Over 50 Of The Best Youth Fundraising Ideas To Earn Money

Well, I’ve got them!

Those summer camps, tickets, trips and extra gas money can bring a big price tag, especially when you’re not prepared for them.

We’ve put together a list of fundraising ideas that could help you offset those extra costs and have a little fun while you’re at it.

Whether their a little young, or about to head off to college, these youth fundraising ideas for money ideas will get that money raised in no time.

Since most of these youth fundraising ideas for kids can be done at any time of the year, you can be raising money all year long!

So don’t let this list of creative fundraising ideas for teens make it seem like raising money can be daunting, it’s just going to be a chore picking the best one you like!

So let’s get busy putting them to work to raise their own money this year!

Youth Fundraising Ideas

• Art Auction – Student’s create works of art to be auctioned off at a dinner or other function.
• Auction – Host an online, live or silent auction. Get gift certificates or gift baskets donated from local restaurants, spas and boutiques to auction off to your audience.
  Here are some great gift basket ideas that could be raffled off for Mother’s Day!
• Bake Sale – Bake sales have long been one of the most popular ways of raising funds for schools, religious organizations and social clubs. They can be great moneymakers because there is little or no actual capital required. All of the baked goods are usually donated. Bake sales are also known community social events. People enjoy getting together over a common goal.
• BBQ Dinners – Who can resist a BBQ dinner premade with no cooking involved? Me too! Add some sides and you’ll have yourself a winner, winner BBQ chicken dinner!
• Bowling Day – Together with the bowling alley venue settle on a specific flat fee for each of your attendees. This should be all-inclusive, covering shoe hire, the bowling itself, and any extra food or drinks you want to include. It’s up to you how much extra you add on to support your cause. Get lane sponsors, drink sponsors, food sponsors and really raise your funds.
• Car Wash – Get ready to wash cars! Pick a Saturday at least six weeks out to properly plan for your event and get lots of volunteers to take turns washing down those cars. You can also offer “upgrades” like vacuuming out the cars for an extra fee! Pre-sell discounted car wash tickets to jump start the fundraising efforts.
  
• Cashing In On the Caroling – Get paid to sing to others, plus get tips too!
• Chili Cookoff – May the best chili win a prize. Then sell bowls of chili for a profit.
• Chocolate Covered Strawberries – With an option to make them sugar free, you can score some serious dough!
• Cinnamon Rolls – Who can resist?! I can’t. Sell by the dozen and make some money.
• Cookie Dough To Make Dough – Sell cookie dough right before the holidays to make some dough!

• Community Cleanup – This is a great project for a youth group. The workers get pledges of so much per pound of trash collected and hauled away.
• Digital Cookbook – Sell a cookbook of family favorite recipes. No need for printing and low overhead costs!
• Food Stands At Local Events – Set up barbecue, hot dog or hamburger stands at local small scale sporting events and festivals. We love to offer pulled pork as a fundraiser at the High School Volleyball games. Ask if your team can volunteer to work concessions at the local little league games.
• Family Game Nights With Pizza & Prizes – Offering a game night (host at your church) in return for donations can provide entertainment for local families. Small prizes can be awarded to winners of the various games.
  
• Flamingo’ed – Flamingo someone’s yard for a price. The Flamingoes stay for 24 hours and the person gets to pay a price to remove them and Flamingo someone else.
• Flamingo Insurance to prevent from being Flamingoed for an even bigger price.
• Flowers – Sell preorders for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day!
• Create A FREE GoFundMe Webpage – Using this online fundraising platform allows you to easily collect donations from your Facebook friends and email contacts. And also allows friends to keep up with your goals.

• Craft Sale – Student’s make crafts to sell and then the money earned goes towards their event.

And there’s so many crafts you could make!

• Essential Oil Lip Balm
• No-Sew Fleece Blanket
• Flavored Salt Recipes
• Tea Light Holders
• Swarovski Crystal Sun Catchers
• No-Sew Aprons
• No-Sew Heating Pads
• Custom Bracelets
• Personalized Cutting Board Or Serving Spoons
• Tea Towels

As you can see, these youth fundraising ideas for money are just the start! Get your creative kids involved and you may have a better idea that suits your community!

• Gift Wrapping – The holidays may get busy so offer your gift wrapping elves to wrap gifts. Have a donation per package wrapped.
• Host A Home Party – Contact your favorite home sales party person, such as a Pampered Chef or Mary Kay representative, and ask if they have a fundraising option. In exchange, they’ll receive new potential party leads.
• Holiday Help – Sell your time to decorate for the holidays inside the home and outside. Help set up lights, outdoor decorations, etc.
• Ice Cream Socials – What’s better than ice cream and sociallizing? I don’t know! Sell coffee and raffle tickets too!
• Network Socially – Use social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to reach out and ask for donations from your virtual community of friends and colleagues. Ask others to “share” your information to maximize the power of numbers.
• Newspaper Recycling – This is a great no cost fundraising option for churches to utilize. Contact Suburban Waste Services to learn more.
• Pancake Breakfasts – Who can resist a big stack of pancakes! We have a local restaurant that opens up during off hours for us and they charge us $2 per plate to make a pancake breakfast. We sell the tickets for $5 and keep the $3 difference. It is super easy and always successful. Plus, we have zero clean up!
• Parent’s Night Out – Provide parents a place to leave their kids for a night out. Designate cost, specific time and location. This is especially easy if the youth group hosts the event at your church. This is also great to do in the beggining of December so the parents can Christmas shop without their little ones.
• Pies – Who doesn’t love pies for the holidays?! A local youth group sells them every spring and fall and makes some serious money selling yummy pies!
• Portrait Day – Everyone loves to have their picture taken! Many companies will give you a share of the revenue and may even provide fun costumes for people to wear. Some will even provide Church Directories! Have a spring and a fall photo shoot so parents can get their holiday portraits.
• Raffle – Have someone donate an item like a quilt, Tablet or a year’s worth of carwashes. Then raffle off the winning prize.

Do you see a youth fundraising ideas for kids that I’ve missed? Share with me below!

• Recycling – Ink Cartridges, Cell Phones, Aluminum Cans. Send out a flyer in your neighborhood offering to pick up these “trash” items on a certain day. Neighbors can simply put them out at the mailbox and you can walk around and collect the items. Funding Factory will take those donated items and turn them into cash (or other rewards such as gift cards).
• Spaghetti Dinners – Host your own at your church or see if a local restaurant will help with the cooking or kitchen use. 
  
• Spare Change Sunday – Have your youth go around asking for the church’s spare change. Or go around the neighborhood asking for spare change.
• Subs – Make an assembly line and make subs! I know of a youth group that sells them every spring. With 4 types of subs and sells them for $4 each!
• Super Dooper Pooper Scoopers – Sell off time for your kids to scoop some poop!
• Support Letters – Write a letter to your friends and family letting them know why you want to go to summer camp or on a mission trip. Give specifics of what you will be doing, dates and your phone number if they have questions. Send it to family, friends, church family, teachers, doctors, etc.
• Valentine’s Dinner Or Kid’s Valentine Night Out – Let the parents go to dinner and the kids get a fun night away from their parents.
• Yard Sale – Not only will selling your own stuff raise money, you can also ask for friends and families to donate their “treasures” for you to sell in order to make 100% profit.
• Youth Giving Stand – Create a stand to go in the foyer of your church with your current project or event and the goal that you are working on and trying to meet. Invite the church to read and give when they go by.

Don’t let this list of creative fundraising ideas for teens limit your fundraising ideas. Get your community involved to find one that suits your group!

Per Hour Youth Fundraising

These youth fundraising ideas for money requires drawing on your own special talents to offer classes in music, dance, self defense, languages and/or any other skill you can impart to others.

By requesting donations in return for these lessons, you can often boost your funding while helping the larger community. Teach someone something you love to do!

• Baby Sitting
• Yard Work
• Pet Sitting
• Tutoring
• Public Classes – offer group classes in anything from foreign language, painting, to dance.
• Private Lessons – offer lessons in piano, guitar, drums, cooking.

As you can see, there are so many youth fundraising ideas for kids to choose from, you’ll have to find the best one that works for your child or youth group.

Spirit Night At A Local Restaurant

Contact your local restaurants to arrange a “Spirit Night” for your youth fundraising ideas for money.

The restaurant donates a percentage of sales to your organization. They receive more business, families receive a yummy meal and your organization receives much needed funds!

1. Applebee’s
2. Arby’s
3. Baja Fresh
4. Burger King
5. Boston Market
6. Bruster’s Ice Cream
7. Buffalo Wild Wings
8. California Pizza Kitchen
9. Cheeburger Cheeburger
10. Chick-Fil-A – More options than just a spirit night. Sell Calendars, discounted cards, mini-plush cows and other products.
11. Chili’s
12. Chipotle
13. Chuck E. Cheese
14. CiCi’s Pizza
15. Dairy Queen
16. Dominos
17. Fazoli’s
18. Friendly’s
19. Frisch’s Big Boy
20. Fuddruckers

21. Jamba Juice
22. Jersey Mike’s
23. KFC
24. Krispy Kreme
25. Little Caesars
26. Max and Erma’s
27. McDonald’s – Options vary based on location. Contact your local store to see if they have any options available.
28. Moe’s Mexican Restaurant
29. Outback
30. Panda Express
31. Panera
32. Papa John’s
33. Pizzeria Uno
34. Quiznos
35. Red Robin
36. Ruby’s
37. Sonic
38. Subway
39. Sweet Tomatoes
40. T.G.I.Friday’s
41. Wendy’s {contact your local Wendy’s for more information}

Seasonal Fundraisers

• Christmas Trees/Wreaths – The holiday season offers lots of opportunities to sell seasonal products. You can order Christmas trees from a wholesaler or grower and run your own sales stand. Or, you can do an order-taker sale and offer various wreathes and different-sizes of trees.
  Extra profit tip: Sell more wreaths by showing samples.
• Citrus Fruit & Poinsettias – Late fall is a great time to do an order-taker fundraiser for fresh citrus fruit and holiday flowers. Potted holiday plants like poinsettias have huge profit margins and while the margins aren’t as good on citrus fruit, the large order size means good profits from every customer.
  Extra profit tip: Save on freight with a full truckload order and buy poinsettias from wholesale nurseries.
• Easter Lily Flowers – Order Lily flowers from a wholesale nursery, take orders from friends or neighbors and then redeliver them the weekend before Easter. Living Lilies has loads of suggestions for selling Lilies (Note: they are not a supplier).
  Extra profit tip:  As an added incentive, you can offer purchasers a receipt for a set amount over the cost of the plant is tax deductible.
• Holiday Craft Sale – Make items that can be given as presents for the holidays. You could even host a Secret Santa Shop for kids to buy for thier parents and their siblings. Check out all these Homemade Gifts your youth could make!

• Gardening Supplies Event – Set up in your church parking lot. Work with nurseries, yard services, landscaping companies, and mulch or pine straw distributors.
  Extra profit tip: Use lots of roadside signs and publicize it the week before to attract a big crowd.
• Pumpkin Patch – Host a Pumpkin Patch fundraiser. Line up a roadside site, decorate it with some hay bales, and display your pumpkins on a bed of straw.
  Extra profit tip: Buy pumpkins in bulk from a grower or at the local farmer’s market.
• Spring Flowers – Sell flower bulbs in the early Spring. Several suppliers offer pre-order brochures with colorful pictures and exotic choices.
  Extra profit tip: Offer discounts on orders above $50 because people are likely to buy more than they planned just to get the discount.
• Thanksgiving Turkeys – Selling turkeys for Thanksgiving is an easy way to raise funds. Line up a wholesale source, put together an order form and brochure, then start taking orders. Do a bulk purchase with the money from the prepaid orders and arrange a pickup day.
  Extra profit tip: Charge a little extra if you have to make deliveries.

Additional Fundraising Options

• Yankee Candle – Sell good smelling candles and make a 40% Profit. Orders can be taken in person by using a catalog or customers can easily order online.
• Popcorn Palace – Sell loads of popcorn products and make up to 50% profits with Popcorn Palace.
• TeeSpring T-Shirts – Sell T-Shirts you (or they) design as an easy fundraiser from TeeSpring.
• High Mowing Organic Seed Packets –  Reach your fundraising goals by offering the highest-quality, 100% certified organic and Non-GMO Project Verified seeds at a wholesale price to give you a 50-60% profit margin.
• Goodie Factory – Sell gourmet cookie dough, lollipops, smencils and gifts. Note: items must be pre-purchased.
• Scrip Gift Cards – Earn 15% profit by purchasing gift cards at a 15% discount and selling them at face value. Your supporters choose from nearly 400 national retail stores where they already shop. You purchase those gift cards at up to a 15% discount, therefore making the difference. Easy!

Whether their a little young, or about to head off to college, these youth fundraising ideas for money ideas will get that money raised in no time.

These youth fundraising ideas for kids can be done at any time of the year so you can be raising money all year long!

And don’t let this list of creative fundraising ideas for teens make it seem like raising money can be daunting, it’s just going to be a chore picking the best one you like!

Your Turn: Do you have another youth fundraising idea? Please leave a comment below and share it with us!