Fundraising with food

[jgm]

A friend of mine who works for an interfaith religious organization is reeling me in; she's got me pointed to her Campaign to End Childhood Hunger project, which desperately needs cash. Truth be told, I'm not resisting much. I'd like to help this organization.

A project we are gearing up to do, is giving free vegetable plants to children, to grow in containers, or plant in their own gardens. (Truth be told, no one is turned away, as long as there are supplies available.) We are trying to get more of the economically challenged areas of the city involved in community gardens and personal gardens, as a way of enhancing their diets economically. Recently, a neighborhood grocery store picked itself up and moved itself to what it perceives is a better location, leaving many families without a nearby grocery from which to purchase food. I've heard of this happening in larger cities, and the results are disastrous -- only very high-priced convenience stores are available to those without transportation, and the selection is poor, almost never offering fresh produce.

The umbrella organization does a "Souper Bowl" every January. Local potters donate bowls they've made, the organization makes soup, and for a set price, you can buy a bowl of soup and keep the bowl.

Other than the usual bake sales, I'm looking for ways to raise money. My friend and I both love to cook, and I think I can lean on other friends who also like to cook, to help us. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Also, I belong to a car club, and I'd like to find a winter project for the club that could raise money. We do car shows in summer, but winters here aren't suited for that, so the organization is looking for more cold-weather social events, and I think they'd be open to doing something to raise money for this organization. We routinely donate other proceeds to the local food bank, and I don't want to redirect any of those funds to another project, regardless of its worthiness. I need new ideas!

[chezcherie]

i've been raffled off (or silent auctioned) to cook an upscale dinner for 8 (or 10, or whatever) and it's brought in good money several times. works especially well if (a) you have a good reputation as a home cook, or get a cooking school or restaurant to provide a chef, (b) if you have a great venue to hold the dinner---historic home, someone's tricked out kitchen, or the like, and © if you can wrangle a wine donation from another party.

good luck!

[tim]

Hi,

My wife and I have auctioned a number of dinners for groups of 8 to 12 guests. We make it clear that the quality of the dinner will be commensurate to the bid for the meal. These types of events require a group of engaged bidders who know the meal providers and are willing to participate.

We have also participated in a number of progressive dinners for charity. Appetizers, main courses and desserts at three homes. These require more logistics.

The most successful event was a group of 15 dinners on the same evening for 8 participants at each dinner. The participants all met at a pre-dinner cocktail party to bid for their dinners in advance. Each dinner was a different style, fine dining, cowboy barbecue, Italian pasta, bratwurst, chile, vegetarian, etc. The host had no idea who was coming to dinner. There was also a dessert party for everyone at a restaurant at the close of the evening.

This last event was incredibly fun and raised an incredible amount of money.

Every event is BYOB and designated drivers are required.

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Tim

[Dave Hatfield]

Here's a technique that we used some time ago when living in England to raise money for a cancer charity. It works like this:

1) You invite 2 or 3 couples to dinner making it clear that the dinner is for charity and that they will pay $XX for it. All the money goes to the charity.

2) You also get them to agree in advance that they will give a similar dinner to the same number of people under the same conditions.

3) This just keeps going until eventually enough people do not honor their commitment and the sequence dies out.

If there are several people working on raising money who cook then you can start with several dinners. You can do singles dinners as well. The only costs to the "hosts" is that of attending the first dinner and the cost of the food & wine when they give their dinner. Thus no one is asked to spend a lot of money.

We raised a lot of money for the Cancer charities project of a new hospital wing in this way.

Although we kept the price of the dinner low, then then equivalent of $20.00 per person, the money quickly mounted up due to the multiplication factor.