Fundraising Ideas Part II

First I want to thank the folks who posted on “Need Fundraising Ideas.” I always appreciate it when folks take the time to post on my blog and share their opinions and comments.

I hope this doesn’t come across as dismissive-that is not the intent (this is where the fact that you can’t read body language or hear tone of voice is difficult on the web) but with the exception of the pie auction every single one of the ideas put forth in those comments is either already done by our church or another church in the community. So all of the amounts typically raised by those endeavors have been worked into the budget and we are still short by about $13000 this year.

Our meals do well (pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, Harvest Dinners etc), our Silent Auction and Craft Fair could use some help. . . . but we run into the typical problem of the same core of people doing everything. . . .I think that those two things could be built up by starting work on them earlier and putting more effort into publicity etc (right now I think pretty much the only people attending are the people who attend our church-and we are pretty well tapped out as far as buying and giving).

The other thing is that we have several other big dollar endeavors in town (and town is only about 6,000) that have been asking for lots of money. Building the 2 million dollar firehouse, the several million dollar library extension, several years back building a town pool, all the support for the sports teams and school PTO stuff, then add in about 8 or 9 churches, the Lions, the Masons, the Grange, the Legion, well you get the idea. . . . and we are not an economically wealthy area.

So-here little old me is trying to think outside the box about fundraisers for the church. #1 I wanted to have events that someone else is not already doing. #2 I wanted to do something that would target folks beyond our own congregation #3 They need to be fundraisers that don’t require a lot of outlay #4 It would be nice if they were things that could possibly attract some new folks to consider our church #5 I wanted to look at possibly targeting dead areas in the local calendar.

I’ll start with one idea that I came up with, and continue over the next few days.

A wine tasting.

Now I know that this idea will obviously repel some of you folks who have religious beliefs that reject drinking. Just as obviously because I am suggesting it there is nothing in my religious beliefs that prohibits it. I would ask that you be respectful of that and if you disapprove in theory you may comment, but keep it respectful.

For those of you who have never attended a wine tasting, the amount of alcohol consumed is usually the equivalent of about a glass and a half, so this is not an event that anyone would come away from drunk. The idea can be accomplished 2 ways. The first way is to have a single winery come. They bring a selection of about 6 or 7 wines. You sell tickets at a moderate price. Folks come in, the winery representative explains in depth each type of wine then you get a small sample in your glass to taste (going from dry to sweet-if you drink the sweet first then the dry taste nasty). Usually there is some sort of form or paper for you to mark out your thoughts or preferences. There is some sort of bowl or jug for you to pour out the wine into (folks just take a sip or two and then pour out the wine if they don’t like it) and some “wine crackers” to “cleanse your palate” in between wines.

You could have some nice music going, follow up with some cheese and crackers, and allow the winery to sell bottles of their wine afterwards (so they do the tasting for free as a write off, but have the possibility of making money off of sales afterwards and you get to keep every penny of ticket sales minus a tiny bit of cash for some cheese and crackers).

The second way to do it is to make it a much bigger event with 4 or 5 wineries set up in a large space, each with a booth, folks pay a much more expensive ticket price, then get to wander around trying the different wines once inside, again with the option to buy-this is much more of an endeavor to set up. I attended one of these as big fundraiser when I was in the military. I think there were like 7 or 8 wineries and you paid something like $20 a ticket and got to keep your glass.

My idea with this fundraiser is that folks who might not normally turn out for a “church event” might see this as an interesting, cultured, fun event to attend. You might get an interesting cross section of ages from the mid twenties up to the retiree set, and if it was well enjoyed you could schedule them a couple of times a year-especially in our region where we are only a couple of hours away from the Fingerlakes where there are tons of wineries. We also have a couple of nice wineries very locally that we could start with.

And hey-if you could get 15 couples to show up at $8 a ticket, with the winery showing up for free, that would be a quick $120 for not much work. Add in some cheese and crackers (which wouldn’t cost much at all) and some live music (we’ve got some great musicians including several professionals in our congregation) and you could bump the price up to $10 a person and probably get even more folks. Again, for very little time and outlay you could probably pull in a good crowd.