8 Christmas Fundraising Ideas

Here at Custom Ink, we love helping you create custom apparel for your team, event, school, or business. But did you know custom gear is great for fundraising, too? We have all kinds of great items from t-shirts and hoodies to coffee mugs and bumper stickers–you’re sure to find something perfect to help raise money for your cause. We even have face masks you can personalize! Since the holidays are a time for giving, it’s the perfect opportunity to customize something to sell for your charity or group. Below are some of our favorite custom–or just fun–christmas and holiday fundraising ideas.

Funny Christmas t-shirt sale

Who doesn’t love a funny Christmas t-shirt for wearing on Christmas morning or for baking cookies with family? It’s easy to customize something in short sleeve, or long sleeve if you want something a little cozier, in tons of great fabrics. Check out some of our favorite funny Christmas tees for inspiration–meowy Christmas, anyone? Customize your own design for your local business, charity, or school, and sell them as a fundraiser around the holidays. People will love their festive tees and how easy it is for them to give back. Custom Ink fundraising makes it even easier to sell tees for your cause–just design your shirt, share it with your community, and Custom Ink will take care of the rest! We fill the orders and send along the money you raise, with no inventory, hassles, or risk.

Giving tree

Not only are giving trees a good way to give back during the holiday season, but they make for a great decoration, too! Setting up a giving tree is simple, find a tree–live, faux, silver, green, anything you want! Whether you have your own charity or partner with one for the tree, compile a list of items that specific recipients in need want for the holidays. Consider reaching out to nursing homes, programs for children in need, your local church, or even an animal shelter. Create tags for the tree with the items that are needed. Hang them up like ornaments, then have everyone in your group or company take a tag. Have everyone bring their gifts to one collection spot, and then arrange for a drop off together. Here at Custom Ink, we love giving trees—we’ve done one in our office every holiday season for the last 14 years!

Christmas movie night

Christmas movie season is the best part of the year, if we do say so ourselves. Can you really watch Elf too many times? Have a fundraising movie night and get everyone together to watch some of your favorite classics. See if you can get a local theater to donate their space, or set up a big screen in your local school. Sell tickets to the event for a set price let all proceeds go to your group or charity of choice. Partner with local businesses for discounted or donated snacks and beverages to sell at the event. Make it extra festive by having everyone wear their favorite Christmas sweater or pajamas! Amp up the excitement and send out a poll to all your invitees so they can help choose the movies you show the night of the event–some of our personal favorites are Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!

Ice skate-a-thon

Lace up those skates and hit the ice for some cash! Have you ever noticed how people just flock to skating rinks during the holiday season. Yea? Us too. Capitalize on skating’s Christmas popularity with a skate-a-thon fundraiser. It’s just like the popular charity walk-a-thons you see in the warmer months, but on the ice instead. Pick a location such as your local rink or pond. See if the rink will donate the space for the event for a night during the holiday season. Have members of your group get pledges for their participation. This can either be done by time or number of laps. If they skate for 30 minutes, they’ll get $20, an hour, $40, 90 minutes, $60, and so on. Or, if the rink is big enough, do it by the number of laps! This is perfect for your kids’ team to raise money during the holidays, or for your business that wants a fun way to raise money for a holiday charity.

Sell custom ornaments

Custom Christmas ornaments are a great way to decorate your tree and remember a special holiday season. You see them at all kinds of holiday craft fairs and events, so why not sell them for a fundraiser? Choose a design to represent your company, special theme, or just something funny that people will love–we’ve got you covered there. Like with t-shirts, you can use Custom Ink fundraising for your ornaments, too! Just create your ornament in the lab, let people know, and watch the funds roll in and the trees get decorated!

Gift match

The holidays are busy for everyone, we get it! If you’re looking for a fundraiser for your group with minimal effort and high return, a gift match might be for you. With a gift match all you have to do is get your business or a donor on board to match donations. Maybe it’s your sports team and your school agrees to match all the donations. Gather donations from team members, families, and the community, and whatever that totals up to, the school will contribute the same amount for your group. This also works perfectly for companies that want to raise money for a holiday charity. Gift matching is a great way to help people give back during the holidays quickly and efficiently.

Cookie eating contest

Eating cookies for a good cause? Count us in! Put a twist on the popular summertime activity and swap hot dogs for cookies in a Christmas cookie eating contest. Set a date for your event and have participants pay an entry fee–the winner will get a small part of the loot as a prize and your group or charity will get the rest. Up the ante and have each of the participants get pledges or donors for their participation. If they eat 10 cookies, they get $10 from their donors, 20 cookies, $20, up to a certain amount. Crowdsource the cookies from your group if this is a small event and have everyone bring a batch of their favorites for the competition, or find a local bakery to donate the goods. Make sure you have enough cookies for the audience to munch on, too!

Christmas carolling

Bring some cheer and raise some money! Christmas caroling is a classic activity that will not only unite your group for a good cause, but will be a ton of fun for the season. Get your group of carolers together and practice, practice, practice your lineup of Christmas carols. Advertise your services all around town–think the coffee shop, the gym, and on social media, too. Set a location limit, whether it’s just your town or a group of 3 towns, and dates for your caroling. Give people a way to contact you via an email address and set prices for the length of caroling. Then, book up! Let people book you for their events for an hour, or offer carol-grams where you show up at someone’s office or house to sing 20 minutes of carols for them from a secret admirer. You’ll be the talk of the town and raise some cool cash for your group.

What’s your favorite Christmas fundraising idea? Do you do something unique that’s not on our list? Tell us all about it in the comments below!