Choir Fundraising

Choir Fundraisers

Ok, we know what you're thinking! Choir fundraisers are always associated with music. We know that members of the choir love to sing, but they're not at all limited to singing fundraising ideas. Sure there are some fantastic fundraising ideas that include singing for charity funds. Take for example our karaoke night:

Karaoke fundraiser – Host a karaoke night in your school gymnasium – all you will need for this is to rent a karaoke machine and screen to project the videos or you may want to hire a karaoke professional who will come and set up the equipment and run the evening like a typical karaoke night at a club. It generally costs about $100 to rent a karaoke machine for the evening without the DJ. Typically a professional renting out his karaoke equipment will have anywhere from 2000 to 5000 songs in his or her karaoke library. Hiring a karaoke DJ along with the machine will cost a lot more, and running it yourself is not that difficult. If you do it without the DJ you will end up making a lot more money for your charity cause. Charge each person $2 admission to the event, and charge an additional $2 per song choice. You might also want to seek sponsorship from a local grocery store or pool parents to donate drinks and snacks for the evening.

Squeegee fundraiser – This one is easy to do, and most local fast-food restaurants (Burger King, McDonalds, Coffee Time and etc.) will allow you to set up a squeegee station and ask customers for donations while they wait for their orders. Set it up like so:

• The organizers should drop into a local restaurant to ask the manager/owner if they can set up a squeegee event for their charity. Bring along literature explaining where the funds donated will go to, and let them know that you will be calling local newspapers, television and radio to drum up attention for your charity. This is a win-win situation for the restaurant if they work as the sponsor, because they are helping charity and likely drawing in more customers as a result of your event's media attention.
• Approach a garage or hardware store to ask if they will donate squeegees, windshield washer fluid and buckets. If they agree, you can include their name under the sponsorship section of the charity pamphlet and also mention them in the media coverage.
• On the day of the event bring volunteers, buckets, squeegees and pamphlets explaining your charity event and thanking donors for their contributions.
• Set up volunteers at each side of the drive-thru.

Read-a-thon fundraiser – This is a fun, school-oriented fundraiser that doesn't include singing choir members. Ask each member of the choir to collect donations from friends and family members who pledged them for a read-a-thon. Depending on the reading age of your choir members, you could have them sponsored per page or per book (if they are short children's books). There is virtually no overhead for this, as students can host the read-a-thon in the school library and choose books from the shelves. If this is a day long event, you may want to treat the choir and parent volunteers to pizza or subs for taking part in the read-a-thon.

Pizza or burger day fundraiser – This can easily be set up with any of the big chain restaurants, for example McDonalds, Pizza Hut or Burger King. Most large chain restaurants offer fundraising benefits, where the restaurant agrees to set a certain part of the day aside, and all, or a portion, of money made from sales during that time period will go towards supporting a children's or school charity event.

• Simply approach a local McDonalds, Burger King or Pizza Hut and arrange with the owner or manager for a portion of the sales to be donated to your choir charity during say 2 and 4pm on Friday.
• You will want to get the local media's attention as you want to get as many people to eat at the restaurant during this time period. Also make sure to thank the restaurant sponsor for helping your cause.
• This is really a win-win for you and the restaurant because you are raising funds without having to actually organize and pay for food costs, and they are likely drawing in more customers as a result of the media attention for your choir fundraiser.
• Many groups report raising as much as $500 to $1000 for just a few hours of sales.