This fundraiser idea is simple, but very creative.

Have people participate in this fundraiser as families.  In this fundraiser, each participating family purchases a fish from your organization.  Make sure your organization purchases fish that don’t live long (those ten cent feeder gold fish that notoriously die after one week are best).  The goal is then to see which family can keep their fish alive the longest.  Families are on their honor to (1) report to your office when their fish dies and (2) not replace the fish with another fish.

Your organization raises money when families purchase fish.  You can buy ten cent feeder fish and sell them (as well as the right to participate in the competition) for a much higher price (something like $25/family sounds reasonable).  As for incentives to participate, you can be sure that families will be excited to participate, as competitively raising a fish is family bonding activity that all family members can enjoy.  Additionally, you can have a local business donate a gift basket or gift certificate to the family that keeps their fish alive the longest.  You can also alter this fundraiser such that every family that keeps their fish alive over a certain period of time receives a gift basket.

As for keeping the community involved, if this is being done as a school fundraiser, you could have the principal update the student body with the status of the raise a fish competition during morning announcements every so often.  Outside of a school setting, you can update your supporters on the competition in the margins of a recurring newsletter (if your organization doesn’t already have a newsletter to keep in touch with its supporters, we highly recommend you start one).

Keep thinking about creative fundraising ideas with huge profit potential (like this one).

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