The £1,000 Challengers Top Fundraising Ideas

If you're not sure how you could help become one of our £1000 Challengers then here's a list of nearly 100 ways in which you can help. There really is something for everyone...

Makeover night. Do you know any beauticians or nail technicians?  Invite friends round and for £10 they could have a manicure or pedicure and a night of fun with the girls.

Hold a Theme Party. Decide on a fun theme & charge an entrance fee.

Hold a themed dress-down day at work.

Ask your local school to have a dress-down day. Get letters sent home to let Mom’s know of the event and see if they would be interested in raising money for us.

Check to see if your company has a £1 for £1 match funding scheme?  Lots of companies will donate money to charity for their employees.

Car Wash. Get your local Fire Station or Car Dealership involved!  They do all the work, you refill the buckets!  Advertise it in your local paper – this is good advertising for a local car business!

Girls night in/lads night in. Provide wine/beer at your house, play some music have a chat watch Sloppy DVD/Football tell the guests to bring donations.

Is it your 21st?  Or a special anniversary – in your speech mention you are doing this amazing event and send round a collection.  You could hold a raffle or ask for donations instead of presents.

Time to get your own back. Ask a teacher/boss to go in the stocks and have wet sponges thrown at them, you should find plenty of people to make a donation for this pleasure.

Cake Sale. Head down to church/village/school fetes and sell away.  Ask your friends/family to bake something for you to sell.

Car Boot Sale. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!  Have a fun day bartering with the local public over your old junk.

Jumble Sale. Take advantage of the summer fetes!

Book Sale. Who reads all their books more than once?  Empty your shelves and head down to the car boot or fete and sell every book for £1.

Host a Bingo night. Speak to the local community centre and ask for the hire of the hall for free for charity and get/friends family down for a night of “full house”.  Charge entry and have prizes donated.

Penny Raffle. Buy a book of 500 raffle tickets, tear them up and ask everyone you know to pick a ticket, when they have picked a ticket they owe you that amount.  When all tickets have been picked you will have made £1,252 – you could ask local businesses to donate prizes that you could give away as a bonus on certain ticket numbers!

Promise Auction. Ask your friends and relatives to agree on promises they will auction for money, such as carrying out a weeks worth of ironing, a spring clean, car cleaning and walking the dog.  Or, if they have a skill like hairdressing or work in a restaurant they could give vouchers.

Slave auction. Instead of auctioning off promises, auction off people.

Pyramid lunch. You invite 5 people to lunch, those people invite 5 people to another lunch, then they invite 4 people, who invite 3, who invite 2, who invite 1 person.  If each person pays £5 to attend you can raise £8,125.

Pyramid Coffee Morning. The same as above but on a smaller scale.

Smarty idea. Give everyone you know a tube of Smarties and ask them to give the tube back to you filled with 20p’s, each Smartie tube contains around £12.

Smarty idea 2!  Give a tube to each class at your local school and see which class can fill the most tubes in a month.

Bag Packing at your local supermarket. Get your friends and family together to make it more effective.

Quiz Away. Organise a quiz at your local pub, social club, club house or community centre.

Games night. Hold an outdoor picnic with a good old fashioned game of Rounders.  Charge for tickets.

World Cup Sweep Stake. Take all the teams that are entering and ask people to bet on who will win this year’s World Cup – the prize could be a cash reward or something that you have acquired.

Any Sweep Stake. Make it X Factor or another sporting event.

Balloon Race. Ask your local primary school or Guides, Brownies, Rainbows, Cubs or Scouts to host a balloon race.  Each child pays £1 for the balloon and they are all let off together with the child’s name on a card on the string.  When someone finds the balloon they call up and give a prize for the balloon that has been reported to have travelled the furthest.

Raffles. Hold a raffle at your workplace, social club, golf club, tennis club, church fete, summer fair or anywhere else you can think of! (you don’t need a licence to hold a raffle if you are drawing the prizes on the same day, however if the raffle is going to take place over a number of days, please contact the licensing department at your local authority!.

Tombolas. Get everyone you know to donate a prize and head down to that summer fete.

Ask BIG. Ask at least one person for a £1,000 donation – The worst they can say is no, or maybe they’ll donate £500 instead, or even £250 better yet they could say yes!

Hold a dinner party. Invite your friends, family, work colleagues associates.  Talk to them about what you are doing and ask for their help.  A nice night for you and a good way to raise money.

Delegate. Give 10 of your friends 10 donation forms each and ask them to help raise money for you.

Network with your Neighbours. Write to all of your neighbours in your street (or in your block of flats.)  Attach a letter stating what you’re training for and ask them to make a donation – you never know you might get a neighbour that wants to join you!

Open Garden. Ask a local land mark to open their garden for one day and give the entrance fee and proceeds to you, or alternatively if you have a nice garden ask people to come and have tea and cakes in your garden

Restaurant. See if your local restaurant will let you have a table for half price.  Organise a set menu, invite 20 friends and charge them full price.  You could always ask if the waiters will donate their tips to your fund one night.

Talent Show. Get your children/friends to take part in a ‘Children’s Stars in their Eyes’ and charge entrance.

Fashion Show. Speak to local stores/boutiques about setting up a Charity Fashion Show.

Sponsorship. Do something you are afraid of and get friends to sponsor you.  You could shave your head, jump out of a plane, bungee jump.

Local press. When you are holding an event, make sure you get in the local paper so more people come along!

Office fundraising. Speak with everyone in your office and get them to challenge each other to raise the highest amount.  Give the winner a prize.

Corporate Prizes. Do you work in a large Company?  Ask the department that deals with the free tickets your company has donated, or race days tickets to auction them for charity.

Collect in a shopping centre. You have to apply for a licence form the council but you can raise a lot of money if a few of you collect outside those busy shops on a Saturday.

Pub Crawl. Get your mates to dress up and hit the town with collection buckets.  Phone the Pub Landlords beforehand to get permission to collect on their property and you never know they might throw in a free drink.

Murder Mystery Evening. Have a dinner party with a twist, charge your friends and get them to dress up as characters.

Start up your own extra change box. Keep a jar near your door and every day put all your extra coins in it.  It adds up, or put in on your desk at work.

Movie ticket/Theatre ticket. Ask them to donate several tickets.  Sell them or put them as a raffle prize.

Strip and swap. Get all you friends to bring all their old designer clothes round, and all have a swap.  Pin on a realistic price to each item and that money goes direct to the charity.

Creative friends. Ask a local artist or creative friend if they would donate art/jewellery/cards that you could auction or raffle.

Hobbies. Do you go to Weight Watchers, Yoga, Salsa Classes? Give a presentation and get the group behind you with your fundraising.

Ask members of your local gym to sponsor you to walk a certain distance on the treadmill – you can fundraise and get fit at the same time!

Ask your local gym if anyone is doing a triathlon/marathon and see if they will adopt Joseph Foote charity.

Hair Salon – Ask you hairdresser if they will have a Joseph Foote Weekend where all the stylists dress up and £1 off every customer goes to your cause.

Mowathon. Need something for your kids to do in the school holidays?  Get them moving, cleaning cars, digging etc. for donations.

Su-doku Competition. £2 entrance, photocopy a particulary difficult one and see who finishes first.

Babysit for donations.

Karaoke Night. Who cares if you can’t carry a tune?  Spend a night at a Karaoke Bar and sing to your heart’s delight.  Have the announcer tell the crowd that you are singing for donations.

Holiday pay. Ask your boss if they will swap one of your holiday days for a days pay?

Poker Night. Get your friends round for a poker night.  Let everyone know that 10% of the winnings are payable to The Joseph Foote Trust.

Skittles Night. talk to the local bowling alley or skittles pub and see if they can do you a deal!

Music night. If you know any musicians ask them to perform a benefit concert. Get involved with the local school or scouts/guides club and see fi they can show off their musical abilities by holding an X Factor competition or busking for parents.

Do you know any teachers?  Get them to get their class involved.  Children are very good at creative fundraising.

Game shows. Set up your own ‘Deal or no Deal’ or ‘Blind Date’ with your friends or kids at school.

Guinness Book of Records. Get sponsorship for a world record.  Longest chain of paperclips, or line of coins or something wacky and try to beat it.

Pram Push. Speak to local play group and see if they would organise a pram push for you.

Treasure Hunt. Set one up in your town, people pay money to enter a team.  Advertise it in the local press/radio and the money raised goes to your fund.

Bicycle ride. Plan a route, ask friends to join you tell them to get sponsored.  Why not finish the route at the pub, a good day for all.

Comedy Night. Get a group of friends and organise for each friend to do a 10 minute section and tell them to bring their own jokes.  Have their own stand up slot.

Dance-a-thon. Hold a non stop dance-a-thon and get sponsorship.

Diet. Get people to sponsor a diet you go!!

Football Day/ Rugby Day. Hold a football/rugby tournament for the children and charge everyone admission or to enter their child.  

Karting Challenge. See if you can get a group together and see if the karting club will give you a discount then charge the full amount.

Penalty Kick Competition. Organise a penalty kick competition, winner gets a prize, charge for entering.

Ask your hairdresser/dry cleaner/dentist/gym to keep some of your donation forms.

Ask your local bar/hairdresser/takeaway etc to have a collection tin on their front desk.

Ask your hairdresser/dry-cleaner/mechanic/local boutique to donate a prize that you could raffle.  You have given them your service for years, ask for something back. Contact the local Flower Arranging Club and see if they will each donate a beautiful arrangement that you could raffle off at your party or event.

Talk to local charity groups such as The Rotary, Towns Women’s Institute and ask if they can help you to fundraise – they have lots of experience and like to support people in the community.