USCCB - World Youth Day

Fundraising

Fund raising is a necessary step for any group planning on attending WYD in Madrid. However, if done well, fund raising also provides an excellent opportunity for the young people to build community and for the parish community to witness the energy and enthusiasm of its young parishoners. Creativity abounds in our youth so we invite you to send us your fund raising ideas for sharing among the US attendees to WYD Madrid!

Recylcing

-Aluminum cans
-Printer cartridges (empties4cash.com)
-Cell phones (grcrecycling.com or ggtogg.com)

Trivia Night

This is a top-seller amongst all ages in the community! All you need to do is organise the venue (e.g. parish hall), come up with the questions, promote it to the community and charge an entry fee. Ask the participants to bring their own snacks or you might want to sell some nibbles on the night. Ask your local businesses if they can donate some prizes in exchange for placing their logo/business address on your promotional material.

Raffle

You can ask the local business to contribute some prizes and in exchange, place their company logo/business address on the promotional flyer. You can raffle off donated items or sponsor a 50/50 raffle, where half of the proceeds go to the winning ticket and the other half goes to the cause.

Host special dinner nights:

Organise your event around a specific theme like “Spanish night”, where people pay a small fee to enjoy homemade Spanish food (made by the youth group), Spanish music, a musical performance and even a Spanish movie (with subtitles, of course!).

You could also host monthly dinners. One group has been hosting monthly BBQ dinners. Try it with spaghetti dinners, taco nights, baked potato dinners, etc.

Babysitting :

Great to do during parish events or around the holidays: offer to babysit while parents go Christmas shopping or want a night out on Valentine’s Day weekend. Host a Kid’s Lock-In for a couple of hours to give parents a chance to run errands or whatever they need to do. You can provide snacks, games, movies, etc.

Holiday Related fundraisers :

Gift wrapping
Poinsettia sales
Rose sales (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day)

Sponsor a Mile

Figure out the miles between your hometown and Madrid. Have people sponsor the group per mile (i.e. $2.00/mile).

After Mass gatherings (i.e. Pancake Breakfast, Sunday Brunch)
Ask to use your parish hall. You can ask local stores for donations of supplies (juice, coffee, pancake mix, eggs, etc). Sell tickets in advance to get a head count. You can charge a specific amount per plate, for all you can eat, or just ask for donations.

Cook-offs
For example, you could host a Chili Cook-Off. You can charge a price to sample all of the different chilies. Then you could offer the option of paying an additional amount for a bowl of their favorite. This could work for desserts, crock pot recipes, etc.

Parish Cookbooks
Ask members of your group and even your parish to submit recipes and pictures of their favorite dishes. Compile them into a cookbook and sell them to the community.

Movie Night
Borrow the parish LCD projector, book the parish hall, and make some popcorn for a local movie night, priced at $5-10/ticket (including a small bag of popcorn or a drink).
Make money by charging a single price for the movie and refreshments; provide the movie free but sell refreshments; or charge nothing and just ask for donations. Make sure you select a movie that will be of special interest to your group. Allow plenty of time for socialization before and after the movie. Some groups have held all-nighters where movie-goers bring their sleeping bags and blankets and have a movie marathon.