Fundraising

32 Online Fundraising Ideas Perfect for Any Cause

Author: Sayana Izmailova

August 18, 2024

Contents

🕑 26 min read

In the past 5 years or so the nonprofit industry has completely transformed. Many staff members now work from home, events are now virtual or hybrid and donors have embraced the idea of relying on technology to support their favorite causes.

In this post, let’s talk about online fundraising — what it is, why it’s often a great choice for nonprofits and what you can do to get started. More importantly, we’ll share 33 ideas you can try at your organization to raise money online and meet your fundraising goals.

Let’s take a look!

What Is Online Fundraising?

Online fundraising is simply a way to raise money digitally. Utilizing the internet for your fundraising efforts you can collect donations without putting on in-person events, going door-to-door or collecting cash. All you need is a laptop – sometimes you may only need a smartphone! – and an Internet connection to raise money without ever leaving the office (or your couch at home).

Click through to claim your 60-day trial of WildApricot to create effective QR codes that will speed up event check-in.

Why Should You Have an Online Fundraiser?

Fundraising is a huge part of your nonprofit’s activities and a core part of how your achieve your mission. Being able to do this digitally provides so many benefits to your nonprofit, allowing you to see more success than traditional, in-person fundraising efforts. Fundraising online is:

Easier and more convenient
Cost-effective
Improves accessibility
Increases reach
Attracts new supporters
Offers a more targeted approach

Let’s take a look at each of these benefits in more detail.

6 Benefits of Online Fundraising

1. It’s easier and more convenient

Whether you’re used to organizing a lot of events or having volunteers go door-to-door to collect donations, you have to agree that these methods require a lot of work – planning, organizing, managing people, schedules, committees, sub-committees and a lot of other headache-inducing tasks.

Virtual fundraising relies on technology (such as online payment processors) more than anything, so the only work you have to do is strategic, like setting goals and thinking about how best to reach them. Fundraising online does involve a bit of work up front to get things set up, but the rest is usually handled by the technology you choose to work with.

2. It’s cost-effective

The best thing about online fundraising is that it’s all digital. You don’t need to book a venue for your event, cater lunch for your committee meeting, pay for the 5,000 direct mail pieces you send out or print 500 flyers to promote your fundraiser. Most of the ideas in this post are low cost, rely on technology you already pay for and some are completely free (other than paying your staff for their time, of course).

3. It improves accessibility

Fundraising events can be challenging for some people to attend. Sometimes coming to an event would require attendees to arrange special travel accommodations. Or maybe they’re busy parents of small children and can’t make it work with their schedule.

Moving your fundraising to the online space means people can participate from anywhere and on their own time. Even events like walk-a-thons, when done virtually, typically last a few days to a few weeks, rather than just one day. This means that participants can choose exactly when, where and how to take part.

Lastly, fundraising online gives your nonprofit more opportunities to share information in an accessible way by including closed captions, transcripts and screen-reader friendly content — accommodations that aren’t always possible in in-person events.

4. It increases reach

9 times out of 10 if your nonprofit is hosting a fundraising event, attendees won’t travel more than a couple hours (especially if you’re a smaller nonprofit).

But with online events, physical distance doesn’t exist – you can spread the word about your cause all across the globe if you want to. The power of social media makes this possible, so why not take advantage and see how many potential supporters live beyond your local community?

Not to mention, marketing opportunities like Google Ad Grants allow you to amplify your online presence even further with advertising. Building online fundraising campaigns with targeted keywords will put you in front of the right prospects, then amplify conversion-optimized pages like donation forms, event landing pages and educational content regarding your mission.

5. It attracts new supporters

Increased reach gives you access to a larger audience, boosting the amount of potential new donors. In other words, the more people see your fundraiser, the more support you’ll receive. Even if they don’t donate right away, executing an online fundraiser will allow you to collect information from prospective donors, add them to your DMS (donor management software) and continue to build a relationship with them.

Depending on the type of virtual fundraiser you organize, you may not always get a chance to collect every potential donor’s contact info. At the very least, someone may see your campaign, follow your page for more updates and make a donation at a later point.

6. It offers a more targeted approach

With online fundraising, you have a lot more control over your message and who sees it. With your online fundraising strategy:

You can use data to personalize your emails and make sure the reader feels like the message was written just for them.
You can promote your fundraiser with social media ads and target people who are most likely to donate to a cause like yours.
You can evaluate how well your message, story and visual media are resonating with your audience and quickly make adjustments. Because everything is digital, you can experiment with different versions and make edits in a matter of minutes.

How to Raise Money With Virtual Fundraising

Before we get into the online fundraising ideas, let’s briefly take a look at the seven essential steps you’ll need to take to organize a successful fundraiser.

1. Pick the right idea for your nonprofit

All of the ideas we cover in the next section are great, but they won’t all work for your organization. To pick the best idea, think about your objectives, what your audience would like and what your resources can allow. If you’ve never done online fundraising before, it’s best to start with something small or something that aligns with your fundraising staff’s skills and expertise. You can always experiment, learn and grow from there.

2. Review your website

It’s important to remember what the ultimate goal of your fundraising efforts – you want people to come to your website and make a donation.

Before you even start planning your online fundraising strategy, take a good look at your website and make sure it’s ready for all these new visitors. A bad user experience can stand in the way of additional donations.

Your nonprofit’s website should be easy to navigate, tell the story of your organization in a compelling way and inspire people to join your community.

Wondering how to get started? Check out these posts on the 22 features that every nonprofit website has and examples of the best nonprofit websites to inspire you!

Your website should also make it easy for people to make a donation. Design a functional donation page with an online donation form. Link this in the header of your website to make it hard to miss. A great donation page is simple, provides the information donors need about your nonprofit’s goals and is easily shareable to a wider audience.

3. Convince your board

Prepare a presentation for your board about your online fundraising idea and cover the following:

Your goals and how you plan to achieve them
The benefits of online fundraising (feel free to borrow from the above section)
The impact your virtual fundraiser will create
What it will cost (this is a big one for boards)
What new software you’ll need to invest in (if any)
How board members can help

4. Get the right online fundraising software

Fundraising software makes it easy to manage various aspects of the fundraising process, such as collecting and processing donations, managing donor data and stewarding relationships.

When it comes to online fundraising, having integrated tools that can handle all this is particularly important. When someone makes a donation through your online donation form, their information gets automatically entered into your database and you can start sending them personalized communications right away.

If you don’t yet have fundraising software or you’re looking for a more integrated option, consider WildApricot — you can use it to build a website, collect donations and manage your donor relationships, all in one place. Click here to learn more or start a free 60-day trial.

5. Build your marketing materials

Since your fundraiser will be virtual, most of your promotional efforts should be done digitally. Your online fundraising strategy should have a multi-channel promotion plan; think about:

Updating your website
Sending out promotional emails
Posting on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.)
Paying for digital advertisements on social media platforms and/or Google
Partnering with other organizations, websites, publications and influencers who’d be willing to help spread the word about your fundraiser

Once you’ve identified which channels you’ll be using, prepare your message, identify the campaign’s branding and design cohesive and compelling marketing materials.

6. Start your virtual fundraiser!

Virtual fundraisers can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Depending on the format of yours, you may need to check in regularly (a few times a day) to make sure that everything is working and no one is having issues. Because virtual fundraisers rely so much on technology, there will always be a few people who need help troubleshooting — make sure you have a technical support team on standby.

Don’t forget to also track your progress towards your fundraising goal to see what is and isn’t working. There may be things you can adjust mid-campaign to improve your results, or you might have to note them down for next time.

7. Say thank you and conduct post-fundraiser analysis

As soon as the fundraiser is over, send a message to all participants, donors, vendors and anyone else involved. Thank them for their time, contributions and willingness to try something different.

Lastly, get together with your planning team and analyze how the fundraiser went. Answer questions like:

Were you able to meet your goals? Why or why not?
What went well and what didn’t?
What would you do differently next time?

32 Virtual Fundraising Ideas

Now without further ado, let’s dive into the online fundraising ideas. Feel free to skip to a topic that interests you the most!

1. Google Ads

Your website on its own is a great source of online donations, but how do you drive more traffic to your website?

Well, we’d like to introduce you to Google Ads.

Chances are, you’ve seen these everywhere on the Internet, advertising anything and everything from products to services to events.

But did you know you can set up Google Ads for your nonprofit too? The great thing about Google Ads for nonprofits is that it doesn’t even have to cost you anything. Google offers a Google Ad Grant that provides nonprofits up to $10,000 USD per month of in-kind search advertising

If you meet their eligibility requirements, use compelling language and images to get people to click on the ad and go to your website to learn more. You can even target people with specific attributes to increase the chances of them responding well to your ad.

Between choosing the right landing pages and keywords that will inspire people to get involved, properly allocating your grant money can be challenging. If you’re low on staff time or just need more guidance, you might outsource this work to a Google Ad Grant management agency. This will take account creation, keyword research, landing page conversion, and ongoing compliance off your plate. However you go about it, make sure you really think through your strategy for allocating your grant money!

2. Text-to-Give

The ease of giving through a mobile phone is hard to beat — people are already on it all the time, and there are no lengthy forms to fill out. Plus, a service like Snowball, Qgiv, DonorBox or many others will set up the system for you, so all you have to do is decide on a catchy and relevant keyword and start encouraging people to text in.

Note that there are two ways of giving through a mobile phone and you might need to do some research about what your audience would prefer. Text-to-give automatically charges the donation amount through the donor’s mobile service provider, while text-to-donate responds to their text with a link to a webpage where they can complete the donation. This article explains the difference in greater detail.

3. Email Campaign

Hopefully, sending appeals via email is already part of your nonprofit’s fundraising practice. It’s a low-cost way of letting your community know what your immediate needs are and how they can offer their support.

When drafting your message, keep in mind that everyone already receives a ton of emails. Make your fundraising emails stand out with a catchy subject, lots of visuals and a large and clear call to action. This email should be different from other ones you send, such as your welcome emails, event invitations or reminders, your newsletter and other updates. It should be concise, to the point and stress an immediate need for action.

4. Social Media Campaign

People are spending more time than ever before on social media, so it’s essential that your nonprofit makes good use of social media channels, especially in the midst of a fundraising campaign.

And what’s the first step? Before you start posting, be sure to come up with a social media strategy. Create compelling content for each of your channels and be specific about why you’re asking people to make a gift and why they should.

Doing this will result in meaningful engagement with your followers, more clicks to your website and donations, as well as more shares across your followers’ own networks to spread the word. Plus, if you have the budget, you can also take advantage of placed advertisements to reach a brand-new audience.

5. Social Media Challenge

In addition to posting about your fundraising appeal on social media, why not get your followers engaged with a special challenge?

You can ask them to do something specific — the task can be fun, challenging, impressive, surprising or anything in between — and take a photo or video of them doing it. Participants can post on their own social media, tagging you and using a special hashtag you created for the challenge. Your nonprofit’s social media channels can repost those who participate, increasing engagement with your supporters and increasing the content shared on your pages.

Your challenge doesn’t have to just be a call to donate, as some individuals might not have the ability to do so, but this brings awareness of your fundraiser to a wider audience. The videos and photos will get in front of the eyes of people who don’t already know about your organization. There’s a good chance they’ll want to try the challenge for themselves, resulting in more donations and more shared content.

6. Social Media Takeover

Is there an organization or business who supports your mission?

Reach out to them and ask if they’d be willing to “donate” their social media account to you for a day or even just a few hours.

This means that for that specified amount of time, you’ll be posting content on their account about your nonprofit – stories about the people or animals you serve, information about the work you do and why more funds are needed, as well as prompts to donate.

This is a great way to reach more people and raise awareness about your cause. For your partner organization, it’s a chance to showcase their social corporate responsibility and elevate their brand. If they have a loyal following, their customers and clients will be more than willing to donate to a cause they support.

7. Crowdfunding

Everyone has tight budgets, whether you’re and individual or business. Crowdfunding is a great way to boost your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts without asking for large donation amounts from supporters. Many times

Crowdfunding can be very effective and doesn’t take long to set up. There are lots of online fundraising platforms to choose from, many of them designed specifically with nonprofits in mind. Some of the most popular that you’ve likely already heard of are GoFundMe and KickStarter.

Once you’ve settled on a platform, create a campaign that expresses a specific need, has a set goal and a firm deadline, and get promoting! If your crowdfunding campaign tells your nonprofit’s story in a compelling way, people will be sure to spread the word about your cause and help you garner support.

8. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

The terms crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising are sometimes used interchangeably, but the two approaches are quite different. Peer-to-peer fundraising relies on individuals organizing their own mini crowdfunding campaigns on your behalf. It’s extremely effective because it taps into your supporters’ existing networks and trusted relationships.

Plus, setting up a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign is quite simple. You can select a platform that fits your needs, then give your fundraisers everything they need to be successful. This includes a clear message, compelling visuals, promotional materials and answers to questions their donors might have.

To make your peer-to-peer fundraiser successful, you’ll need to motivate your fundraisers. One way to do this is to instill a healthy dose of competition by encouraging them to create teams and acknowledging the most successful fundraisers at the end of the challenge.

9. Matching Gifts

Individuals are much more likely to make a donation when they know that their impact will be doubled. To make this possible, seek out a corporate partner or major gift donor who’d be willing to match gifts up to a certain amount. Promote this match in all of your online fundraising channels – website, emails, social media, etc.

You’re essentially asking a company or major donor for one large gift, but the impact it will have in increasing the number of individual donations will well exceed the efforts it requires.

You can also encourage your community to seek out their own matching gifts for your nonprofit’s cause. Many employers have a corporate matching program and will match their gift to your organization: all they have to do is ask.

10. Partnership with an Online Business for Proceeds

Many online businesses choose to donate a portion or even 100% of proceeds to charity as part of their marketing and brand building efforts. They sometimes choose a specific product line or a time period, and heavily promote the initiative across their channels.

This benefits the online business beyond just helping your nonprofit fundraise by elevating their brand and building a larger customers base, well after their charity campaign is over.

You’ll want reach out to a business whose mission and values align with yours.You can even offer to promote the campaign across your community to introduce their business to new potential customers. Since more and more people are shopping online today, this partnership is a win-win for everyone involved.

11. Partnership with an Online Business for a Donation at Checkout

Similar to partnering with an online business for a portion of the proceeds, your nonprofit can partner by asking businesses to include a donation prompt at checkout.

You’ve likely experienced the cashier asking you to donate a dollar or two when you’re checking out at the grocery store. The idea here is the same. People are already typing in their credit card number to make a purchase, so asking them to add on a dollar for a good cause isn’t asking for much. Recent statistics show that 53% of customers say yes when asked to donate at checkout, so it can really add up to a significant amount over time.

A partnership with online businesses elevates the company’s brand and makes them a socially responsible business. Some companies may even prefer including an ask at checkout over donating a portion of proceeds because they don’t actually lose any profit in this case.

12. Partnership with a Social Media Influencer

Social media influencers are a hot topic these days, and for good reason. They provide their followers with highly relatable content on a consistent basis, forming deep relationships and gaining trust. This trust translates to a lot of influence (hence the term “influencer”) over the decisions members of their community make — the restaurants they visit, recipes they make at home, products they buy, shows they watch and pretty much anything else you can think of.

For-profit businesses have found a way to take advantage of this new way to influence the behaviour of their potential customers. Who’s to say nonprofit organizations can’t do the same?

Reach out to an influencer to see if they might be interested in partnering with you. Make sure your values align with theirs for the best partnership and chances of success.

There are a number of ways they can help you fundraise — making a donation to your nonprofit and sharing their experience with their followers, asking their community to make donations or simply promoting any of your fundraising campaigns on their social media.

13. E-Cards

The idea of sending cards or e-cards to accompany a donation isn’t new – many charities offer to send a card on your behalf when you make a tribute gift in honor or memory of someone.

But have you ever thought of having people make a donation so that they can send an e-card? Think of it like buying a candygram for someone on Valentine’s Day, except they can do it at any time of the year and for any occasion.

The set-up is simple, too. Design a number of e-cards (or ask community members to do so) and put them up on your website. People can then choose the design they like, fill in the recipient’s email address and even add a special message. Once they make the donation, their e-card will be sent to the recipient.

You can also include your own branding and brief messaging on the cards so that each time a card is sent, it helps spread the word about your work and maybe even inspires the recipient to send their own card to someone. Use something like Canva (they have a free version!) to design professional-level cards that people will love.

14. Virtual Silent Auction

Silent auctions are a tried-and-true method of generating revenue at fundraising events. And thanks to advances in software, they no longer have to be done in-person. Virtual auctions have really risen in popularity recently and your nonprofit should implement this into your virtual fundraising events repetoire.

Plan out all the details as you would for a regular silent auction, then choose a software like Auctria to execute it. You’ll be able to post photos of your auction items, allow people to place bids, announce the winners and take payments — all done completely online.

Check out this post to learn how to organize an online auction in more detail.

15. Un-gala

Sure, a fancy annual fundraising gala has been a must-have event for many nonprofits, but who says we have to keep playing by the rules?

Introducing the “un-gala” — same attendees, same cause, same fundraising revenue, but without the hassle of planning an enormous event. An un-gala is the exact opposite of a gala. People simply buy tickets to stay home and not go to an event (you’d be surprised how many people actually prefer that).

Organizing an un-gala is super simple! Set up registrations and promote your event and that’s pretty much it — how the attendees choose to spend their time on the day of the event is entirely up to them.

To dive deeper check out this blog.

16. Live-Streamed Event

A gala is not the only event that can be turned virtual. Really, most activities you plan to do in-person can be done via live-streamed video.

Would you normally have a keynote speaker at your event? Have them give their address via a platform like Zoom. Were you thinking of hosting a movie screening party? Have everyone join in to watch from the comfort of their own home.

If you’re looking for more info, we’ve published an entire blogpost on how to successfully organize an online fundraising event, complete with the exact steps and sample schedule. Also be sure to download our Virtual Event Checklist so you don’t miss any crucial steps.

The beauty of these events is that your organization can still reach (and often exceed) your fundraising goals, without the cost of organizing an elaborate in-person event.

17. Virtual Run, Bike Or Walk

One of the most popular fundraising events is a run or walk — participants get the chance to challenge themselves, get some exercise and raise money for a good cause from within their own networks.

Well, did you know that you don’t need to close down the streets and hope for sunshine in the forecast in order to have a successful run or walk?

You guessed it – you can do it virtually.

All you need to do is pick a date (or a date range, to give participants more flexibility), set up registrations and enable your participants to raise funds. When the time comes, you can live-stream a kick-off ceremony and send your participants off to complete the run or walk on their own, in their own neighborhoods and on their own time. They can track and submit their best times and still engage in some friendly competition.

At your live-streamed closing ceremony, announce the most enthusiastic runners, walkers and fundraisers, along with the final amount raised, what the funds will support and closing remarks from your leadership.

These tend to be super popular online fundraising ideas for schools if you’re working with children and teenagers!

18. Fitness Challenge

Another great way to get your community active while raising funds is to host a fitness challenge. Create a series of short workouts and challenge your participants to tune in to your live-streamed demonstration over a set number of days (feel free to partner with a professional fitness coach to grow your audience too!).

People will gladly welcome the opportunity to exercise consistently, especially when they know that hundreds of others are doing it at the same time. Encourage them to tell everyone they know about what they’re doing and ask for donations from family and friends.

As with the virtual run or walk, don’t forget to live-stream an opening and closing ceremony and provide your participants with everything they need to fundraise successfully.

19. Game Night

Who doesn’t love games? The possibilities are endless when it comes to organizing a game night.

Invite your community to join you virtually for one evening. They can play board games at home, on their phones, online multiplayer video games or even their favorite card games.

This is another perfect fundraising idea for schools, as kids love any opportunity to play games – and their parents will love that there’s a valuable cause to support.

As always, the key with an event like this is to get your registrants excited about participating and encourage them to spread the word to their friends and family. Community engagement is key with these types of fundraisers.

20. Virtual Class or Workshop

Providing an educational aspect to your fundraising efforts will aways boost your participation rates. Implementing this into your virtual fundraising will show success as well.

Take cooking classes, for example. Cooking classes, mixology classes, painting workshops and etc., have been fun activities for individuals and small groups for some time, but it’s nearly impossible to plan something like a cooking class for hundreds of attendees. That would take a big kitchen!

But by partnering with organizations like Cozymeal, you can register large groups of people to get access to a video service (Zoom is the most popular) and follow along as a professional shows you how to make a delicious treat.

If you’re not wanting to use service dedicated to this type of event, you can set up the fundraiser workshop by creating an event on Facebook or through Eventbrite and set a flat registration price to attend. Then host the workshop yourself via zoom and manually invite registrants.

21. Virtual Movie Night

With virtual movie nights, you can give your members and donors something they’re sure to love while doing good for your organization.

There are a few online platforms to help organizations set up virtual movie nights (like Teleparty or Kosmi) that make it simple to send a link inviting event registrants to the virtual movie theater once you’ve started it.

Simply charge either a small admission fee or accept donations of any amount for access to the movie theater.

22. Virtual Trivia Night

We’ll admit: it’s hard to replicate the fun atmosphere of a trivia night with friends at your local pub, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from getting a virtual team together. Online trivia allows participants to have a good time sharing their knowledge and winning some fun prizes. When you add in the fundraising opportunity to trivia, what could be a better idea!?

you don’t need to get super fancy with organizing your virtual trivia event. It’s as simple as setting up a webinar or event in your video conference platform of choice (again, Zoom seems to be the virtual event go-to tool), coming up with a set of questions then having people register as a team and setting a donation amount to attend.

23. Sell Merchandise Online

What’s one of the best parts of attending an event? The swag, of course! It’s always nice to give away a branded swag item like sunglasses, a notebook, a mug, or a t-shirt (they make great prizes for trivia winners!). Still, you can also host a type of online sale or virtual store where you sell items that would benefit your donors and help you reach your fundraising goals.

24. Virtual Concert

These days, it’s not uncommon for successful events to include music as an essential element on the agenda, whether it’s carefully choosing a DJ to play during cocktail hours or inviting musicians to play as a way to end the event.

Now, virtual concerts ARE the event. We recommend finding a local musician(s) to feature, or you can’t go wrong with a good cover band. Building local relationships and having a community partner will benefit both your nonprofit and the local artists.

Whether you decide to sell tickets or to invite everyone and ask for donations, it’s guaranteed to be a good time and a successful fundraiser.

25. Volunteer Grants

You may already know that many large corporations let their employees take paid time off to volunteer for local nonprofit organizations. What you may not know is that a lot of them will not only pay their employees for the time, but also pay you! That’s right — you get the volunteers’ time and a monetary donation.

The donation is usually set at an hourly rate and determined by how many hours the volunteer spends with your organization. In other words, the more time the volunteer gives your organization, the larger the donation your nonprofit will receive!

Volunteer grants work with both in-person and virtual volunteers. To take advantage of this opportunity virtually, look for volunteers who can help your organization remotely (for example, with graphic design, social media management, data entry, etc). Ask your volunteers to check with their employer whether or not they have a volunteer grant program. Not every company does, but it ever hurts to ask. Plus, the inquiry might inspire them to implement one!

26. In-Kind Fundraising

An in-kind donation is a donation of anything that’s not money. This can be physical items like clothes, food, supplies or equipment. It can also be someone’s time and expertise.

On your end, soliciting in-kind donations can almost always be done virtually. Simply put out a call to your community and list the items or services you’re looking for.

To keep the process virtual for the donors, ask them to provide a service remotely or order physical items to be shipped directly to you. Gift cards are always a great thing to request and most businesses can provide these digitally.

27. Pledge Drive

A pledge is a promise to make a donation at a later point. A fun way to collect pledges is to organize an a-thon type event and have the participants raise funds from their friends and family. The donation amount would be tied to how much the participants are able to accomplish.

For example, for a walk-a-thon, donors can pledge to donate $5 for every mile that the participant will walk. If after the event is over, the participant walked a total of 20 miles, their friends and family would each have to donate $100.

This motivates the participants to do something positive — walk, run, cycle, dance, or read — and gives them the power to affect how much money will be raised towards a cause they care about.

28. Online Raffle

Raffles are a classic way to raise money. They’re fun, they get people excited, and they generate quite a bit of revenue. This is because people’s motivation for donating is not only to support a great cause, but to also increase their chances of winning the big prize.

Organizing an online raffle is not too different from doing it in-person. Simply set a price for the tickets, decide on the grand prize (or a few), and start getting the word out. You can get dedicated online raffle software to make things even easier, but it’s not a must-have.

And be sure to check with your state whether or not you’ll need a special raffle license before you can start selling tickets.

29. Virtual Cocktail Hour

Normally, a cocktail hour is an event that people go to in-person to share a few drinks, enjoy each other’s company, and network. However, nothing says you can’t replicate the same experience in the online space and charge for admission as a way to raise funds.

Simply invite your guests to get together over Zoom. For the “cocktail” portion of cocktail hour, use a courier to send everyone a kit for making their own cocktails at home. It can also be fun to invite a professional mixologist on the Zoom call to demonstrate a few recipes and talk about their history.

30. Virtual Talent Show

Talent shows are a fun way to get your community together (and reveal a hidden talent or two!). If the idea of booking a venue, renting A/V equipment and setting up chairs doesn’t sound too appealing, consider hosting a virtual talent show. Simply invite members of your community to submit videos of them performing and compile them together into a show. On the day of the event, you can get everyone on a Zoom call and have a live MC introduce each act.

You can raise funds by charging for attendance, but you can also invite people to buy votes and help their favorite act win the grand prize.

31. Virtual Craft Fair

Handmade creations make wonderful gifts! Put together a virtual craft fair and invite your community to shop your online store. You can raise money by charging artisans a small fee to set up a virtual booth on your website, as well as taking a percentage of the sales.

The artisans will get new customers, the attendees will get lovely handmade pieces, and your organization will raise money to fund your work. It’s a win-win-win!

32. Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are fun for people of all ages and a great activity to do as a family. Invite your community to participate in support of your organization — they can go out and complete the scavenger hunt on their own time and at their own pace. All you have to do is prepare a list of things they need to find (these can be in your local community and/or somewhere on the Internet) and set a deadline. You can even award prizes for finishing the scavenger hunt in record time or finding bonus items.

Which Online Fundraiser Will You Try?

Hopefully, this list has given you plenty of ideas for how you can raise money online, whether it’s because of social distancing or otherwise!

When you’ve settled on an idea and are ready to dive into planning your event or campaign, be sure to read The Ultimate Guide to Planning a Successful Virtual Fundraiser.

And if you’re looking for online fundraising software that will make planning and executing your fundraiser a breeze, don’t forget to check out WildApricot. Click here to start a free 60-day trial and see for yourself how it can help transform your fundraising.

Best of luck with your online fundraising!