Updated November 2025

Table of Contents

Easy to Implement Fundraisers

• 50/50 Raffle
• Bake Sale
• Recycling Drive
• Envelope Fundraiser
• Treasure Box
• Pay It Forward
• Photo Contest
• Raffle Donated Supplies
• Student Dress Up Day

Moderate to Implement Fundraisers

• Car Wash
• "Best Seat In The House" Silent Auction
• Reverse Raffle
• Craft Sale
• Art Class
• Sports Concession Stand
• Slime Fundraiser

Looking for easy ideas for your school fundraiser? Check out our list below so you can plan a great event that won't take too much time or stress.

50/50 Raffle

Ease of Implementation	Easy - single prize, simple ticket sales
Time to Implement	1-2 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (raffle tickets, permit if needed)
Volunteers Needed	2-4 (sales, drawing, recordkeeping)
Ideal For	Any school or community event

This is one of the most straightforward raffle ideas and therefore one of the easiest! All you need are raffle tickets. The winner of this raffle wins half (or 50%) of the money that this event makes!

Car Wash

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - requires setup & supplies
Time to Implement	2-4 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (soap, buckets, sponges, signage)
Volunteers Needed	10-20 (washers, sign holders, cashier)
Ideal For	Spring/summer weekends

With this classic fundraising event, students volunteer to wash the community's cars on a sunny weekend. All you'll really need is access to a water hose, a few bottles of washing liquid, plenty of buckets and sponges, and cheerful volunteers ready to clean some cars and make memories with their friends! Don't forget to advertise leading up to the event to bring in as much business as possible.

It's also easy to run this as a "Wash-A-Thon" with FutureFund. Learn more about A-Thon campaigns.

"Best Seat In The House" Silent Auction

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - depends on event scheduling
Time to Implement	3-4 weeks
Expenses Required	$0 (uses existing seats or perks)
Volunteers Needed	3-5 (bid setup, monitoring, winner contact)
Ideal For	Sports events, plays, concerts

For this silent auction, find the most coveted seat or section of seats in your sporting event or play and set them up as a silent auction item! Your patrons can walk by and bid on them over the course of your event and once a winner has been named, that person gets to enjoy the seats either for 1 event or for the whole season. You can also run this event as a raffle! 

Bake Sale

Ease of Implementation	Easy - baked donations + table setup
Time to Implement	1-2 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (packaging, labels, ingredients)
Volunteers Needed	6-10 (bakers, sellers, setup)
Ideal For	Lunch hours, sports games, parent nights

Another classic event! The bake sale is as difficult or as easy as event organizers want to make it. If you want to go the super easy route, buy (or see if the shop would be willing to donate) pastries from a popular sweet shop in town and set up a sales spot before school and during lunch. If you want to put in a little more effort, pull together a group of bakers from your club and spend a few hours whipping up some favorite treats to sell at different times during the school day. 

See also: 15 Cake Sale Ideas for Schools

Reverse Raffle

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - structured event w/ MC
Time to Implement	3-5 weeks
Expenses Required	$$ (raffle tickets, prize, decorations)
Volunteers Needed	6-10 (sales, MC, recordkeeping)
Ideal For	Banquets, parent events

This raffle event is a little more exciting than a traditional raffle. You run this event by selling raffle tickets to win a certain prize, but instead of the first ticket you call being the winner, the tickets you call until the final pull are tickets that are not winners. Each ticket you read off before the final draw actually gets set aside and the winner is either the last ticket standing or drawn from the leftover tickets in the pot at the end of the event.

Event organizers can run this event as a 50/50 raffle or just have a big ticket item listed as the winner of this drawing. Either way, with a highly sought after prize this event is sure to be a big hit! 

See also: 15 Creative Raffle Ideas for School Fundraisers

Learn how to sell tickets easily with FutureFund.

Recycling Drive

Ease of Implementation	Easy - collection + drop-off
Time to Implement	2-3 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (collection bins, posters)
Volunteers Needed	6-10 (collection, transport)
Ideal For	Earth Week, holiday cleanup drives

This is another event that can be as easy or as complex as the event organizers want to make it. Event organizers can either put together trash collecting teams to collect the recyclables from the streets or they can ask the kids to bring recyclables from home to then take to the recycling center and trade in for cash. 

Both ways have their advantages! Event organizers just have to decide which way works best for their volunteer force and their timeline.

Pro tip: this event works best if announced and collected around the holidays. People are in more of a giving mood during this time and they're going through cans and bottles like crazy!

Envelope Fundraiser

Ease of Implementation	Easy - visual, passive donation method
Time to Implement	1-2 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (envelopes, display board, markers)
Volunteers Needed	2-3 (setup, collection)
Ideal For	Indoor events, hall displays

This fundraiser is a great add on to an event that's already in motion. All you'll need are 100 envelopes and a sharpie! On each envelope, you write a number between 1-100 and hang them up on a bulletin board. 

As your event progresses, your patrons will walk by and put the corresponding dollar amount in each envelope! If you're worried about how this event will progress, feel free to pair this with another incentive, like a treasure box, for those who donate. 

Treasure Box

Ease of Implementation	Easy - small prizes + mystery draw
Time to Implement	1-2 weeks
Expenses Required	$-$$ (donated or small purchased prizes)
Volunteers Needed	2-4 (sales, supervision)
Ideal For	School fairs, carnivals

This is another event that's great as an add on to a festival or carnival type of event! Head to your nearest Walmart or Target and grab a bunch of items priced $15-$30 to give away. If your budget is tight, you can also include donated goods and/or services from local businesses. 

Once you have your gifts, head home and either wrap them in wrapping paper, newspaper, or plain brown paper, drop them in another box, and include them as an incentive to donate! Each person who donates gets to pick a prize from the treasure box!

Pay It Forward

Ease of Implementation	Easy - pledge-based self-donation concept
Time to Implement	1-2 weeks
Expenses Required	$0
Volunteers Needed	1-2 (promotion, tracking pledges)
Ideal For	Awareness weeks, minimal setup fundraisers

For this fundraiser, the donors agree to go for a particular length of time (somewhere between a week to a month) without something that they buy or use daily and then donate the money that they've saved to the school. Simple!

Craft Sale

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - requires production & pricing
Time to Implement	4-6 weeks
Expenses Required	$$ (materials if not donated)
Volunteers Needed	6-10 (makers, sellers, setup)
Ideal For	Holiday seasons, art programs

Have any particularly crafty club or community members? Pull everyone together and make a few crafts for a craft sale! A few simple craft ideas: holiday wreaths, pallet plaques, beaded leather wristlets, macrame wall hangings and curtains, and metal leaf wreaths (made from soda can pieces and some paint) just to name a few.

Once you've made them, you can sell them in your online store!

Art Class

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - lesson planning + registration
Time to Implement	4-6 weeks
Expenses Required	$$ (art supplies, refreshments optional)
Volunteers Needed	4-8 (instructors, helpers, setup)
Ideal For	Evening or weekend events

Hold an art class to show how to make a particularly cool type of art or other craft! Have the students register and pay a registration fee. Include everything they'll need to walk away with a completed craft at the end of the class in the price of their fee.

Photo Contest

Ease of Implementation	Easy - online submissions + voting
Time to Implement	3-4 weeks
Expenses Required	$ (platform or printing if needed)
Volunteers Needed	2-3 (promotion, tally votes)
Ideal For	Online engagement, social media campaigns

This contest is pretty simple: set a theme and have the students pay to participate, pay to vote for a winner, or both! The theme can be anything, from a selfie contest to the best dressed pet contest! For easy counting, have the students upload their photos online and have anyone that wishes to vote do so from the website where the pics were uploaded to.

Sports Concession Stand

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - requires stock + equipment
Time to Implement	4-6 weeks
Expenses Required	$$ (food, drinks, permits)
Volunteers Needed	8-12 (servers, cooks, cashier)
Ideal For	Athletic games, tournaments

Any sporting event already has the audience for this type of fundraising event built in. Hold a sports concession stand to supply hungry viewers with snacks during the game! All you'll need is some burgers, hotdogs, the fixins, and some other snacks. 

If the school already has a concession stand put together, the booster club can have some school spirit t-shirts made and sell them right next to the concession stand!

Raffle Donated Supplies

Ease of Implementation	Easy - request & raffle donated goods
Time to Implement	2-4 weeks
Expenses Required	$0 (all items donated)
Volunteers Needed	3-5 (calls, pickup, raffle setup)
Ideal For	PTA/PTSA events, sponsor partnerships

With this type of event, go around to local businesses and ask for donations of goods or services. Once you pull all of your donations together, have an auction or a raffle and give them away! This event is pretty simple because all you're doing is placing a few phone calls and then going to pick up the donated items. There's no crafting or DIY involved unless you want to throw in a few additional items.

Slime Fundraiser

Ease of Implementation	Moderate - prep kits or run class
Time to Implement	3-4 weeks
Expenses Required	$$ (slime ingredients, containers)
Volunteers Needed	4-6 (prep, teaching, cleanup)
Ideal For	STEM clubs, after-school programs

Hold a class on how to make different types of slime, or sell slime kits with cool items! Include glitter packs, "crunchy" packs, metallic packs, or any other cool items you can think of!

Student Dress Up Day

Ease of Implementation	Easy - no materials, just theme setup
Time to Implement	1 week
Expenses Required	$0
Volunteers Needed	1-2 (promotion, collect donations)
Ideal For	Spirit weeks, all grade levels

One of the easiest fundraisers to conduct is a student dress up day! Have all of the teachers collect a donation for the students to participate for the day. Dress up day ideas can include: meme day, twin day, spirit day, crazy hat day, or crazy socks day just to name a few!