Generally speaking, Hatters don’t do fundraising. However there may be times when chapters want to raise money to help a particular charity, or to raise chapter funds for convention costuming or other chapter needs.
Fundraising ideas:
- Fines – Charge a $2 fine for forgetting to wear a hat or name-badge, or for being late
- Craft Auctions – If you have crafty members who can create something like hats, cards, jewellery or even baked goods, you could auction these off. Either splitting the profits with the person donating the items, or with the chapter keeping all profits.
- Bake sale – Have members bake cupcakes, muffins, slices and other individual portioned foods, then come together for a bake sale where everyone buys a cupcake etc. for a nominated price per item (eg $1/$2 each) with proceeds going to the chapter.
- Cupcake Decorating – Everyone pays $2 to decorate their cupcake, with decorating items provided by the chapter (eg red and purple frosting, choc chips and other fun things). The chapter then keeps any profits made.
- Book Sale – Members bring old books they no longer need and these are then sold off for $2 each or auctioned to raise money.
- Lucky Dip – Have a selection of inexpensive items wrapped up, and charge $1-$2 per go.
- Raffle Auction – (AKA Penny sale) Each member buys a set of raffle tickets or coupons (eg 10 tickets for $1), and there are several items to raffle off, each with a bowl next to them. Members put their raffle tickets into the bowls of the items they want (they can choose to put one ticket in the bowl or several tickets if they really want it) – then each item has the winner drawn from the bowls.
- Mystery Auction – Everyone brings a wrapped gift worth $5 or $10, in a particular theme. People then bid on the mystery package without knowing what is inside it. You could set a maximum bid for each item so that it doesn’t go beyond a certain limit. The chapter gets to keep all raised funds.
- $2 raffle – Have a prize worth $2 and everyone puts $2 into a jar as their entry to the raffle, and their name goes into a hat. The person who gets drawn from the hat gets the prize, and they then buy the prize for the next month raffle.
- Lolly Jar – Have a jar of lollies and everyone pays $2 to have a guess at how many lollies are in the jar. The winner gets to keep the lollies and the chapter keeps the money.
- Cook Book – Have members send in their favourite tried and true recipes, gather them together, then have them printed and bound. Sell the books to cover the cost of printing plus extra funds for the chapter.
- Car Wash – Have members bring their cars along and pay a fee to have their car washed (bonus if you can rope in husbands/children to wash the cars, then all the Hatters can gather around relaxing while their cars are being washed!)