Competition Entries – Fundraising Ideas

Here are the first entries for the Fundraising Ideas competition. Try to think up some more ideas of your own!

Jamal Abdullah, Age 22, Greece

To raise funds for any charity you could conduct a read-a-thon. To do this you would have to work in coordination with the school or local public library. Set a date and make up forms that have the name and age of the child at the top of the page and then columns:

• Name of sponsor

• Address of sponsor

• How much money to be paid per book that the child reads

• Date of payment

• Total amount paid

At the top of the form there should be a short introduction including the purpose of the fundraising and the coordinator of the event who can be easily contacted.

The youth go around their family, friends, and neighbors to get sponsors. For example, a sponsor could agree to pay 10 cents for every book the young person reads by the specified date. So if the child read 10 books, the sponsor pays $1.

This has a threefold purpose:

• Raises money for charity.

• Encourages young people to read.

• Gets people to interact with each other for a good purpose.

Aziza A.U.D. Age 24, Egypt

My idea is to have a walk-a-thon. This is where the youth get people to sponsor them according to how many kilometers they walk. The people who organize this event must make a map of an area that people are to cover and have checkpoints along the way. The young people who take part in this have to prepare a form that outlines the target of the event (the charity that funds are being raised for), the date, and the name, address, and amount of money sponsored. If the course to be covered is ten kilometers, the sponsor could promise, for example, 50 cents for each kilometer. If the course is completed, the sponsor would pay $5.  The organizer would have to sign the paper to prove that the course was actually covered (or specify how far that person had walked). This is an interactive event because it gets young people to go out and contact others to have sponsors; also it gets organizers and walkers working together, and gives money to charity.

Firhana Abdul Lateef, Age 25, South Africa

This is a great idea for fundraising and has many additional benefits. First of all the volunteers who will run this event have to work with their local Islamic center where they organize a series of activities throughout the period of a month. The theme of the month is ‘Junk Food for Charity’.

The young people are invited to attend an opening night where there should be lots of activities like short interesting talks, nasheeds, and maybe even a short play. They should be introduced to the idea of the importance of giving and raising money for charity. The actual target charity should be outlined including their special needs and so on. This could be something like raising money to help needy students prepare for the school year.

After understanding the importance of this, the young people are introduced to the idea of the importance of having a healthy body and eating nutritional food. After that the connection between the two ideas will be made clear.

The young people will choose to give up all junk food for one month and calculate how much money they usually spend on such things and give that same amount of money to the charity. They could also try to get other people (even the not so young people!) to do the same and have forms for that purpose.

The participants will be eligible to attend weekly workshops on nutrition and health as well as sporting activities, aerobics and so on. At the end of the month there should be some kind of celebration and perhaps certificates for the young people who raised the most money.

I think this is a very beneficial fundraising project because it:

• Raises money for charity

• Gets young people to try to do something for others

• Gets young people to be more aware of the importance of good health and diet

• Gets young people to be active and make friends with the others who are doing the same activity

• Gets volunteers and Islamic centers to cooperate together in a good cause

Nafisa Muhammad, Age 14, Australia

My idea is to have all the young people in the community agree to ‘auction their services for a day.’ A gathering should be organized and people invited to attend. There should be supper and drinks (all the mums could bring something) and then there should be a few talks about giving charity and helping others. After that the main idea of the function should be explained.

The young people (who agree) will auction off their services for a day. So someone could pay x amount of money to have so and so come and help them for the day. It could be things like weeding the garden, ironing, cooking, shopping and so on. Of course the tasks should be reasonable – and all in the spirit of fun and cooperation. All the money paid goes to charity.