Ask families, community members, and business partners/sponsors to come and join in by passing out candy to all the participants right from their own trunks.
Costumes are welcome, candy is necessary, and all those trick-or-treaters can go from trunk to trunk to snag their sweets. It’s customary for each car/trunk to have a theme, and even compete for who “dresses” the best! Request donations at the event and post QR codes to take everyone directly to your online campaign page.
See also: 12 Halloween Fundraisers
Grab some pumpkins and a few bales of hay to create the right fall feeling. Invite your students and their families to carve pumpkins for an evening. The price of the pumpkin gets you access to the carving tools, markers to map out your design, and a spot to work, but the artists can bring whatever stencils they need to make their projects beautiful and unique!
The Booster Club can also set up a booth where they can sell the hot and fresh pumpkin seeds at the event and vote for who carves the best pumpkin.
This one is pretty straight forward: set a collection goal and find a popular and brave participant. Maybe the principal will volunteer, a football coach, or someone else that’s already beloved by the kids, making it an event that no one will want to miss!
Once you reach the collection amount, publicly shave his or her head. This becomes an event that too can create more than one fundraising stream by selling spirit wear at the same time or attaching it to another event such as a pep rally, fall festival, or even pumpkin carving!
Request participants to make a donation per card to take part in the spookiest bingo night of the year! Encourage everyone to dress in costume, include a Halloween playlist full of the spookiest of music, and have snacks available for sale by the PTO/PTA.
Snag a volunteer to MC the event and ask sponsors/community business partners to donate prizes to the event. It becomes fun for the community and mutually beneficial for all involved. Keep those QR codes up and around the event for those wanting to provide some extra donations as well.
Any kind of fundraiser where you sell physical items or event tickets is a purchase campaign. Add each event ticket or item for sale to your school’s online store in FutureFund by creating a specific purchase campaign for it.
Learn how to run a purchase campaign here.
Tip: Always run purchase campaigns alongside physical events like craft sales, since this allows you to make sales 24/7 and lets people make purchases even if they can’t attend the event.
To make this work smoothly and to benefit all parties, first, collect costume donations from the community in advance. Then, for a small entrance fee, you’ll have guests come in to purchase a new costume for whatever their Halloween needs may be.
This event is such a fun way for people to recycle costumes while finding a new one for a fraction of the cost, and in turn, the school benefits from the funds! Just ensure that you run a purchase campaign online through FutureFund for any witch or warlock that may need to show their support from home.
Costume contests are a classic October event and it can be planned after the costume swap takes place. Sell tickets to enter the contest and have students register online before the big day arrives. Each class can vote on a winner that proceeds to a school-wide contest.
Whoever wins the overall vote wins a pizza party or another group prize for their entire class! You can also charge $1 to cast votes (a dollar per voter) to heighten the fundraising aspect of the event.
The competition is on! In order for students to compete, they have to register online, purchase their entry fee, and submit two of their favorite holiday (think Thanksgiving and Christmas) recipes. Once the PTA has all registrants submission, they can sift through them to find 15-20 of the best and have them typed, copies, and bound for sale at a later winter fundraising.
In the meantime, students get to participate in an afternoon of silly relay races. They can be anything: a newspaper race, where the students race around a turning point while only stepping on one of two pieces of newspaper that they carry with them, a wheelbarrow race, where partners take turns holding one players ankles as they race around the turning point and back, or any other fun relay/race activity you can think of. Be sure to have prizes ready for the winners such as full-size candy bars or “Lunch with a Friend or Teacher” tickets.
Give your students some extra fun and their parents a break for an evening! Grab some local babysitters and/or volunteers who are willing to donate their time to babysit on location at the school. Plan some games and activities, some snacks, and a movie to keep the kids busy until it’s time to head home!
Sell tickets to the event beforehand so preparation is easy and donations can be taken for the correct number of food, drinks, and activity supplies.
This one is for adults only. The Booster Club can set a price for the tickets purchased in advance and sell them online through FutureFund’s storefront. For the event itself, the donors get a three course meal, plus dessert, a whole sheet of tickets, and access to all of the prizes that will be raffled off over the course of the evening, including prizes from your sponsors and business partners.
Some tickets may have prizes attached and other…tricks! You can get creative with this as you create the sheet of tickets and theme it around Halloween, from movies to classic spooky characters.
Sell tickets beforehand and generate a lot of interest through social media. The Booster Club can decide how interactive they want this event to be.
Request some of your more theatrical juniors and seniors to lead the show and sign up volunteers on our platform to really make the experience run smoothly. This event is kind of a blank slate. Organizers can decide the best approach for their community and put on a truly awesome yet age appropriate haunted house!
Everyone loves a good tumbler and mug, especially throughout the fall and winter months. Have the students create designs in their art classes and hold a contest. Pick a few of the best to transfer onto the items.
The PTO/PTA can send out some flyers with the designs and a link to your FutureFund storefront to purchase directly.
Hold a pet costume contest! The PTO/PTA can require a donation to watch the show and a registration fee to enter their pet purchased online in advance. Winner gets their picture taken for the school paper or the year book, plus bragging rights, of course.
An “A-Thon” fundraiser is a special kind of pledge campaign you can run in FutureFund. Once you create the campaign for the event, students who sign up to participate each get a link they can use to collect donations from family and friends.
Find step-by-step instructions for successful pledge campaigns here.
Tip: The link you’ll share when you create the campaign is what you’ll use to sign up student participants. When students register for the event, they’ll each get their own unique link that they can use to raise money from members of the school community.
This is a game that can be added on to a bigger event and turned into a bounce-a-thon with participants registering online before the big day! Get a few empty pringles cans and some ping pong balls. Wrap the cans in construction paper and decorate them according to the event theme and put a point value on them.
Then set the cans up on a ping pong style table at varying distances from the player. Add a little sand to the can just to keep it from blowing away/the ball from bouncing out of it and allow patrons to bounce a ping pong ball into the can for points or a prize. See who can go the longest without missing a can!
Set up a Halloween themed race for your community, either a 5k, 10k, half marathon, or full marathon. Keep in mind: the shorter the distance, the more participants will be willing to get involved. Registration should take place online before the big event.
Costumes are encouraged but not required. Don’t forget to include a goodie bag for everyone that signs up to compete!
FutureFund’s messaging system lets you:
Use Purchase campaigns to sell event tickets or physical items (like baked goods, merchandise, or arts and crafts).
Use Donation campaigns to collect money from community members in support of a specific goal or cause (like a pumpkin carving).
FutureFund gives you the ability to generate financial reports for fundraising campaigns in just a few clicks. To do this, navigate to Store and click the Reports tab near the top of your screen. Then choose Campaign Summary from the drop-down menu and click Generate Report.
See what other parents and schools are saying about us!
Seeking alumni donations isn’t just about fundraising—it’s about connecting with former students. By tapping into emotional motivators like nostalgia, recognition, and shared impact, you can inspire former students to stay engaged and give back.
Your alumni newsletter can do more than update former students—it can also encourage them to donate to your fundraisers. Learn how to maximize the potential of every newsletter you send in this guide from the team at FutureFund.
Plan fundraisers around the dates that will bring in the most donations! FutureFund’s complete 2025 fundraising calendar for school groups includes the best times of year to run campaigns of all kinds, including key holidays, heritage months, and more.
Run a successful penny war for your K-12 school with FutureFund’s help! This guide contains a list of dates, steps, and tools you can use to make your fundraising event a success.
Download the calendar and take a look at this complete list of school holidays in the US to inspire your fundraising needs! Our team at FutureFund is here to help you reach your fundraising goals for your school, clubs, and teams!
