Soapbox Engage Blog

Fall is such a wonderful time of year. The crisp autumn air, beautiful turning leaves, snuggly blankets and sweaters, and of course pumpkin spice and apple cider! Whether it’s gathering your donors around a football tailgate party or bringing families together for a pumpkin carving party, this time of year is filled with opportunities to gather, make memories, and celebrate. As a development professional, you can capitalize on how much people love the autumn season for your fundraising efforts!

Even though you and your team might be distracted by the ramp-up to year-end fundraising, don’t overlook the potential of fall fundraising events and opportunities leading into the holidays. If you’re a bit stumped on some unique and effective fall fundraising ideas, have no fear! We’ve rounded up some tried and tested ideas for you!

Table of Contents

1. Fall festival fundraiser
2. Pumpkin carving contest
3. Tailgate party fall fundraiser
4. Costume contest fall fundraiser
5. Chili cookoff or soup showdown fundraiser
6. Fall hike-a-thon fundraiser

1) Fall festival fundraiser

At the risk of being a little too “on the nose,” let’s start with an old-fashioned fall festival for our first fall fundraising idea. What says autumn more than pumpkins, apple cider, bobbing for apples, and other fall festival activities! These are the experiences that people love to have each year with friends and family.

Whether you go small and just have a friendly pumpkin carving or fall craft event, or you decide to pull out all the stops for a full fall festival bash, this is a great event that offers loads of opportunities to “up-sell” and raise more money.

Set up a hot cider and donuts stand to raise a little extra cash. Invite a local petting zoo to come set up shop and put a donation jar at the entrance. Sell tickets for hayrides or pony rides. The options really are endless.

To add some extra fall fun and up your visibility on social media (without any extra work), consider creating a festive, fall-themed photo booth with your logo tastefully displayed somewhere. People love photo props and booths, and they’ll share their photos--with your logo in it--across the interwebs, advertising your nonprofit and your great fundraising event!

To take this feature to the next level, get a volunteer with an eye for photography to operate the booth, ensuring everyone gets a great pic on their smartphones. Trust us, the free advertising will be worth it.

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: If you’re thinking of selling tickets to your fall festival, consider using our Events app. It’s fully customizable, so you have all the options at your fingertips, whether you ask for a flat fee or you charge per event (with things like hayrides or other options costing a little extra). You can even add an option for guests to donate a little extra to the cause as they’re checking out!

2) Pumpkin carving contest

While we’re on the subject of fall festivals and things, let’s not forget the ever-popular pumpkin carving (or painting) contest. You can pair this friendly competition with your fall festival, or it often does well as a stand-alone fall fundraising event.

One of the most popular ways to organize this fundraiser is to charge a small “entry fee” to compete—your nonprofit supplies all the carving necessities. You can decide whether you want to include a pumpkin in the entry fee price, sell them at the door, or have competitors bring their own pumpkin.

If you have an extra successful pumpkin carving fundraiser with lots of contestants (and ensure fairness), consider creating age or competition categories. To make it a family event that everyone can participate in (safely), consider adding a pumpkin painting category for the little tykes in your audience (parents will appreciate this).

Want to spice up the event even more? Invite a local celebrity to judge the contest and create a prize purse (or great trophy) for the winner! Don’t forget to take loads of photos throughout the event and of all the pumpkins for your social media pages.

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: Check out our Forms app to make signing up for the pumpkin carving contest a smooth, convenient process. Contestants will appreciate how simple it is to fill out the online forms and make sure they enter the right pumpkin carving category, and your staff will love having everything organized and digitized. No more excel spreadsheets of names!

3) Tailgate party fall fundraiser

One of the hallmarks of fall is football. People love tailgating with fellow fans and cheering on the hometown team (whether it’s high school, college, professional, or otherwise).

With a tailgate fundraising event, your organization has an opportunity to invite the whole community to support a local team and the nonprofit at the same time! This kind of fundraiser is great for getting your name out there, connecting with new people, and raising awareness about your cause in a fun, social context. So, even if the event itself doesn’t bring in top-dollar, if you’re able to connect with new potential donors, it might actually be a very successful event in the long run.

So, break out the grill and stock up on burgers, brats, and all the football tailgate foods! Take your party up a notch by bringing in a jumbo projector system so you can make sure the pregame show is on for everyone to see.

Another option to make your tailgate fundraiser extra enticing is to find a few raffle prizes to give away throughout the event. Whether it’s team swag, a meet-and-greet with an athlete or coach after the game, or some other prizes, it adds a little extra flair and makes your tailgate fundraiser even more attractive to people who might not be as familiar with your organization.

You can either organize this fundraiser, so attendees pay an entry fee to enjoy your fantastic tailgate party fundraiser, or you can hold the event for free and ask for donations if people decide to enjoy the food and drinks.

Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to have a donation jar on-site and access to online donation options. Many people will gladly chip in a little extra when they’re having a great time. Plus, some loyal supporters might not be able to make it to the tailgate party but would like to contribute to the cause. Having an online donation page allows them to give generously, too.

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: We mentioned having an online donation page above, but this is actually something your organization needs regardless of your fundraising strategies or events. With the Soapbox Engage Donations app, you can create custom donation pages for each of your fundraising events. Donors will appreciate being reassured that they’re donating in the right location, and you can add all the pertinent information.

4) Costume contest fall fundraiser

This is another fall fundraising idea with loads of creative variations. You can host a traditional Halloween costume party with all the trick-or-treat fanfare for the whole family, or you can spice it up a bit!

Consider hosting a costume contest 5K run/walk! What could be better than parading everyone around the 5K loop in their awesome costumes! (Plus, it adds an element of complexity when considering what kind of costume will withstand a 5K walk or run.)

The Gulf Coast School for Autism hosts a Halloween Hustle 5K and Costume Trot to raise money for their amazing programs. In this case, the school decided to host the fun run, a more competitive 5K, and a costume contest separately to ensure everyone in the community has a way to participate.

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: The key to an easy costume contest or charity run is easy registration. With the Soapbox Engage Events app, you can create a beautiful, custom events page so participants can register easily online and share the page with friends. If you also use Salesforce, the app captures people’s contact information and automatically adds them to your contact list (or updates their existing contact information for you). No more manually adding or updating contact information!

5) Chili cookoff or soup showdown fundraiser

What goes better with crisp fall evenings than hot soup or chili! And everyone has a secret chili or soup recipe they think is the best. Turn this into a great fundraising opportunity by creating a little friendly competition for a good cause!

Put bragging rights on the line and host a chili cookoff or soup showdown for your next fall fundraising event. These kinds of events tend to draw a good crowd of hungry supporters eager to enjoy some good chili or soup for a good cause.

Some nonprofits choose to sell tickets to the cookoff event, and others go the route of selling food to raise money. Either way, the fundraising potential is great.

One way to diversify the event or create the potential to raise even more money is to pair the chili cookoff with a dessert showdown to make sure there’s food everyone will enjoy. Invite a local band or entertainment group to make it an all-out party. There are so many options and variations for this tried-and-tested fall fundraising idea.

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: As you’re planning the chili cookoff (or whatever kind of cooking contest you’d like to host), set up a custom page on our Events app so people can buy tickets or sign up for free in advance online. Pair it with our Forms app so you can easily collect information from all the people who want to enter the cooking contest portion. Both apps are fully customizable, so you can ask all the right questions without any extra stress.

6) Fall hike-a-thon fundraiser

In many parts of the country, fall is the perfect time to get out and hike. The leaves are changing, and the temperatures are falling. Invite your supporters to hit the trails for a great cause with a fall hike-a-thon fundraiser!

Much like a walk-a-thon, a hike-a-thon is a crowdfunding strategy where your supporters raise money on your behalf. So, maybe they invite people to give a set amount of money per mile they hike or per meter of elevation they climb. Or perhaps they set a target fundraising goal and take one-time donations on your behalf. No matter how you decide to do it, this is a great opportunity to mobilize your loyal supporters to raise money on your behalf while enjoying the great outdoors.

The Washington Trails Association hosts an annual hike-a-thon as one of their primary fundraisers. They invite people to set up their personal fundraising page, then log miles and share stories. The association offers prizes along the way for participants to keep things interesting.

So, if you live in an area with great hiking or your supporters tend to enjoy exploring the great outdoors, this might be a great addition to your fall fundraising schedule!

Soapbox Engage app to make your life easier: Our Donations app is very crowdfunding-friendly! Equip participants to create their own donation pages and raise money for your hike-a-thon cause. And your team will appreciate how easy it is to oversee everything without writing a single line of computer code!

There are many other fall fundraising ideas out there to spice up the weeks before the year-end fundraising push. With a little pre-planning, you’ll be able to take advantage of a season that most nonprofits consider a “dead-spot” in the fundraising calendar.

Here are three more blogs to help you take your fall fundraising efforts to the next level.

• Write a Fundraising Plan That Converts More Donors: Planning to just ask a bunch of people for money isn’t really a sustainable fundraising plan. Having a fundraising plan will set your nonprofit up for long-term financial stability and is well worth the time and energy to create one. This blog will help you write an effective fundraising plan, including six of the key elements.
• 5 Ways To Make Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Campaign More Successful: Peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the best and easiest ways to get your supporters involved in fundraising on your behalf. It can take many forms and encompass all kinds of events, from hike-a-thons to charity 5Ks. If you’re thinking of incorporating peer-to-peer fundraising in your fall fundraising strategy, check out this blog to get some great tips and tricks from industry experts!
• How to Plan A Fundraising Event: The Complete Guide: No matter the size or type, planning a fundraising event is no small task. Have no fear! This blog post includes a step-by-step guide to help you plan a fantastic, successful fundraising event.