15 Fundraising Ideas for Small Groups and Clubs
PTAs, PTOs, and volunteers across the country power their fundraising campaigns with FutureFund. 100% of all funds raised go directly to your school!
See how FutureFund works or book a demo to see how it can work for you.
Updated November 2025
Table of Contents
Easy to Implement
- Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen
- Share the Warmth Coat Drive
- Toy Drive
- Purse/Bag Drive
- Community Clean Up
- Community Garage Sale
- Gift Wrapping Service
- Sell Candles
- Shoe Drive
Moderate to Implement
Volunteer At A Soup Kitchen
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - simple coordination with the kitchen, donation letters |
| Time to Implement | 2-3 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (postage/printing for letters, optional supplies donated to the kitchen) |
| Volunteers Needed | 3-6 (volunteer shift, donation tracking, letter distribution) |
| Ideal For | Helping local families, community service focus, small groups |
How does volunteering at a soup kitchen raise money for your team or club? By sending out letters to your community and local businesses in the weeks leading up to your volunteer slot to request donations to give to the kitchen and to also support your group or club!
Once you've done your volunteer work, hand the soup kitchen half of the money you collected as a donation to their organization and apply the rest to supply your own fundraising needs
Share The Warmth Coat Drive
| Ease of Implementation | Very easy - run like a donation campaign |
| Time to Implement | 1-2 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (collection bins, flyers) |
| Volunteers Needed | 2-3 (sorting and distributing supplies) |
| Ideal For | Community engagement, helping local families |
Have a coat drive that includes collecting monetary donations from the community along with new and gently used coats. The club can either accept the monetary donations while they accept the coats or send out letters to local businesses and neighbors.
Explain that in addition to the coats themselves, any funds collected will go to provide brand new coats to the community and also to support the club with whatever they need for the season.
Plant And Sip
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate |
| Time to Implement | 4-5 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $$ (supplies, beverages, instructor) |
| Volunteers Needed | 5-7 (setup, registration, cleanup) |
| Ideal For | High-school or adult-focused events |
Charge an entry fee to teach the people of the community how to arrange flowers or how to get their gardens off the ground. Event organizers can include the drinks to be sipped, they can make it BYOB, or they can leave the alcohol out entirely and only allow sodas and tea.
Toy Drive
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires venue and volunteer support |
| Time to Implement | 2-3 weeks planning |
| Expenses Required | $ (collection areas, promotion materials) |
| Volunteers Needed | 5-8 for sorting and distribution |
| Ideal For | Helping local families, community service focus |
Hold a toy drive where the community can donate new/gently used toys while providing monetary donations to buy more toys and support the club! Feel free to hold it around Christmas, Easter, or whenever just to make sure kids that don't have much know they're loved.
Silent Auction
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate |
| Time to Implement | 5-7 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $$ (venue, signage, promotion) |
| Volunteers Needed | 10-15 (setup, item tracking, bidding management) |
| Ideal For | Paired with galas, dinners, or seasonal events |
Get some of your craftier members to put some crafts and gift baskets together and hold a silent auction! The auction can feature anything: holiday wreaths, themed baskets, homemade blankets, scarves, hats, gardening seeds, bottles of wine. Anything! As loong as it speaks to your community and what they like, it should get a nice bidding war going.
Happy Hour
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate - requires coordinating with a restaurant and promoting the event |
| Time to Implement | 3-4 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (marketing materials) |
| Volunteers Needed | 2-3 (liaison, promotion) |
| Ideal For | Adult-only community networking events |
Hold a happy hour in a community bar or restaurant. When approached in advance, restaurants and other dining facilities don't have a problem sharing a portion of the proceeds from the gathering that night with the club.
Purse/Bag Drive
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires collection boxes/bins and volunteer support |
| Time to Implement | 2-3 weeks planning |
| Expenses Required | $ (collection bins, promotion materials) |
| Volunteers Needed | 3-5 (collecting, sorting, distribution) |
| Ideal For | Helping local families, community service focus |
Collect gently used purses and handbags to donate to shelters along with monetary donations to provide to the shelter/purchase new handbags and support your club!
Community Clean Up
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires basic supplies and local promotion |
| Time to Implement | 2-3 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (trash bags, gloves, water; seek donations from city or sponsors) |
| Volunteers Needed | 5-15 (participants, weigh-in helpers, donation collectors) |
| Ideal For | Environmental clubs, scout groups, sports teams, small community groups |
Have your participants collect pledges and flat donations based on how many pounds of trash they can pick up through the town over the course of a certain time frame. This event is doubly helpful: the town is cleaner and your group gets to achieve your fundraising goals!
Gift Wrapping Service
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires table and supplies |
| Time to Implement | 1-2 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (paper, tape, tags; seek donations) |
| Volunteers Needed | 4-8 (wrappers, intake, checkout) |
| Ideal For | Parent nights, mall/library pop-ups |
Offer your clubs gift wrapping services in exchange for donations to take some of the pressure off of busy parents during the holiday season. Make sure to get a system down for the presents that you're wrapping from the same household, as they'll all look very similar after the wrapping and be hard to tell one person's presents from another.
Parents Night Out
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate - needs childcare space and supervision |
| Time to Implement | 3-4 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $$ (snacks, activities, babysitter fees if not volunteer-based) |
| Volunteers Needed | 5-8 to supervise children |
| Ideal For | Schools with many young families |
Know any responsible teenagers looking to earn some volunteer hours? Have a parents night out event! Have the parents register their kids ahead of time so the event organizers can have enough people/dinner to have everyone covered.
Organize some games to keep the kids busy and have dinner set up so they'll be fed by the time their parents come and pick them up. Put on a movie at the end of the night and watch the kids go home exhausted after all the fun.
Sell Candles
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires partnering with a wholesaler and arranging sales |
| Time to Implement | 3-4 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $$ (wholesale candle purchase unless using consignment, table setup) |
| Volunteers Needed | 2-4 (order management, sales, distribution) |
| Ideal For | School clubs, teams raising funds, community markets |
Get with a nearby school for a candle wholesaler or find one on your own who can supply your club with candles to resell at events! Check with some bigger events, like organized sports or monster truck shows to see if they'll allow volunteers to come in and sell.
Community Garage Sale
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - donated items |
| Time to Implement | 3-4 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (tables, tags, signage) |
| Volunteers Needed | 10-15 (intake, cashiers, setup) |
| Ideal For | Whole community declutter, community-minded groups |
Let your community know that you're accepting donations of gently used clothing and electronic items that they no longer want for a community garage sale!
Sell Holiday Cookbooks
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate - gather, format, and print recipes |
| Time to Implement | 4-6 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $$ (printing costs) |
| Volunteers Needed | 3-5 for editing and compilation |
| Ideal For | Community-building, schools with culinary programs |
Is there a popular food holiday in your area? Pull your club's favorite holiday recipes, bind them in a book, and sell them! Don't forget to lean into your club's strengths. Have a bunch of strong bakers? Make it a dessert cookbook. Does everyone specialize in soups? Make it a soup cookbook. Have fun with it!
Host A Spin Class
| Ease of Implementation | Moderate - needs studio partner |
| Time to Implement | 3-4 weeks |
| Expenses Required | $ (if studio donates space) |
| Volunteers Needed | 2-3 for coordination & sign-in |
| Ideal For | Parent fundraisers or teacher wellness events |
Meet with your local spin studio and see if they would be willing to host a class for a discount while sharing the proceeds with your club.
Shoe Drive
| Ease of Implementation | Easy - requires collection boxes/bins and volunteer support |
| Time to Implement | 2-3 weeks planning |
| Expenses Required | $ (collection bins, promotion materials) |
| Volunteers Needed | 3-5 (collecting, sorting, distribution) |
| Ideal For | Helping local families, community service focus |
Let your community know that you'll be collecting new and gently used shoes for the duration of your shoe drive. Feel free to reach out to businesses for monetary donations during this time as well. Once you have your shoes, partner with a company that pays for shoes (some pay by weight), or donate the shoes plus half of the money you collected and keep the other half for your organization's fundraising needs.
