How to Hold a Breakfast Fundraiser

Holding a breakfast fundraiser is an option that often comes up as you start to consider the various options for an upcoming fundraising campaign. There are a number of excellent ways to raise funds for your charity or cause such as organizing a walkathon, planning a charity golf tournament, or hosting a gala event. The nice thing about a breakfast fundraiser is that it does not take nearly the amount of time to organize as these large fundraising events, but it still raises significant funds while bringing members of your organization and the community together in a social setting. In order for your fundraising breakfast to be successful, however, you must be organized. Below are some basic guidelines to help your organization better plan a breakfast fundraiser.

Planning a Breakfast Fundraiser

In order to host a successful fundraising event, you must plan and prepare. This starts by bringing a team of individuals together to brainstorm ideas, set a fundraising budget, timelines, and assign responsibilities. By allocating different duties to each individual on your committee, members do not feel overwhelmed and can take ownership of their part in the big picture. Perhaps someone can manage the fundraising website, where someone else works directly with the volunteers. Another person can handle securing a location and purchasing all the necessary food and materials, where someone else takes control of fundraising event promotion.

Some of the logistics and responsibilities for your committee include:

• Selecting and securing a good location is key. This is easy for schools, as they can use the school cafeteria and kitchen, making a breakfast fundraiser a great fundraiser for schools
• Choosing a good time of the year to hold your Breakfast fundraiser. Breakfast with Santa could be fun! Have you heard of National Pancake Day?
• Volunteer and chef recruitment
• Menu selection and food purchasing (or seeking in-kind donations)
• Recruiting music or entertainment during the fundraiser
• Incorporating additional fundraising opportunities – a silent auction and/or fundraising raffle
• Event promotion and marketing – including managing your event management website for online registration and ticket sales

Creating the Breakfast Menu

The menu is another important item to consider at the planning onset. While pancake breakfast fundraisers are a popular school and church fundraising idea, you are certainly not limited to that alone. Offering more gourmet and brunch-like options will allow you to charge more for admission and draw a larger audience. Of course, you’ll need the chefs and cooks to make this happen. Here are some ideas to consider to diversify your breakfast menu:

 

Utilizing a Fundraising Website

Fundraising software tools from DoJiggy can help your team effectively manage the various details of your breakfast fundraiser, from event registration and ticket sales, sponsorship sales and promotion, secure processing of online donations or related product sales, to managing email communications. These software tools can help you cross your “t’s” and dot your “i’s” increasing your efficiency and allowing you to raise more money for your cause.

Promoting the Fundraising Breakfast

Once you’ve decided to host a breakfast fundraiser and solidified the details of your event, you now need to promote it. Your breakfast website is your hub where everyone will go to find out about the event and register, but you still need to drive them to the website with traditional marketing materials. Create a press release and distribute event flyers that inform people in your community about how their presence at the event can help make a difference for your non-profit organization or cause. Be sure to include basic event details so they can mark their calendars. Invite the media to attend. This creates a wonderful opportunity to share a story about community goodwill and also provides a great opportunity for news photos. Be sure to allow for donations after the event! This way if someone had to miss the breakfast fundraiser, or if a reporter chooses to run a story following the fundraiser, they can give people an opportunity to make an online donation by providing a link to your fundraising website.

Day of Event Operations

Make sure you are prepared on the day of the event. Arrive early to be sure that everything is set up before guests arrive. Do a run-through with volunteers. Walkthrough registration, serving breakfast, cleaning up, and hosting any other fundraising activities happening in conjunction with your event such as a fundraising raffle. Walkthrough different scenarios, what happens if the media arrives? Who is in charge of re-filling coffee and juice containers and stocking silverware? Be sure to cover all the possibilities so you can execute a successful fundraising event. If you have event sponsors, be sure to put up signage where necessary, and make an announcement during the event to thank attendees, donors, volunteers, and sponsors.

Additional Ways to Raise Money at the Breakfast Fundraiser

A breakfast fundraiser provides an excellent opportunity to raise additional funds, outside of ticket sales, for your charitable cause. Since you’ve gathered numerous community members in one area, it’s a perfect time to host a silent auction. Of course, this takes a little planning as well. Your organization would need to solicit in-kind donations prior to the event to auction off for your cause. Auction items can include gift certificates, sports memorabilia, theater tickets, and travel packages. Display items during your event and on a fundraising auction website where supporters place bids to win auction items. If you don’t have time to organize a full auction, fundraising raffles can be fun as well. Here you sell raffle tickets for a chance to win and then randomly select winners during the event. You can also create some fun contests and games to keep the kids engaged and enjoying themselves. For more creative fundraising event ideas, visit our resource center.