Online Charity Fundraising Events To Run

By Susan Donaldson, B.A. (Hons), Animal Campaigner

If you have online charity fundraising events to run, a website, or a page or group on social media, you can find lots of online charity fundraising ideas to use here. We list many events, below, and how to play them.

This page offers many ideas of online fundraising events to run on your online charity fundraising group or page.

By trying the different events, you will get to know which events your supporters prefer and respond best to. You could also survey the charity / rescue supporters on what events they would be most interested in.

If the rescue or charity you want to raise money for has a Facebook page, you could survey supporters on there.

A popular fundraising event includes draws where 50% of the money goes to the rescue, 50% to the winner. Auctions and sales are also popular. They are a fantastic place to buy gifts for friends and family.

It’s a great feeling knowing your money has gone to such a good cause, rather than wealthy retail chains.

Browse current online animal charity auctions and buy-it-now sales. You may also be interested in where you can find many online animal charity merchandise shops.

If you would like to set up and run a Facebook fundraising page or group to help an animal charity or rescue, have a look at the first section of this page.

Online Charity Fundraising Events To Run
Run A Facebook Online Charity Fundraising Group

Many animal charities need the help of volunteers to fund-raise for them. This can involve fundraising online, as well as at home or in the community.

Animal charities often require help with their existing fundraising activities, both online and off. You can approach animal charities to see if they need help.

Some do not have anyone running any fundraising pages or groups for them online. In this case, you could volunteer to start one and run it for them.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Have Your Charity Join A Community Lottery

Although most of the ideas on this page are ideas for fundraising on a small scale online, this idea is suitable for charities to fund-raise on a larger scale.

Your charity joining a third-party community lottery company means it can offer large cash prizes of up to £25,000 every week, with players paying from just £1 a week.

To find out more about the options for doing this, check out this.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Acquiring Prizes For Fundraising Ideas

People who run fundraising events online will need items to auction, sell, or give as prizes.

Find Them At Home

You may find you have new or unused items at home that you can use as prizes. Ask friends to have a look and see what they have too.

Appeal On Your Fundraising Group And The Charity’s Page

You can also acquire them by appealing on your internet fundraising page or group for people to donate them. Also, appeal on the Facebook page or group of the animal rescue you will be supporting with your event.

Ask people to have a clear out and donate unwanted gifts and items in good condition. They can then be turned into money to help stop animal suffering. People do not have to send you the items if they do not live nearby.

Just ask them to send you a good photograph of the item, and a description. They can send the item straight to the buyer/winner when you ask them to.

There are often creative people among animal charity supporters. Those people, such as artists and crafters, may like to donate items. If you know any talented artists who would like to help raise money to help animals, they could offer portraits, and any keen bakers could offer tray baked goodies, etc.

Approach Local Businesses

Another avenue is to approach local or online businesses for prizes. You will be more successful if they are animal lovers or have an interest in protecting animals. For example, those who are against animal testing, or are animal rescue supporters.

Business owners that support the animal rescue may have prizes they could offer. These could be such things as holidays if they own a B&B, or a free hair-do or beauty treatment if they own a hairdressers or beauty salon. The only problem is that with these prizes, only people local to them will be able to use them.

Search In Local Animal Charity Shops

Checking in local animal charity shops for items that look new is a great idea. It means they will then have helped raise money for animals twice.

Know Any Celebrities?

You may be lucky enough to know animal-loving celebrities who may donate items, maybe signed. The charity you want to fund-raise for may have famous patrons that might be willing to help.

Entry Fees And Odds

The entry fee for many fundraising activities on this page is usually around £1. However, the higher the monetary worth of the prize, the higher the entry price can be.

What you must not do is put people off with a higher price than people are willing to pay.

The prize must be worth significantly more than the cost of entering, to get people interested. The lower the odds of winning, the better the prize should be to get people interested.

Prizes

Ideally, your prizes should also appeal to as wide a range of people as possible. Anything edible should be at least vegetarian, and if possible, vegan. After all, it doesn’t make sense to make some animals suffer horrific fates to fund-raise for other animals.

Prizes usually have to be posted in the mail, so make sure they are not too large and heavy, so they will be less expensive to post. The postage cost of the prizes is typically taken out of the money that has been raised.

Alternatively, the prize for your event could be money, like with the Bonus Ball or 50/50 events (See below). Events, where 50% of the money gathered from entries goes to the charity and the other half goes to the winner, can be very popular.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Auction Or Buy It Now Sale

To find things for your sale or auction, you can have a clear out at home. Sell anything unused or lightly used and in good condition on your auction or sale. If you are a crafty type of person, you could also try making things to sell.

If you are any good at baking, biscuits, cakes and confectionery are good sellers. Homemade pet treats are popular too.

You can also appeal to other people in your community and local businesses. Also appeal to people on your social media group page.

Appeal to supporters of the animal rescue you want to raise money for, through their page or group.

People who have items to donate who do not live near you, can send you good photographs of the item and a description. You can ask them to send out the item to the buyer, and their postage will be refunded.

Facebook Fundraising Auction

If you are holding your online charity fundraising auction in a Facebook group, put all your auction items in one album. This makes it much easier for both supporters to view, and you as admin to manage.

Write a good description for every item, and keep the start price low. This will attract more people.

Specify an end time and only count bids before that time. Publicise your auction or sale on social media groups and pages related to the charity or rescue you are fundraising for.

Attempt to send out parcels quickly after people have paid, and check that they have received their item.

If you would like to learn more about running an online auction or sale to help animals, have a look at the run a fundraising auction for animals page.

If you would like to donate items to existing online auctions and sales, you can find a variety to choose from in this Facebook group, as well as this one. You may also be interested in this page, where there are many online animal charity shops, plus online auctions and sales to buy from and donate to, to help animals.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
The ‘Grow Your Money’ Challenge

This way of fundraising is where people all pledge an identical amount of their money at the same time, for example £5, that they would be willing to invest, to attempt to make it grow into a more significant amount. Any money above the initial amount that each entrant invested, goes to the animal rescue or charity. This essentially means it is free for participants, as they get to keep their initial investment.

They can choose to do whatever they want to grow that £5 into as much money as they can. There has to be a time limit, though.

They might use their £5 to do such things as the following:

• Buy ingredients and bake cakes to sell
• Buy craft materials to make things to sell
• Pay for a car boot sale stall
• Buy some cheap items and auction or sell them for a profit
• Buy cleaning materials and offer to clean for people or valet cars
• Have a coffee morning and invite friends

There are any number of ideas people could come up with. You can get fundraising ideas from this page, and from another page of easy fundraising ideas, here.

Prizes can be given for the people who have grown their initial £5 most if you wish. However, people often take up the challenge whether there are prizes or not because making money for animal rescues or charities is the aim.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Bonus Ball Lottery

To play this, people pay to buy numbers between 1 and 49. The bonus ball number that comes out in the UK National Lottery is the winning number. A portion of the takings are typically the prize given to the winner.

The remaining funds go to the animal rescue or charity. Alternatively, you could offer a prize other than cash, although cash is often most popular.

If the winning number was not sold, it can be made a roll-over. This is where the funds are added to the next bonus ball event, making the prize fund bigger.

If you would rather a winning number was chosen, a random number generator such as RANDOM.org one can generate numbers until it lands on one that has been sold. The winners are then announced and awarded their prize.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Prize Draw Or Raffle

With a raffle or draw, people pay to be allocated a number. A random number generator, such as RANDOM.org, is what I tend to use to choose the winning number(s). The winner or winners are announced, and their prize is delivered to their homes.

The cost of postage of prizes comes out of the total raised by the raffle or draw, so having prizes that are cheap to post is a good idea.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Scratch Cards

You can buy fundraising scratch cards from places like eBay for approximately £3 for ten scratch cards. When they are used as a fundraising event online, people choose a number and pay for it.

Their name is then written in the square. When all the numbers are sold, the winning number is revealed by the foil panel being scratched off.

A video should be made of this happening and that should be published wherever online you are holding the event. The winner then gets the prize they have won sent to their home.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Lucky Dip

This involves people paying to choose mystery items hidden in parcels or gift bags shown in photographs. Alternatively, people could pick numbers, and win the corresponding prize.

What each prize is, is only revealed once it has been paid for and the number selected. Some people might decide to re-donate the item they get rather than have it mailed to their homes.

You may want to display all the prizes, uncovered, in a photo so that people know what they could win.

With a children’s lucky dip, you can encourage people to get their kids involved. Ask people to treat their children or grandchildren, since it is for such a good cause.

Get them to ask their children to pick which mystery parcel/gift bag they would like. Then, if they like it, send it to them. Children can often get more excited about things like this than adults do.

When doing a lucky dip for children, items should be suitable for both genders. If easier, you could do one for boys, and one for girls.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
50/50 Draw: 50% To Winner, 50% To Animal Rescue

This fundraiser is where there is no limit to the number of people who can enter, although there is a time limit, and the amount of money that can be won goes up with every entry.

The total amount made is halved between the winner and the animal rescue or charity the event is in aid of. For example, if the total amount made is £82, the winner receives £41 and the animal rescue/charity receives £41.

To choose the winner, a random number generator, like RANDOM.org, is used. This should be videoed and posted in the group or on the website where the fundraiser has taken place.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
100 or 200 Club

Members of the 100 club pay to regularly buy numbered tickets, which are entered into a regular draw. When the winning numbers are selected, with use of a random number generator, a pre-stated percentage of the profit is given as the prize. The remainder goes to the animal rescue or charity.

It is called a 100 club because there are 100 numbered tickets. If you think you can regularly sell 200 tickets, you would instead call it the 200 Club, and so on.

People can either set up a direct debit to regularly pay for their tickets, or they can pay separately for every draw. Some people might want to pay for a number of tickets in advance. Different people run it in different ways.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Caption Competition

For this, you post a photograph on your online charity fundraising group or page, usually related to rescued animals. Use one where you can think of a few different amusing captions to go with it.

If you can think of different captions, hopefully others can too and will pay to enter the caption competition. If it is hard to think of captions for a picture, you will get fewer entries.

This fundraiser is a fun way to raise money for animal rescues and charities, and creates amusement for the group. The hardest part is deciding whose caption is the funniest.

You could get an impartial person or panel of people to decide. Alternatively, you could say that whichever caption gets the most “likes” wins. However, this can sometimes be unfair because of people getting their friends to like theirs.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Poem Competition

Among the animal rescue supporters community, there are many sensitive, empathic people who have talents for such things as poem writing. With this fundraiser, people pay to enter a competition to win a prize where they write a poem on a certain topic related to animal cruelty or animal rescue. You may set the topic for the poem as, for instance, pet abandonment.

As with all the other fundraising ideas, set the donation people should pay to enter (usually £1), and the proceeds go to help organisations who save animals from cruelty. The prize is expected to be worth more than the cost of entering to attract people.

These poems can really touch peoples hearts when they get shared on the internet, so as well as having raised funds to help animals in need, they can do good by spreading awareness.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Animal Photo Competition

If you have people who enjoy taking photographs of animals among your supporters, this would be a good fundraiser to run. Entrants pay a fee to enter their photograph that might be of a pet, or of wildlife.

It is very hard to chose winners for competitions like this, but maybe you could ask a panel of people to vote. It would be good if someone who was knowledgeable about photography could be involved.

If the contest is on Facebook, you could ask people to “like” the ones they like best, and see which one gets the most likes. However, people can cheat this way, as they can ask their friends to vote for their entry by “liking” it.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Fun Pet Show

It is better to make it a pet show rather than specifically a dog show because you want as many entries as possible.

To run a fun online pet show, you create categories fun categories where people might have suitable photos of their pets. Here are just a few suggestions of categories you could include:

• Best Fancy Dress Costume – entrants enter photos of their pets in fancy dress costumes.
• Laziest Pet – Most people have photos of their pets looking their laziest.
• Most Hyperactive Pet – Photos of pets bouncing around
• Happiest Expression – People enter photos of their pets looking happy
• Unhappiest Expression – pets looking their unhappiest (for example, mine looks unhappiest when she’s having to have a bath)
• Looks Most Like Owner – entrants enter pictures of pet and owner together looking as alike as possible
• Most Amusing Close Up Of pet – This could be photos taken right up their noses!
• Rudest Pet – Pets showing their private bits, or licking them, etc
• Naughtiest Pet – Photos of destructive things pets have done

It is a good idea to explain every category, and put an example photo with each. You can find example photos either online, or by using suitable photos of your pet.

This fundraiser gives everybody a laugh at each other's photos. You can get an impartial judge or judges to choose the winners, or if on Facebook, you could get supporters to vote by selecting the “Like” buttons. However, this can be subject to cheating, as entrants can ask their friends to vote on their entries.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online ‘Guess How Many Sweets In The Jar’ Game

With thoroughly washed hands, count numerous little sweets into a bag and post a photograph of it on your internet fundraising page. People then pay to guess how many sweets are in the bag, and the closest person to the correct guess wins the sweets.

It is best to use popular sweets, and as there are many vegetarians and vegans among animal rescue supporters, make sure there is no gelatin or other animal products in them. If possible, use sweets without palm oil in, or at least palm oil from a sustainable source.  Using vegan sweets means you will not have caused any animal suffering.

The jar of sweets is sent to the home of the winner, and the postage charge has to come out of the amount made by the fundraising event. So, it is cheaper to post, use sweets that aren’t too heavy, and a plastic jar, so it is lighter and less breakable than a glass one. The Jar of sweets has to be big and impressive enough to make people want to enter, usually paying around £1 each.

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ONLINE CHARITY FUNDRAISING EVENTS TO RUN
Online Name The Pet Competition

Animal charities and rescues often have stray animals coming into their care that do not have a name.  People pay to enter a competition to name the animal in question

State how much it is to enter and the prize can be either just that the winning name is given to the animal, or an extra prize can be given moreover if it is felt necessary to help raise funds.

Choosing the winner is difficult, but maybe you could ask the head of the rescue to choose it.

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Online Charity Fundraising Events To Run
Many Other Ways To Help Stop Animal Cruelty

On this site, there are many varied ways you can help animals and help stop cruelty. In fact, there are so many ways that there is something for every personality type, no matter what their circumstances.

If you would like to learn more about why we so urgently need to help stop animal suffering, please see this website. It will allow you to broaden your knowledge of many types of worldwide animal abuse, giving you the ability to help animals by spreading awareness and answering questions people may have. Please be aware that you may find the information distressing, especially if you are a more sensitive person.

One great way to help animals is to share the information you have seen on this website. Doing so means more people could help stop animal cruelty, and that would make you responsible for more animals being saved from suffering. Together, we can help people help animals.

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