Fraternity Fundraising Ideas that Work
Fraternity fundraising is common on college and university campuses. Being part of the Greek system can be expensive, so money often has to be raised. Typically there is an annual membership fee, in addition to several other things that cost money, such as fraternity-lettered sweatshirts and swag, paddles, group photographs, frat parties, social events, and the financial cost of the pledging process.
As well, charity work and giving back to the community is often part of the commitment of being in a fraternity. Many fraternities host at least one major sales fundraiser or fundraising event per school year that raises money for the community or a philanthropic cause. Alumni fundraising events can be part of these efforts.
Let’s jump in and find the best fundraising ideas for your fraternity.
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Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas for Fraternities
Peer-to-peer fundraisers are a great way to raise money while encouraging teamwork and healthy competition. Plan your crowdfunding event with specialized crowdfunding software. Participants can send out an email or social media donation request, including a link to their personal fundraising page, making it easy for supporters to contribute.
Service Projects
Providing a service to the community while raising money for your fraternity makes this a unique fundraising opportunity. Organize groups committed to a service area: pre-school care, park or beach clean-up, help for elderly homeowners, or feeding the hungry. For the weeks leading up to the serve-a-thon fundraiser, participants solicit donations for their efforts in support of the cause. Top fundraisers are recognized and rewarded with prizes. Serve-a-thon fundraising events are a perfect method to help the community you serve and raise awareness of your mission.
Color Runs
University and fraternity fundraising campaigns may have great success with Color Run Fundraisers. Color runs are 5K, or other shorter distance runs where participants are doused in colorful powdered paint. Splashes of vivacious hues of color powders being thrown throughout a Fun Run are just one of the magical ingredients that make a color run fundraiser successful and fun. Add an after-party at the frat house to bring the community together and offer event sponsors an opportunity to showcase their products and samples.
Bike-a-thons
Bike-a-thons are another fun, healthy fundraising option for fraternities. Cyclists bike a predetermined course and commit to raising money for their efforts. Plan your bike-a-thon fundraising event with our free crowdfunding platform. Encourage healthy competition while motivating participants to do more crowdfunding by providing incentives and prizes for the best performers. For example, partner with a local bike shop to see if they would donate a new bike to the participant who collects the most donations.
Dance Marathons
How about a “Dancing with the Stars” dance contest? Recruit a few girls from the dance or cheerleading teams to participate. Pair them with one of your frat brothers who commit to training and learning a choreographed dance. Invite the student body to vote for the best dance team on your website and award prizes to the top fundraising team and best dancers.
Polar Plunges
Fancy taking a plunge into icy cold waters in some of the coldest months of the year? We didn’t think so! But get a few sponsors into the mix and rally your friends because the more plunges are taken, the more money is donated. This is a great fundraising idea for fraternities as it can go viral on social media and garner a lot of attention and donations from supporters.
Creative Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers
Create a unique p2p fundraising event that will appeal to your brothers and alumni. If you’re near the beach, maybe a surf-a-thon or 100 wave challenge is for your group. What about hosting a Fraternity Chili Cook-Off fundraiser? I bet you never thought you’d see cooking ideas under fraternity fundraisers! Creativity can really help in making your event fun and lucrative.
Best Virtual Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Ideas
Many organizations successfully pivoted to virtual fundraising during COVID-19. By reworking your P2P fundraising strategies, your fraternity organization can continue fundraising during this global pandemic. You’ll need safe and effective virtual fundraising ideas and the P2P technology to make it happen. We’ve included this list of the best virtual peer-to-peer fundraising ideas during COVID and beyond.
Virtual Walkathons and Fun Runs
Virtual walkathons are great fundraisers for school groups that can raise a lot of money with few upfront costs.
Virtual Happy Hours and Performances
Get your livestream ready! Virtual performances work great and can be used to highlight school music groups, bands, and choirs.
Online Product Sales with P2P Pages
Virtual merchandise sales are a no-brainer for no/low contact fundraising. Our simple stores make it so easy you’ll be selling in no time.
Fundraising Raffles
Online raffles might be the perfect way to raise money. We offer the ability to incorporate peer to peer fundraising in raffles, where participants sell tickets via a personal fundraising page. Our raffle software can even randomly select and notify winners. Just find a prize and go!
Virtual Bikeathons
Like virtual walkathons, bikeathon fundraisers can be run virtually with just a few tweaks. Biking is a great socially distant sport, so some people may even bike together. Brothers create a fundraising page and commit to biking to support the fraternity.
Virtual Reading Challenges
Readathons are a great way to get homework done and raise money for Fraternity programs. All you need to do is set up the Athon website, where participants can track the number of books or pages read. Donors make contributions based on the reading results.
Golf Tournament Fundraising Ideas for Frats
A very popular and lucrative fundraising event for fraternal organizations is a charity golf tournament. Many guys love playing golf, and golf tournaments can encourage brotherly bonding. Also, it’s good practice to hone your golfing skills, as many business deals are conducted on the course. Don’t forget to market the event by inviting parents, faculty, and businesses to participate. Contact local businesses near campus to see if they are interested in sponsoring the golf tournament.
Not all fraternities are college organizations. A fraternal organization is a brotherhood or a type of social organization whose members associate for a mutually beneficial purpose, such as for social, professional, or honorary principles. These fraternal organizations may also wish to raise money, and golf tournaments are an excellent idea for these groups. Examples of non-University fraternal organizations include the Knights of Columbus, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and the Fraternal Order of Police groups.
Charity Golf Tournaments
Golf scrambles are a popular fraternity fundraiser. If new pledges are assigned a Big Brother, why not plan a golf tournament format like the Alternate Shot, played in two-person teams and encourage teamwork? There are plenty of ways to raise additional funds during a golf tournament, such as offering on-the-course contests, beverage cart sales, raffle fundraising, and more.
Topgolf Tournaments
Topgolf is a fun, social event that many fraternities turn to for fundraising. Topgolf differs from regular golf in several ways. Topgolf is an inside event where bays are generally climate-controlled. With Topgolf, golf balls are microchipped and hit against dartboard-like targets, where scoring a bullseye gets you the most points. Participants pay to play with part of the proceeds going to the frat.
Miniature Golf Tournaments
The great thing about mini-golf is that almost anyone can play, and it only takes a couple of hours rather than an entire day on the golf course. Hosting a charity mini-golf tournament is a great fundraising activity for fraternities and college organizations. Like a regular charity golf tournament, a mini-golf event is fun, encourages team-building, and can bring in a lot of funds for your fraternity.
Other Fraternity Fundraising Event Ideas
Rent a Brother Fraternity Fundraisers
For this fraternity fundraising event, brothers are auctioned off to raise money. To be successful with this type of fundraiser, you’ll want to draw in a big crowd so there will be plenty of bidders. See if you can use the school auditorium to showcase your frat brothers on stage. Make the atmosphere fun and energetic. Explain what activities the “rented” fraternity brothers can do, such as cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, washing a car, running errands, and more. Of course, chores must be legal and within school policies – i.e., no asking someone to take a test for you and no underage drinking. Now here’s where the fun part comes in. Music plays, and each frat brother struts out and tries to win the audience’s admiration. Then line them all up on stage and start the bidding.
Themed House Parties
Fraternity house parties are fun college fundraising events. Here’s how they work. Start by creating a fundraising theme for the event – like the Disco 70s or Big Hair 80s. Hire a DJ to bring the tunes and some local food trucks to park out front and serve it up. Encourage everyone to come in style by offering Best Dressed contests and providing costume accessories at the door. Charge an entry fee and then include a raffle fundraiser as part of the event to raise additional dollars. Be sure to have University and fraternity staff on hand that ensure this fraternity fundraising event is alcohol-free and everyone can join the fun.
Fraternity Fundraising Sales
Remember that your fraternity or Greek fundraiser does not have to be an event, especially when social distancing measures are in place. There are lots of other options for fundraising via your family and friends. Your fraternity could consider fundraising sales with an online eCommerce store. Hosting a fraternity store for Greek apparel and merchandise sales is a no-brainer. Here are some other ideas of what your fraternity could sell to make money, even during COVID-19.
Fundraising Discount Cards
An item that may be very popular for university students is college discount cards. Students are often budget-conscious, and the local establishments on campus often offer specials to cater to this group. Look into offering a fundraising discount card that provides students with savings at local restaurants, bars, fitness centers, retail shops, and bookstores. These cards typically cost students only $10 and may save students several hundred dollars over the course of the school year.
Toilet Paper Sales
Try selling one of life’s necessities to raise money for your cause. Your group buys a truckload of toilet paper
at wholesale prices and then resells rolls of paper to other groups. This is absolutely something people need! And, it makes sense to approach groups (perhaps dorms and/or frat houses) that have a lot of people living there and always need to keep toilet paper stocked. Keep some extra on hand and offer individual packs for sale in high-traffic areas. What better way to avoid a trip to the store than you can pick up a needed roll on your way home from class? Use funny slogans and stickers to promote your cause, such as “Help wipe out hunger!”
Wristband Fundraisers
Budget-conscious college students may not want to purchase something that costs much more than their lunch. So offering affordable options are a great idea. Colorful silicone bracelets can be imprinted with your group’s message and easily sold after classes, during lunch, or at campus events (just fill up your backpack whenever you are out). You can make a 50% profit by selling the bands for only $2.00. Many students have a couple of bucks in their pockets, and once they purchase they can show off their support by wearing the wristband.
Selecting a Fraternity Fundraiser
One thing to consider with fraternity fundraisers is the message you’ll communicate with your fundraising initiative. Mission-driven fundraising will make a big impact as it aligns the acquisition of your funding and resources with your organization’s most deeply held beliefs and values. Not only can you raise money for your fraternity or community and raise awareness for your cause, but when fundraising mirrors your mission, your supporters are more likely to become engaged and supportive of your event. Consider exploring fundraising initiatives that embody the spirit and excitement of “brotherhood” and are fun, so people will want to attend.
Another vital thing to keep in mind is time commitments and resources. College brothers are already busy with classes, sports, and extracurricular activities, work, and other fraternity commitments. Members of fraternal organizations are generally very involved in their work. That’s why fraternity fundraisers should be relatively simple to plan and easily replicated year after year.
To help you determine what fundraising event is right for your fraternity, we’ve outlined a couple of popular options hosted by fraternities on college campuses across the country. If you don’t like what you see here, check out our creative fundraising event ideas section, as many of these activities could also work well for a fraternity.
