My fundraising fiends, are you looking for a gourd time? You know I love a festival of trees around the holidays and as I mentioned, you can even modify them for different seasons and occasions. We know they’re a big hit around the winter holidays, but spring, or even fall, you can modify the foundation and create an event your community and donors will get excited about!
We love fall, right? Some websites even have a countdown to pumpkin spice season, so let’s spice up our fundraising campaign ideas and apply our winter and spring formula to everyone’s favorite time of year.
We want to be mindful that fall is the start of some big sporting events so keep that in mind if you’re working on a fall event. If you don’t think this will work 100% for your event gala, keep some of these ideas in mind if you’re thinking of a fill the gap campaign to complement your yearly fundraiser.
Much like our spring blog, let’s take a look at how to piece some of these offerings together to ignite bidding excitement. This is a versatile time of year, so get creative!
Spooky Decor: Think about one of those 14ft lawn skeletons with some costume essentials, and a bespoke Trick-or-Treat candy cauldron, take one of those spooky boys and combine with a trip to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios and Halloween Screams at Disney, giving everyone in your party opportunity to decide exactly how scared they want to be, it could be the scream of the crop for your auction.
Cozy Decor: A basket with an artisanal wool blanket, hand thrown mugs, a mulled cider kit, a gift card to your favorite local independent bookstore, and a trip to a glamping cabin in Vermont for peak leaf season? I know I’d bid on that. Not everybody is up for frights and chills this time of year, so this is a great addition to make your Festival Of auction diverse and intriguing.
If you had an amazing summer fundraiser, this is a great time of year to reach out to your giving community with some fall themed treats like some trick-or-treat goodies, a festive fall card with a cute bookmark or invite some of your donors to a small fall festival pumpkin patch or even maybe a quick meet up at Oktoberfest to catch up on their summer and let them know what your org has in store this year. Take advantage of the wonderful fall festivities locally to reach out to your donors and keep on fostering that relationship.