Fundraisers

Ways to raise money for your Amtgard group or a charity you are supporting.

Types

• Dollar Tournies - Collect a set of prizes and run a tourney. It's a dollar to enter. Easy and quick way to raise some cash. A popular variation on this is the Toys for Tots Christmas tournies which require a donation of a toy, or a canned food drive tourney.

• BBQ - cook up some burgers and dogs for the populace. Convince them to spend their $5 at the park instead of at the nearest fast food joint.

• Amtgard garage sale - Have everyone bring their old garb, weapons, feast gear, etc. Things they aren't using, but that still have some value (and even somewhat worn-out garb may be of value to a newbie who has none) Donate it to the garage sale and sell it, giving the money from the sale to the group. This gets things that are sitting in people's closets back into circulation.

• Pie in the face - There are a couple ways to do this. Firstly theres the out in public where you you get people to pay your party to pie a volunteer. Secondly theres the pie in face auction commonly held at feasts there prominant volunteers step up and the right to pie them is sold to the highest bidder.

• Stocks - Build a set of wooden stocks and insure that they are well sanded and use polyurethane for safety. For a fee you can have someone arrested and put into the stocks. (Ours was made so the person could pull their head and arms out at any time.) They have to stay there for a set time, maybe five minutes or a dollar a minute or something. Then have someone selling water balloons. One of the best Fundraisers ShadowMist (HFS, San Antonio) ever had. The stocks cost about $45.00 to make (materials donated for the project) and we made about $75.00... and we still had the stocks for use again! Only recurring cost was for the water balloons.

• Drink sales - Every weekend, have a supply of drinks, such as Gatorade, sold at a profit. While only a trickle of money, it's a weekly trickle that ads up.

• Auctions - Donations of time and made objects are sold at auction live or silent, usually during court.

Things to note

Make sure to check with the local, state, and federal laws that apply to your group before undertaking any fundraiser. Many jurisdictions have prohibitions on different types of fundraising such as the requirement that your group be a non-profit organization (which not all Amtgard groups are). Also, you may be required to pay sales tax on the items sold and/or get a permit.

What to do with the money?

Many great things have been done with donated money. For example Desert Winds raised thousands to rent a bus and travel to Clan in 2008 as a result more than 50 people from their kingdom were present at the vote of the Circle of Monarchs.