14 Dec 2010 1 Comment

Online fundraising ideas for colleges, universities, and hospitals

Fundraising ideas for colleges, universities, and hospitals Online fundraising is often associated with exclusively cause-based events and campaigns (such as a walk for animals, a Polar Plunge for Special Olympics, or running the Boston Marathon for autism awareness). However, it can also be a very effective tool for nonprofit organizations that more traditionally rely on gifts from supporters, such as colleges, universities, and hospitals. If your nonprofit falls into this category, read on for some great online fundraising ideas:

Colleges and Universities

Use FirstGiving to raise funds for your educational institution. Here are a few creative ideas:

  • Run a competitive campaign with each of your academic departments and grant bragging rights to the one that raises the most money. Each department can have its own teams and you can encourage students to join in as well. This could be easily tied into the anniversary celebration for your school. FirstGiving is perfect for team fundraising, and even publishes a team fundraising leader board for each event.
  • Encourage alumni to raise funds in conjunction with their reunions. At the reunion itself, everyone who attends can decide how the funds raised will be applied.
  • Use individual fundraising pages to highlight the great research your professors are doing and explain the importance of what their discoveries will translate into in terms of advancing the industry or helping people in need.
  • Spread the word about your online fundraising campaign through social media. Facebook and Twitter are powerful, yet efficient engines for reaching your supporters about the campaign.
  • Get current students involved – create an overall university campaign that encourages sororities and fraternities, clubs, dorms, and athletic teams to create fundraising teams and compete for rights to which club has the most college spirit.

Hospitals/Other Nonprofits

Here are some ideas around which you can use FirstGiving to raise funds for your organization:

  • Run an anniversary campaign and creatively incorporate the anniversary year. For example, if this is your 15th anniversary, you can encourage everyone who has a personal fundraising page to have 15 friends donate $15 each.
  • Host a Board Appeal. Have all board members create personal fundraising pages and compete against each other to see who can bring in the most money.
  • Host a fun fundraising event (walk, run, ride) and encourage people to raise a certain amount of money before the event date. Recognize fundraisers who do well or show creativity in the process.

Do you have other ideas to add?

by admin in Nonprofit resources Tags: , , , , , , , ,