Special Event Ideas

New ideas

Flashback Carnival: Invite employees to an old-fashioned carnival, complete with cake walks, bake sale, bubble blowing and $.50 hot dogs. Hold a hula-hoop contest and hoops shoot to really give it that “flashback” flavor. Charge participants a fee to enter the contest. Set up a dunk tank with all your favorite dunkable executives. Charge $2 for three balls. Have a pie-throwing booth with all your favorite executives behind the “eight ball.”

Hawaiian Luau: Invite employees to a mini luau. Serve ham, pineapple upside-down cake and other goodies. Give prizes to employees wearing the most outrageous Hawaiian attire.

Karaoke Party: This has the potential of being a BIG fundraiser! Participants pay $2 to enter and are given a list of songs and a pledge sheet in advance. Participants ask employees to support them by pledging an amount of money. At the event, have a big box of funny hats, boas and other costume items available for participants to use. Consider “passing the hat” at the party to receive even more pledges! This fun event is also good for team building.

Tailgate Party: Create a sports theme for your campaign if the United Way campaign coincides with the football season. Back a truck into the employee lounge, lower the tailgate, and sell football fare: hotdogs, chips, soft drinks and other goodies. Play a game of tag or video football with participants donating an entrance fee.

 

Favorites

5K Walk/Run: Charge a set amount for participants to enter or ask participants to get sponsors. Hand out prizes for people who raise the most amount of money.

Action Auction: Auction or raffle off the skills and talents of your co-workers and staff members instead of items!

Bake Sale or Candy Sale: Great around the holidays!

Best Appetizer Contest: Employees bring in their best appetizer and compete! Employees pay $2 to sample all the appetizers and vote on their favorite one. Cookbooks can be created with all the recipes and sold for $5.

Book/DVD Sales: Have co-workers bring in used books or DVDs and sell them to raise money for United Way

Bowling For Bucks: Recruit some teams and have a group bowling night, raising money via entry fees or per pin donations

Children’s Drawing Contest: Give employees “official photographs” of one or two top executives to take home for their children to draw. Or, children can draw what “helping others,” what “hope” or what another theme means to them. Contest is limited to children under 12 who are related to any employee. There is a $5 entry fee. Employees vote for best drawing. Give prizes to all participants and display winning portraits during campaign time.

Chair Massage: Bring in a massage therapist for a day and allow all those who submit a pledge form a relaxing 5-minute chair massage. Or charge a fee, with a portion of the proceeds going to United Way

Chili Cook-Off: Employees cook their favorite recipe and enter it into the contest. Participants pay to sample all of the entries. Also consider a dessert bake-off or an apple pie bake-off.

Car Wash: Employees pay to have their car washed by colleagues or management.

Executive Tricycle Race: In addition to entry fees, employees are allowed to make guesses on the winner with all money going directly to United Way. The day of the race spectators can pay to have certain teams moved forward or backward at the starting line. These races can be done with single participants or as relays to get more people involved.

Garage Sale: Have employees clean out their closets and set up a company-wide garage sale to benefit the United Way Community Campaign.

International Food Day: Teams of employees create tasty treats from around the world. Employees decorate their own booths and dress in costumes. Hold the event at lunch, allowing employees to purchase tickets redeemable for food at the booths. Have a panel of judges award prizes.

Kiss the Pig: The candidate who raises the most money wins the dubious honor of kissing a beautiful little piglet! There are several ways to raise funds which consist of monetary donations, obtaining donated items for both a silent and live auction and ticket and table sales. Every dollar counts for one vote regardless of which fundraising option is chosen.

Mini Golf: Set up a mini-golf course at the workplace, using Slinkys, ramps, “water hazards,” and sand traps. You can play in teams, have the lowest score win a prize, or vote on the most creative hole. Pay to play or vote.

Office Olympics: set up an obstacle course in the lunchroom or a conference room. Time your contestants as they type a few paragraphs at one station, file at another, and photocopy at another station. Add in some other stations like pencil sharpening or making a paper clip chain. The contestants pay an entry fee, and the winner gets a prize.

Oldest Company T-shirt Contest: Dust off those old company t shirts and model them proudly! Charge $3 per entry and have a fashion show to model the shirts.

Penny Wars: In a penny war, two or more groups compete to win a fundraising competition. Each group has a bucket for collecting coins or dollar bills. The value of any pennies collected by a group count positively toward that group's point total, while the value of other coins or dollar bills are subtracted. Hence, in a competition between Group A and Group B, a contributor who wants Group A to win will place pennies into Group A's bucket and nickels, dimes, quarters, or dollar bills into Group B's bucket.

LIVE UNITED T-shirt Sale: $1 per paper LIVE UNITED t-shirt goes to United Way. Staff decorates the t-shirts for display in your workplace

Scrabble Tournament: Hold a Scrabble tournament and the number of points you score equals your gift to United Way!

Silent Auction/Online Auction/Drawing: Have individuals or businesses donate prizes (college/professional football or basketball tickets, a weekend getaway, restaurant gift certificates, paid time off, etc.) and hold a silent auction or online auction with the prize going to the highest bidder. Or, offer these prizes as incentives to pledge.

Traveling Bake Sale: Go from workspace to workspace with home-baked goods or candies.

United Way Trivial Pursuit: Distribute e-mail or printed up questions about United Way and its programs every day for a week. Then ask trivia questions based on the information. Those completing all questions are entered into a drawing.

Video game tournament: Set up three or four game systems in a small conference room. Employees pay to play, with prizes going to the top scorer in each game.

 

Easy Incentives and Prizes

Sometimes the best incentives or prizes cost little or nothing at all! Here are some low-cost/no-cost items to award game winners or incent donors:

• Dress down days
• Paid time off
• Flee at 3 Pass, allowing employees leave at 3 p.m. one day
• Birthday off pass
• “Sleep In” or “Long Lunch” passes
• T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, or other company gear
• Special parking space
• Restaurant, and movie certificates
• Tickets to sporting or entertainment events
   

Special Event Vendors

Click here to see a list of special event vendors who will donate a portion of sales to the United Way Community Campaign.