Time Donation Fundraiser

What is a Time Donation Fundraiser?

Instead of selling a product to raise funds…sell your TIME. A Time Donation Fundraiser is just what it says. It is a fundraiser that “donates time” as it’s “product”. Basically, your group donates their time to provide a service to another, or simply said, a community service.

Time Donation Fundraisers are a great idea for fundraising. It not only helps you, it helps others. It’s good for small schools, sports teams, churches, and groups.

A Time Donation Fundraiser teaches children how to give of themselves to help others.

How Does a Donating a Service Earn Your Group Money?

Time Donation, earns your group money through sponsors. This is similar to having a run-a-thon or walk-a-thon for cancer or other cause. Each member finds sponsors to donate money for their time in service to others. This can be a specific amount, or a donation of the sponsor’s choice. Also, businesses can donate goods and money to your cause.

How Do We Get Started?

You get started, first, by deciding what Time Service your group will provide, and for whom. This will take lots of planning, especially for a school. Also, you will need to have parent volunteers in place. This will not work without willing and dependable volunteers to help.

Next, you should contact who you will be providing the service to and set up a date for that service. This can be more than one place. But, your services should all occur on the same day. (Divide into groups to go to different places.) If you are a small group, I would suggest concentrating on one place for your service.

Now that you have your date of service in place, you can set the date to start your fundraising campaign. This should be about one month prior to your date of service.

Decide what your Time Service will be.
Contact whoever you will be providing your service.
Get parent volunteers.
Set up date and time for your service.
Set a date to start your fundraising campaign.
Set the ending date as the Day of your Time Service.

Making Plans

The planning stage is critical, in that everything has to be coordinated as to Who, What, Where, and When. Is your group doing this all together? Or, will they split up to different places? Everything depends on how large your group is and the service you want to provide. Naturally, a school will take more planning than a small group. You should get everything in place and your day completely planned before starting your fundraising campaign.

WHO is going to provide…
WHAT service?
WHERE is the service taking place?
WHEN is this happening?

The Fundraising Campaign

After everything is in place on what and where, you should approach local business to donate. It’s also possible they will donate materials for whatever project you have in mind.

You should also prepare letters to send home to parents telling them about the fundraiser. And, prepare letters for group members to give or mail to potential donors telling about the fundraiser and asking for their sponsorship. You should send these letters home about one month before your Time Service date. This starts your fundraising campaign.

The money sent in by sponsors will be what your school, church, or group earns for their time service. You might also use this money to provide materials for your project.

Approach local businesses for donations
Prepare letters to parents
Prepare letters to potential donors explaining your fundraiser and asking for donations.
Send letters home about 1 month prior to Time Service date.
Set the ending date as the DAY of your Time Service.
START your fundraising campaign!

Kids Giving Their Time to Help Others

Examples of Services You Can Do:

To give you an idea of what you can do, I’ll tell you about the Hands & Heart Project done each year by the school my grandson attends. The whole school takes one day and participates in community service projects. Even the Kindergarten children are given age appropriate jobs to do. This is a small private school of only about 500 students, but in the Spring of 2018 they raised over $42,000!

It takes a lot of planning, coordinating, and hard work from the students, parent volunteers…plus, donations from businesses, parents, family, and friends.

Read about the Hands & Hearts Project and maybe it will give you ideas about what your group can do.

The Hands & Hearts Project

The Hands & Hearts Project did community service for 4 places this past Spring, including the Salvation Army (Grades PK-7), The Arc of Central VA (Grades 5-7), Watermark Camp (Grade 8) and Rush Homes (Grades 9-12). Different grades levels went to each place.

Students performed different services in each location according to their age level.

Examples of Services at Each Location

Salvation Army:

Prepared laundry packets for residents
Colored placemats and rolled silverware
Designed and created bulletin boards
Painted hallways and common areas
Organized food pantry
Sorted clothing donations
Weeded flowerbeds

The Arc of Central VA

Weeded and mulched landscaped areas
Cleaned windows
Participated in group dance activity
Picked up trash outside
Power washed walkways

Watermarks Camp

Stained outdoor furniture
Tended camp garden
Mulched activity areas

Rush Homes

Stained fence
Weeded garden
Planted flowers and vegetables in gardens
Cleared brush
Designed and painted large mural in building lobby
Created and decorated bulletin boards