Simple Ideas For
Fundraising Activities
At Your Village Fete or
School Fair
The best ideas for fundraising activities are always simple but fun.
Life doesn't have to be complicated. The village fete fundraisers below are very easy to organise but add a nice touch of fun around your event.
They can also all be easily run by children making them great fundraisers for kids.
Pot Luck
This is a really simple fundraiser that is very easy to set up and run. The best ideas always are!
A number of pots are filled with sand.
In some a coin or small prize is placed in the bottom before the sand is added so that it is completely hidden.
People then choose a pot of sand which they pour through a garden riddle / sieve.
If they are lucky the prize will be revealed.
If not " Oh well they can always buy another pot!"
Balloon Car
This is a really good fundraising idea borrowed from the garage forecourt where salesmen sometimes use a similar idea as a marketing gimmick.
A car is filled with balloons.
People pay to guess the number of balloons in the car. Closest guess wins a prize.
Its even better if it belongs to someone well known such as The Head Teacher / The Local Priest / Police Officer. Or how about filling the team mini-bus with balloons.
Could you persuade a local taxi firm to fill one of their cabs? The prize being some taxi vouchers etc
A great bit of excitement at the end is when the car is emptied of balloons. Challenge the kids to pop as many as they can. You could even put a lucky golden ticket in one!
How Long? / How Heavy? / Guess The Name?
As you can see ideas for fundraising activities do not have to be complicated.
A simple guess the weight competition added a fun attraction to this fete.
People were amazed at how much Humphrey weighed.
The organisers of this event had some weights to hand for comparison to aid the guessing
Here a tortoise is being used but the idea works just as well with:
- Big dogs
- Big cats
- Big rabbits
- Big cakes
- 3 Dinner ladies
..... you name it
Flowerpot Fundraiser
This is one of those ideas for fundraising activities that is as straightforward as it looks. Contestants pay to try to bounce ping pong balls into flowerpots. Some sand in the bottom of the pots stops the ball bouncing back out if you get lucky.
In this example the pots were numbered and certain scores won a prize.
Ping Pong Pringles
Attach empty Pringles tubes painted a bright colour to a large sheet of hardboard. Weight them with a bit of sand in the bottom of each.
Contestants have to bounce a ping pong ball into a tube to win a prize.
Instead of Pringles tubes you could use the old cardboard inner rolls from carpets. Most carpet fitting outfits will be only to glad to get rid of some of these. Alternatively pieces of drain pipe also work well. You will need a saw to cut them to size.
If using wider tubes simply adjust the number and distance between the tubes to maintain the level of difficulty.
Bell Tower- The ladder game
Belltower also known as The Ladder Game is one of the most simple fund raiser ideas that you could have at your village fete.
Competitors see if they can land a bean bag in each space between the rungs of the ladder (or as many as you specify).
If they manage it they throw the last bag through the door of a goal -traditionally a Bell Tower.
Little bells are often dangled here that jingle when a successful toss into the tower is made.
If you throw all your bags in the right places you win a prize.
Paper Airplane Contest
If its cheap and simple ideas for fundraising activities you are after try this one!
Sell contestants a sheet of A4 paper. They fold it however they wish to make a paper airplane. Get them to fly their plane along the course behind your stall. Mark their attempt with a white plastic plant label or little paper flag on a stick. Furthest distance wins a prize / trophy.
Tip - Display the current top distances on a leader board to encourage "friendly" competition and repeat attempts.
An alternative is to have a hoop set at a certain distance behind your stall. Contestants have to fly their plane through the hoop to win a prize.
Marble Mayhem / Marble Dash
Stand an upturned flowerpot on a tray of marbles. Contestants have to use a teaspoon to pick up the marbles and put them through the hole in the flowerpot's bottom.
Hide all the marbles in a certain time to win a prize. Alternatively how many can you hide before a buzzer (electric egg timer) sounds etc.
A variation of this great fete stall idea were sent in by Pat Sweeney from Canvey Island Essex
Have a tray with a large ceramic flower pot upturned in it. (It needs a hole in the base just big enough to let a normal sized marble drop through it.) Have a large bowl of different sized marbles to the side, with a spoon. The player has to spoon the marbles onto the top of the pot for (30 seconds/one minute)-no touching the pot or marbles, or helping them to drop through the hole!(Disqualification!!) The number of marbles in the pot is counted and noted. At end of event the person who scores most wins.
Gooseberry Pop
This is very similar to the marble game above but is a neat variation. The spoon is securely attached to a piece of cane. The stallholder had a number of different sizes for kids of different ages. Gooseberries are then spooned in to the top of the flower pot.
Ultimate Lemons
This is another simple fundraiser that is very easy to organise. Contestants have to balance a coin on top of a floating lemon for a count of five seconds. Whatever coin they use they win 5 times the amount. Try it at home - its not as easy as it looks!
Wheel of Fortune
Ok so this isn't such a simple fundraiser to start, but once you have built your wheel of fortune you can use it in all sorts of different ways at all sorts of fundraising events.
The basic idea is very simple- 12 panels on a wooden wheel are given a name, number or picture. Contestants choose their lucky panel.
When enough panels have been sold - it does not matter how many as the odds stay the same, the wheel is spun. The panel that stops next to a marked arrow wins.
The great thing about a wheel of fortune is that it can be adapted for any fundraising event or good cause simply by changing the pictures on the panels. It works best if you print off 2 for each panel one for the wheel and one for the contestant to hold to show their choice. Laminate the pictures if you can.
Pick whatever pictures will suit your event. Here are some ideas but we are sure you could come up with lots more:
- Football teams
- Rock bands / Pop stars
- TV personalities
- Cartoon characters
- Months of the year (birthdays)
- Teachers at the school
- Dinosaurs
- Racehorses with funny names
- Teddies with funny / cute names
- Breeds of dog (great for animal rescue events)
Another neat variation on this we have seen is to stick the wrappers from chocolate bars around the edge of the wheel but also have a number of blank sections. In this game the wheel is spun for each contestant to see if they get lucky and win the corresponding bar of chocolate.
Make a wheel of fortune
The wheel can be made in a variety of ways. We have seen some that use the spindle from the back wheel of an old pushbike for the central bar. Nearly all however use some kind of flapper to slow the wheel down. This usually consists of a piece of thin plastic, metal or leather than rubs against a series of nails in the back of the board as in this example.
Chocolate Throw
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This very simple idea was sent in by Lisa a school fundraiser from Australia.
Children get to throw a coin from behind a marked line, aiming at one of 6 blocks of chocolate placed on a rug on the ground. If the coin lands (and stays) on a block of chocolate - its theirs! (blocks are replenished once won - so there's always 6 on display to be won).
Each child gets 5 throws for their ticket - its harder than you think (and a lot of fun trying!)
You need to have an experiment to see where your line needs to be and how many times you can expect a winner and then set the price of having a go accordingly.
There are more simple ideas for fundraising activities on our Pinterest page
So you see ideas for fundraising activities do not have to be complicated or particularly sophisticated.
If families go to the village fete they are after a bit of cheap fun.
Make sure you give it to them!
