My church group is looking for a way to raise money. I went on the internet and Googled under fund raiser, but there are so many. I do not want to be ripped off. So, I thought that maybe some of my BOL buddies might have some experience in this and can offer some advice.

Sell World's Finest Chocolate Bars! They are good, reasonably priced, and have been around for 30 years or more. Something cheaper works better than something more expensive.

try selling home interor candles.

Local schools in our area sell tubs of cookie dough. I think the company is called Masterpiece. I don't know much about the company itself, but the cookie dough is really good.

Our schools sell Little Cesaer Pizza Kits. They offer a variety of mini pizza's, bread sticks and more. Little Cesaer delivers it to you(the organization) and you make $5.00 from each kit. Working parents love them because they are a quick dinner on a busy night and depending on family size you can get more than one meal. We also see magazine subscriptions for our schools. They have hundreds and hundreds of different magazines. It is so successfull in our middle school that it is the only fund raiser we have (we have about 700 kids).

If your church has a quilting group, how about selling tickets to win a quilt.

We have an annual potato bar to raise funds for camp. Everyone brings a side dish to add to the "bar" and the potatoes are donated. Almost everyone that attends brings an item to be auctioned off. This year I filled some children's sand buckets with goodies for the kids and they were a hit. One family brings their pickled dilly beans (usually brings in some good money because they are REALLY good).

I don't know what your fund raising for, but see if some merchants would provide free or discounted items to add to baskets and auction them off or sell tickets for them. For example, do a movie basket with movies or movie tickets, popcorn, bowls, pop, candy..etc.

If you have some time, putting together a cookbook might be a good idea. My favorite cookbooks are those I have purchased from church fundraisers!

Kiwi, let me know when you have the drawing for the quilt, I'll donate. I love quilts and I'm sewing challenged.

Cookie dough, here. I always end up buying more than what I end up selling to others. Ottis Spunkmeyer I think is what we usually sell.

My son's drama group used to sell Yankee Candles. They netted 43% of the orders as long as payment was made when the candles were ordered. I think they did pretty well.

If you consider the quilt idea, you might consider a crazy quilt made from scraps of silk and satins gathered through donations of old dresses and ties from members. We do about 6 of those a year here at the bank for charity, though we purchase the silk at retail. We (three of us) can whip together a beautiful quilt in a month or two. These have sold at auction for between $1000 and $12000 so they're decent fund raisers.

Golf tournament $10-$15,000
You can do a celebrity golf tournament and auction off the mayor, college sports stars, local pros, etc.

Services Auction $10-$12,000
Ask people/merchants to donate services such as lawnmowing, teeth whitening, ride in a plane, use of a cabin, fishing excursion, golf outing then auction them off.

Playhouse Auction
Ask businesses to build children's playhouses and put them somehwere with a lot of traffic (like a mall) for a silent auction. Even just 1 house should bring $1,000+.

Casino Night
A local church in my town does a casino night with fake chips that is a lot of fun.

Banner Auction
Get canvas material or regular artists canvasses and ask local people to paint them. Display them around town and let people bid on them. A mall or bank lobby might be good.

Concert/Block Party
Does your church have a band - maybe some young people? Ask them to give an open air concert. Try to get food donated or cheap and sell food and charge for stuff for kids like face painting.

Garage Sale
You've probably already done this, but it does usually raises a lot of money. You can invite the entire community to participate if you want to step it up a notch. Just set up booths and charge a booth fee.

Taste of "Yourtown"
Ask local restaurants to set up booths and serve an appetizer.

Variety Show
Put together anyone you know who can sing, dance, tell a joke, etc. Charge admission and charge for desserts and coffee.

Celebrity Waiters
Get the outgoing funny people to agree to be waiters for a special dinner. Ask them to try to raise some tips in addition to the ticket cost. This is good combined with an auction.

Daddy-Daughter Dance
Try to get a DJ to donate services and charge a small fee for dads to bring their daughters to this party.

Home Tour
Ask 4-6 people to show their homes and charge people like $20 for a ticket. You can also work with realtors/builders to do a new home show with homes that are not yet occupied.

Coupon Books
Work with local merchants to put together a book of coupons that you can sell. Some convenience stores offer a program like this all the time.

Um, can you tell I do a lot of fundraising? : ) I would be happy to send you more information if you are interested in any of these events. Good luck!

What part of the country are you in? I am in NJ and know a good fundraising company for selling some items.

Casino nights are great, I have done them with the March of Dimes for several years. Check your state laws, you may need a gaming permit, even if there are no cash prizes. We generally raised $25,000 - $45,000.

Feel free to PM me.

Sell Yankee Candles!!!! I would buy some!

Try Seroogy's chocolates!! Incredible.

Follow this link! http://www.seroogys.com/

How big is your church group? What size of city/town are you in? Name a target amount? (A few hundred, thousand?)

mmmmmmmm.....chocolate.......That's my vote

We sell those chocolate bars to raise money for Relay for Life. They sell themselves, easiest fundraiser I've ever done, besides 50/50 tickets.

We had a fund raiser at Rotary. Grown Up Prom We did an auction, which raised about $35M and then the ticket sales paid for the costs. Everyone wore their prom dresses (or similar style) to the prom THEY each went to. We had from the 40's to the youngest (21) from a few years ago. The powder blue tuxe's were a hoot! I wore my mom's prom dress While I thought those 50's dresses were pretty modest...turns out mom was a bit of a vamp LOL Anyhoo, it was fun, and did raise a great deal of money!

As a consumer, I love those chocolate bars! I also like the quilt auctions and any of y'all participating in those feel free to contact me, I'll buy tickets. (I never win but I'm always hopeful.)

As an organizer, I really hate charity balls, they're always more headache than they're worth. I also really really dislike car raffles, but that's probably due to a bad association with one (I still hate the new Jaguar to this day.) Silent auctions are good and relatively easy to manage/run, esp in conjunction with a previously scheduled party or event.

Our Rotary is also doing an annual dream raffle. They sell a very limited number of tickets that can be used for one of five vacations, very splashy vacations. Each ticket is $100 bucks and I think they only sell something like 300 tickets (so just 3 per member). The trips are always worth around $5,000 or so, and they give $1,000 to a runner up. Quick and easy money

Oh, it was mostly just an awful experience - I was nominally in charge of the Junior League's raffle. Unfortunately I was working under a Finance Chair who took all the credit when things went right and made me the scapegoat when things went wrong - in front of the League Board. She was also overbearing and a control freak and insisted on making every decision but then leaving me (and my committee) to try to do all her work. After that year I've never accepted a position of responsibility in the League again - I learned MY lesson. It really wasn't the car's fault, I guess I have just transferred my dislike for the process onto the car.

Oh, I see. I've been in situations like that- no fun!

I'm located in Orlando, FL - I actually have a product that might help. I invented Coupon Compass, which is a coupon organizer filed by Aisle # as opposed to category which allows quicker reference when trying to find the coupons you need. check out my website @ www.couponcompass.net if you'd like. please provide feedback if you don't mind. I'm just starting out in the business. And I would absolutely love to do a fundraiser for your church!! Thanks!!

I am working on adding the fundraiser info to my website, but I offer 15% of proceeds of each sale to the organization (church, school, daycare, etc.)