F UNDRAISING M ENU O F I DEAS
Y OUR G UIDE TO R AISING THE B IG B UCKS
**ALWAYS REMEMBER … THE FIRST RULE OF FUNDRAISING IS TO ASK**
Fundraising For Everyone:
 Online Fundraising: A quick and easy way to
fundraise! Once you’ve registered, your account is
already set up. Just personalize your website and send
e-mails to your whole e-mail address book – friends,
family, coworkers, etc – asking for donations!
 Letter Writing Campaign: Write a letter asking for
donations. Be sure to include your personal story about
why you Relay! Send them to everyone you know. You
can even include a return envelope to make it easier
for your donors!
 Corporate Matching Gifts: Many companies already
have a matching gift program. Is your company one of
them? If not, ask them to match the amount of pledges
you receive from your fellow co-workers.
 Paper Icons (Suns & Moons): Sell
paper icons for $1 or $2. Your coworkers can hang them in their offices.
Display the suns/moons in a common
place so people can see who’s
supporting your team. Or ask a local
retailer you frequent and see if they will sell them for
you!
 Special Event: If you have a birthday or anniversary
approaching, ask for donations to the American Cancer
Society in lieu of gifts.
 Garage Sale: Know all that old “stuff” that’s been
hanging out in your garage, attic or basement? Gather
it up and ask your friends to do the same. Put it in
your front yard and sell, sell, sell! Have Relay For Life
posters or flyers displayed to make sure donors know
where the proceeds are going.
 ebay Sales: Don’t want to sit outside for an afternoon?
Sell your old belongings on ebay instead!
 Bake Sale: Become Julia Child (or Rachel
Ray) and host a bake sale. You can even
have it in conjunction with your garage
sale. It’s a fact that people will buy more
stuff on a full stomach!
 Car Wash
 Cook Off: Charge an entry fee and donation to cast
your vote.
 Fundraising Dinner: Ask your favorite local restaurant
to host a fundraising dinner for you. Have them donate
a certain percentage of the night’s total proceeds to
American Cancer Society on your behalf. Use posters
or flyers to advertise this night. Make sure your team,
friends, family and co-workers know
about it.
 Extra Change In My Pocket Box:
Create little boxes (or jars) for
your friends and family and have
them place it on their dressers.
At the end of the day, they can drop
that spare change in the box.
 Get a Bucket: Put a Relay For Life sign on a bucket at
your local laundromat, pizza joint, lunchroom at work,
etc. Stop by and pick up the money weekly. Don’t










forget to ask the manager permission! (We also have a
few buckets you can borrow, on a first come first
served basis – but we need them back by Relay!)
Wine/Cheese/Dessert Party: Solicit donations from the
local deli, liquor store or dessert shops. Charge a
minimum of $10/head and then sell raffle tickets for
the extra bottles of wine/ cake/ cheese log.
Fountain Coin Collection: Go to your local mall and
ask them what they do with the coins in the fountain.
Chances are, you can have it!
Spare Change Drive: Go to your high
school alma mater and ask them (or just
the athletic department) to do a spare
change drive for you, placing buckets at
the team's sporting events or concession stand.
Local Bingo Games: It turns out local
Bingo games are required to give
some of their profits to charity. Why
not yours? Make sure to help promote
the night you get.
Host a Gaming Tournament: Video
Games, Bowling, Golf, Basketball 3-on-3 to name a
few. For bowling, participants pay a flat fee for the
night, you provide lanes and snacks. Charge per person
or team, and set the round robin going. Give prizes for
the winner or worst bowler.
Guest Bartend: Friends with your
local bartender? Ask him/her to put
a sign up on night that says all tips
get donated to Relay. Or talk to a
local bar about being a “guest
bartender” for a night for a cut of
the profits or cover charge (as long
as you help promote the night) and donate your tips to
the cause!
Sell Stuff: A few reputable ideas with good profit
margins … PartyLite (www.partylite.biz/jodimumez)
and Tastefully Simple
(www.tastefullysimple.com/web/acoulton) to just
name a few, and they are already national partners
with Relay!
Donate Your Services: Get your kids or friends
involved in this weekend activity. Have them perform a
free service for donations, such as raking leaves,
shoveling snow, mowing lawns or walking dogs.
Bag Groceries: Ask a local store if you can bag
people’s groceries for donations (you can have your
kids, nieces or nephews do it for you). Let everyone
know that donations benefit Relay For Life.
Happy Hour Party: Invite all of your friends, coworkers and all of their friends to a happy hour party.
You can charge per head or just hold a raffle. The
raffle could be as simple as a 50/50.
Fundraising at Work:
 Dress Down Day: For a donation of $5, employees can
dress down on a designated day (usually
Friday). Why not sell a month of Dress Down
Page 1 of 2
F UNDRAISING M ENU O F I DEAS
Y OUR G UIDE TO R AISING THE B IG B UCKS
**ALWAYS REMEMBER … THE FIRST RULE OF FUNDRAISING IS TO ASK**












Days for $25 or even a whole year’s worth of Dress
Down Day privileges for $100? We can send you stickers
too, letting people know your support for Relay For
Life! We do need some time on this because we don’t
keep these in stock.
Team Spirit Day: Same concept as a Dress Down Day,
but employees wear a jersey, t-shirt, sweatshirt or cap
of their favorite sports team instead.
Brown Bag Days: Have employees bring a
brown bag lunch to work on a designated
day and ask them to donate the cost of
what they would have spent at the
cafeteria or a restaurant. You can even
provide drinks or desserts and music to
make it a picnic atmosphere.
Clean Out The Corporate Closet: Offer employees the
opportunity to purchase excess inventory items such as
coffee mugs, t-shirts, lap top computer bags, etc., with
sales benefiting Relay For Life.
Break A Balloon Contest: Buy a dart for $1-$5 and
throw it at a wall of balloons to collect the prize
inside. Prizes can include casual days, prime parking
spots, free lunch, gift certificates, etc.
Manager Shoe Shine: Pick an afternoon and employees
can pay to have a manager shine their shoes.
Jail A Manager: Place a
management employee “under
arrest," charging $1-$5 a minute
to keep him/her in jail.
Executive Dunk Tank Or Pie
Throwing Event: Employees make a donation to Relay
For Life for each toss.
Relaxation Day: Bring in a massage therapist to
perform neck and back massages for a donation to
Relay For Life.
Walk of Fame: Put up large, colorful "Look Who's
Walking on Our Team" posters with baby pictures of
those employees who have signed up for the team,
along with current Polaroid pictures of walkers. Have
everyone donate a dollar and guess whose baby picture
is whose. The winner could receive a small prize (lunch
on the company, an extra break, VIP parking for a day,
or whatever incentive you think will encourage them!)
Raffle a Day Off: Ask your boss or the owner of the
company to donate a paid day off to the winner of the
drawing. Sell tickets for $20 to your co-workers (this is
an easy way for most companies to contribute without
donating cash).
Work for a Large Company? Send around a big manila
envelope with your letter taped to the one side and a
donor form on the other. Send the envelope in rotation
and have people place the checks right in the
envelope. Or, place a display in the lunchroom (a little
sign with your picture or an Honored Hero’s picture and
a note about what you are doing) next to a bucket for
donations or a pile of donor slips.
Meeting or Workshop “Etiquette Rules”: Fine coworkers a $1 or $5 donation to Relay For Life for





arriving late, not turning off cell phones, having side
conversations, etc.
Lunch With The Boss: Employees who make a donation
to Relay For Life are entered into a drawing for lunch
with a top level executive.
Manager Cook Out: For a $10 donation, employees dine
on food prepared by the management team.
Breakfast Sales: Same concept as a bake sale, but sell
bagels, donuts and coffee in the morning instead!
Spare Change Jar: Keep a jar on your desk put all your
extra coins in it everyday. It adds up. Put your reason
to Relay on the jar so others can see and hopefully
they’ll drop their spare change in too!
Penny Wars: Put out a jar for each department at
your office. For every penny that is in there you have
to subtract one point. For all silver coins
you get one point. Do this for a week or
so and reward the department with the
highest total. Put all of the money
toward your fundraising.
Fundraising at College:
While many of the above ideas can be transformed to be
college fundraisers too, we’ve outline a few more below.
 Candy/Snack Sales: Set up a table for a
day in your dorm around exam time.
Sell them for a $1. Everyone needs
some sugar around exam time!
 Loose Change Collection: Grab a jug or
large container and walk around your dorm asking for
loose change. Everyone has some loose change lying
around their rooms.
 Jail an RA: Place the RA from your dorm
“under arrest," charging $1-$5 a minute
to keep him/her in jail. Or you can place
them in a highly populated area around
campus, put up a sign that says a certain
amount of money needs to be raised to let
him/her out, and watch as people open up their wallets
to help!
 Coffee Shop Help:
o Approach your favorite coffee shop and ask if
they would donate a certain percentage of
their sales for a day.
o Pick a building on campus that
has a lot of traffic (maybe
your dorm?) and sell coffee for
$1 or so a cup. Ask your
favorite coffee shop to
donate the coffee. Remember to ask for
permission from the campus or RA in your
dorm!
o Ask them to sell paper icon Relay suns/moons
for a month
For more ideas please visit: www.RelayForLife.org/NYNJ
Page 2 of 2