75 Easy Fundraising Ideas for Individuals and Small Groups (2026)

The easiest fundraiser is the one whose setup matches the time you actually have. So this list is sorted by effort, not theme: twenty ideas to start today with nothing, twenty that fit in an afternoon, twenty needing about a week’s lead time, and fifteen worth attempting only with a team. Each entry: what it is, plus what usually goes wrong.

No “this raises $X” figures here — rarely does anyone audit them. Where an idea sits on regulated ground — prize drawings, food sales, school events — the entry says so.

Read this first. General information, US-anchored, and not legal or tax advice — Donairo isn’t a law firm or your accountant. Rules on prize drawings, home-kitchen food, sales tax and charitable solicitation are set state by state and change; outside the US they differ again. Check your state’s regulator, your district, and a professional first — see “Five rules that cut across the list” below.

No cost, no setup (1–20)

A plain donation link. One page: who you are, what the money is for, what happens if you fall short. Almost everything below works better once it exists.
Birthday or milestone appeal. Ask for contributions instead of presents. It works because it has a deadline and a reason — what most appeals lack.
The ten-friend chain. Each member messages ten people individually. Small groups win here purely on reply rate.
Employer matching gifts. Ask supporters whether their employer matches — budgeted money that goes unclaimed because few people ask.
A matching hour. One backer matches everything given in a set window. The match has to be real; inventing one burns a donor list fast.
Recurring micro-support. Ten people at $5 a month usually beats a single $50 gift, because it renews. Say plainly how to cancel.
Pledge-a-thon. Read-a-thon, silence-a-thon, no-shave month: sponsors pledge per unit. Collect up front — chasing pledges afterwards is where these leak.
Livestream fundraiser. Play, cook or craft with your link on screen. Talking to the people giving beats production quality.
Change wars. Rival jars: coins score for you, bills score against a rival. Someone still has to count it.
Sell what you already own. Closet clear-out, listed online. Depending on the facts, resale proceeds can carry tax consequences.
Peer-to-peer team pages. Each member gets a sub-page under one shared goal. Personal pages usually out-pull a single group page, because people give to people.
Sponsor me giving something up. A month off coffee, alcohol or takeout; supporters give what you’d have spent. Publish the running total, or few people believe you.
A dare at the target. Head shaved, ice bath, terrible suit worn to work — unlocked if the goal is hit. Don’t promise anything you’d resent doing.
Tribute or in-memory appeal. Gifts in someone’s name, timed to a birthday or anniversary. Ask the family first; it lands badly as a surprise.
In-kind wish list. Ask for the thing, not the money — a printer, a tent, ingredients, a van for a day. Easier for the giver to say yes to.
Volunteer grants. Separate from matching: some employers give a grant based on hours an employee volunteers. Have supporters check both programs at once.
Sell something you made digitally. A photo pack, a printable, a recipe card. No stock, no shipping, no minimum order — and it has to be your own work.
The alumni ask. Former members of the club, class or team. Probably the warmest cold list you’ll have, and few groups work it.
Call back last year’s donors. A donor who gave once is usually the cheapest yes available. Lead with what their last gift actually did.
A QR poster where you already are. Gym noticeboard, church foyer, office kitchen, your own car window. Ask permission, and check the code really scans.

One afternoon (21–40)

Bake sale. Near-zero cost, high margin, instantly understood. The catch: whether home-kitchen goods may be sold, and where, turns on your state’s cottage food rules — Texas requires an accredited food-handler course and a label stating goods were made in a private residence not subject to government licensing or inspection (Texas DSHS). Our bake sale guide covers what tends to sell and what to charge.
Car wash. A lot, hoses, a Saturday. The overlooked part is runoff: EPA guidance stresses that storm drains lead directly to local waterways, not treatment facilities (EPA) — ask your municipal stormwater program.
Lemonade or hot-chocolate stand. Cheap, seasonal, charming. Call your county health department before you set up — local rules differ.
Pancake breakfast or spaghetti supper. Donated ingredients, ticketed entry, volunteer kitchen. Under-catering annoys people less than over-catering costs you.
Yard sale. Collect donations for a week, sell in a morning. Ask your city clerk whether a permit or a limit on sale frequency applies.
Bottle and can drive. Effortless where a container-deposit scheme exists, near-pointless without one. Check your state’s before committing a weekend.
Restaurant percentage night. A venue returns a share of one evening’s takings — negotiable, often small, and worth getting in writing.
Concession stand. A ready-made hungry crowd. On a school campus during the school day, food sold to students is “competitive food” under nutrition standards, with limited fundraiser exemptions at a frequency set by the state agency (7 CFR 210.11) — ask your district’s nutrition office, and see our high school fundraising guide.
Gift-wrapping table. A shop lends a corner in December; you supply paper and hands. Book the pitch months ahead.
Dog wash. Car-wash mechanics, warmer audience, same runoff question. Bring towels and a plan for the dog that bolts.
Plant and seedling sale. Divide perennials, pot up cuttings, sell in spring at almost no cost. Whether a plant-dealer license applies varies by state — your agriculture department can say.
Used-book table. Collect donations for two weeks, price everything at a dollar, and accept in advance that you’ll be recycling the leftovers.
Handmade craft table. Candles, cards, knitted things. Price for materials plus a margin — the hours rarely come back.
Face painting at an existing event. Piggyback on footfall someone else gathered. Use cosmetic-grade paint and patch-test; one reaction ends the day.
Photo booth with instant prints. A backdrop, a printer, a box of props. School fairs and weddings pay well for this; charge per print.
Guess the jar. Candy in a jar, weight of the cake, name of the bear. Take donations to guess rather than charging for entry — a paid entry for a chance-decided prize raises the same state-law questions as the raffle at 42.
Leaf-raking or snow-shovelling round. Two hours, four gardens, donations rather than a set fee. Neighbors who can’t do it themselves are most of the market.
Dog-walking and pet-sitting weekend. Sell a block of walks in advance. Meet each dog before you commit to it.
Driveway parking on event day. If you live near a stadium or a festival, sell the space. Check what your HOA or city says first.
Flip the good stuff online. From a donation drive, list the few genuinely valuable items individually instead of dumping everything on a yard-sale table. Postage eats the small ones.

About a week of lead time (41–60)

Pick-a-date calendar. Supporters claim a numbered square and give that many dollars. Visual, social, self-propelling — the step-by-step how-to is here.
Prize drawing or raffle. Probably the most heavily regulated idea here — a raffle is gambling under state law. In California, only certain registered tax-exempt organizations may hold one, registration must be confirmed beforehand, at least 90 percent of gross receipts must go to charitable purposes, and the Attorney General states that “operating or conducting a raffle via the Internet is also prohibited” (California AG). Other states set their own terms — check before printing tickets.
Silent auction baskets. Themed bundles beat single items: bidders picture the whole evening. Bidders generally deduct only what they pay above fair market value, and must show they knew the value was lower (IRS). If you need themes to start from, we listed 60 baskets people actually bid on.
Trivia night. Entry fee per team, a borrowed room, a host with a microphone. Write your own questions, or the pub-quiz regulars sweep it.
Talent show. Goodwill plus ticket sales. Audition first — a three-hour show without a running order empties the room.
Movie night. Quietly one of the trickiest here: the copyright owner holds the exclusive right to perform a film publicly (17 U.S.C. §106), and the charitable-performance exemption reaches only nondramatic literary and musical works, not films (§110). Licenses are sold; budget for one.
Fun run or walk-a-thon. Pledges per mile, a park loop, a finish-line photo. Ask the parks department about permits and insurance before publicizing a route.
3-on-3 tournament. Teams pay to enter, spectators pay at the gate. With a booster club involved, note the IRS position that crediting amounts raised toward a participant’s dues or trip cost is a private benefit that “could result in the organization failing to be described in §501(c)(3)” (IRS field directive). More options in our guide for sports teams; if your team isn’t a registered charity, see how to accept donations without being a nonprofit.
Discount card sales. Local businesses offer a deal; you sell the card. Signing up the businesses takes longer than selling.
Merch pre-order. Take orders first, print second, and don’t buy stock you can’t move. Get sizing wrong and you’ll carry XL shirts for a long time.
Cook-off or chili contest. Cooks pay to enter, tasters pay to judge. Same food-rules question as the bake sale — settle it before the pots come out.
Auction of promises. Bid on services rather than objects: a home-cooked dinner, an airport run, an hour of tutoring. Note that the IRS allows no deduction for the value of donated time or services (IRS Pub 526).
Dress-down or theme day. A small donation to wear jeans, a jersey, or something appalling. Needs your employer’s or district’s sign-off before it is announced.
Karaoke or open-mic night. A venue with the system already installed, a signup sheet, a modest entry fee. Line up the first three performers yourself.
Town scavenger hunt. Teams pay to enter, solve clues across a few blocks, finish at a café. Walk the route once before you publish it.
Board-game or chess tournament. Entry per player, a hall, borrowed sets. Cheap to run, easy to repeat, and it fills a rainy Saturday.
Teach a workshop. Two hours of a skill you genuinely have — pottery, sourdough, spreadsheets. Serving alcohol makes it a licensing question; ask the venue.
Donation-based fitness class. An instructor donates the hour, the room is borrowed, attendees pay what they can. Waivers and a first-aid kit, not optional.
Group recipe book. Collect members’ recipes, print on demand, sell to those same members’ families. Get permission for each recipe and photo you print.
Name a brick, bench or plaque. Fixed prices for a lasting mention. Get the site owner’s written agreement on how long “lasting” actually is.

Team-scale (61–75)

Dinner or gala. Usually the highest per-guest return, and the most work. Where a payment is partly contribution and partly for goods or services, a charity must disclose in writing once it tops $75 (IRS).
Golf outing. Hole sponsorships often out-earn entry fees. It lives or dies on the course rate you negotiate.
Live auction night. A good auctioneer transforms a room. Fair-market-value rules apply here too, and donors of appreciated goods face limits when the item is sold rather than used (IRS).
Festival or market booth. Rent a pitch where the footfall already is. Booth fees plus any sales-tax obligation quietly eat the takings.
Corporate sponsorship packages. Tiered visibility sold to local firms — often the best return per hour here. Approach in spring, when budgets are set.
Bingo night. Sociable, and squarely inside charitable-gaming law: licensing, who may run games, and whether workers may be paid are set locally, and many jurisdictions require all-volunteer labor as a license condition (IRS Pub 3079).
Scrap metal or e-waste drive. Neighbors declutter, you take the scrap value. Line up a recycler who can document lawful disposal, and check what your state requires.
Endurance event with pledges. A ride, swim or hike backed per mile. Insurance and a support plan aren’t optional at this scale.
Community-wide yard sale. Dozens of households, one advertised map, one donation point. Coordination is most of the job.
Product catalogue sale. Cookie dough, wrapping paper, popcorn tins. Margins after the supplier’s cut are thinner than the brochure implies.
Community fun day. One gate donation, a dozen small stalls run by different families. It is a stall-holder recruitment job more than an event job.
Concert or gig night. Local bands, a hall, ticketed entry. Section 110’s exemption for certain nonprofit performances reaches nondramatic musical works on the conditions it sets out, and not films (17 U.S.C. §110) — ask the venue which performance licenses it already holds.
Christmas-tree collection round. In January, collect trees curbside for a donation per house. Book the disposal site before you take a single booking.
Sponsored skydive, rappel or firewalk. Book through a licensed provider so the safety, waivers and insurance are theirs rather than improvised by you; participants raise pledges against the jump.
Local grants and community funds. Ask your community foundation — and the community funds some supermarkets and utilities run — whether unincorporated groups can apply. Some require a registered charity or a fiscal sponsor.

Five rules that cut across the list

Whichever idea you pick, five questions tend to follow it around. None of them is answered by this article — each one has an office whose job it is to answer it.

What it touches	What the source says	Ask
Money you collect	Gifts are excluded from gross income (26 U.S.C. §102), but the IRS warns crowdfunding contributions “are not necessarily a result of detached and disinterested generosity” (IRS)	A tax professional
Asking for a cause	“Many states have laws regulating the solicitation of funds for charitable purposes,” generally requiring registration before soliciting residents (IRS)	Your state charity regulator, via NASCO
Prizes and tickets	Gaming turns on state law and licensing; raising money for charity “does not make the activity related to the organization’s exempt purpose,” and raffle prizes can be reportable at $600 and 300× the wager (IRS Pub 3079)	Your attorney general or gaming regulator
What donors deduct	No deduction for the value of your time, or for gifts to specific individuals (IRS Pub 526); charities must disclose in writing when a quid pro quo payment tops $75 (IRS)	The organization’s tax adviser
What you sell	Exempt status doesn’t necessarily exempt your sales — Texas tells exempt organizations they “must collect tax on most of their sales” (Texas Comptroller); treatment varies	Your state revenue department

Frequently asked questions

What’s the single easiest fundraiser?

A direct, personal ask with a specific number and a deadline. Most of the ideas on this list are a wrapper that makes asking easier — the wrapper gives people a reason to reply now rather than later.

Can an individual fundraise without forming a nonprofit?

Often, yes — with two changes. Supporters generally can’t deduct gifts to specific individuals (IRS Publication 526), and whether what you receive is an excluded gift or taxable income depends on the facts (see the IRS guidance on money received through crowdfunding). Soliciting for a cause rather than for yourself may also trigger state registration rules (see the IRS page on charitable solicitation state requirements). This is general information, not tax advice.

Which of these ideas are regulated?

Prize drawings and raffles sit under state gambling and charitable-gaming law, and bingo squarely so. Food sales turn on your state’s cottage food rules, and on a school campus during the school day on the federal competitive-food standards. Movie nights and concerts raise public-performance licensing. Car and dog washes raise stormwater runoff. And in many states, soliciting for a charitable cause requires registration before you ask. The entries above flag which is which.

How do I choose from 75 ideas?

Start from the time you actually have rather than the idea you like most — the four sections above are sorted by setup effort, from nothing at all to a full team. Then run the smallest idea you can finish: one that actually happens beats an ambitious one still being planned in March.

Pick one and start this week

Run the smallest idea you can finish. One that actually happens beats an ambitious one still being planned in March — and the list you build the first time makes the second bigger.

A Donairo page covers the donation side of whichever idea you pick — voluntary gifts, from people who get nothing back for giving. That’s a straight appeal like the ones at 1–20, or a donation drive running alongside an event: a link and QR code on the table, the jar or the finish line, for anyone who’d rather just give.

Donairo is not a shop, a ticket desk or a raffle platform, so where an idea here sells something — a cake, a wash, a ticket, an entry, a chance at a prize — that money has to be taken elsewhere. And to be clear: it handles collecting donations, not compliance. If your idea needs a raffle license, a food permit or charity registration, you still need those.

One more honest reminder. This list is general information, not legal or tax advice. Whether an idea needs a license, a permit or a registration depends on where you are and what you actually do — check with your state regulator, your district and a professional before you commit to one.

Sources & further reading

These are US sources — federal law and IRS guidance, with a couple of state examples; outside the US, check the equivalent regulator for your own country or region.

General information only — not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by country and change; verify and consult a professional.