Creative and Effective Easter Fundraising Ideas

Hop into spring with some exciting Easter fundraising ideas! As much as it's a season of renewal and forgiveness and a time for bunnies, chicks, and flowers in bloom, so too is an excellent opportunity to plan some fundraisers for one's nonprofit organization. Whether raising funds for a church, school, club, or organization, Easter has many options for engaging supporters while spreading cheer and supporting your cause.

Although Easter is one of the most festive and fun spring holidays, it also presents an ideal opportunity to hold a fundraising event. We've got some great ideas for Easter fundraisers that'll have everyone hopping in to donate- from basket-making to bouquet-selling ideas, these ideas will surely put people in the giving mood.

To make things even more convenient, use Paybee to manage your events, no matter the occasion. You can sell cashless, paperless tickets and easily promote your fundraising event to your entire community.

Why is Easter Celebrated?

Easter is a religious holiday celebrated by Christians. The occasion usually links to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as attested by the Holy Bible and the New Testament. However, it's speculated that the term 'Easter' was coined in England in the late seventeenth century for the pre-Christian goddess of spring and fertility, Eostre.

It's one of the main holidays in the Christian calendar and, therefore, a joyful time marked with special church services, chocolate Easter eggs, and other activities around family and friends.

Why Do We Give Eggs at Easter?

Easter eggs are symbolic of new life and rebirth. That is part of the actual message from Easter: Jesus emerged from the tomb and was resurrected. Also, it's said that in medieval times, people were not allowed to eat eggs during the period called Lent—the 40 days before Easter. It meant that Easter Sunday was when people could eat eggs, and it was seen as a real treat!

Why is Easter Sunday a Good Time to Raise Money?

Easter is a time of renewal and joy, so the timing for community involvement is simply perfect. People will take an interest in any event that reflects the real spirit of this season- which is at its pinnacle during the Easter holiday period. Families and friends looking forward to participating in events set up the ideal atmosphere for successful fundraising.

Theme your fundraiser with Easter baskets, egg hunts, the Easter bunny, and decorated eggs. This will set a festive atmosphere for the day and attract many who want to participate in an Easter-themed event while raising some money for your cause.

Easter Fundraising Ideas for All Occasions

Easter Envelope Fundraiser

An Easter-themed envelope fundraiser is a great way to empower your supporters. Also known as "The Wall of Money," this is an easy and effective fundraising idea that people will want to support. Colorful Easter-themed envelopes with $1 through $100 on them are pinned up onto a noticeboard or wall.

Whoever passes by can pick an envelope, put the money it calls for inside, and then pin it back onto the wall. Pair this unique fundraising idea with one of your high-traffic Easter events for maximum exposure. If all the envelopes are filled, you'll raise $5,050 before the end of the evening. As simple as that!

Easter Baskets and Hampers

Easter baskets and hampers are a great addition to your fundraiser, providing something for the adults attending. They can be decorated and themed to include chocolates, seasonal produce, jams and preserves, tea or coffee, hot chocolate, or baked goods. Once prepared, they can be priced and then raffled or auctioned. Local retailers or market stallholders might be interested in contributing donations.

Easter Barbecue

The good old-fashioned sausage sizzle barbecue remains a great fundraising option. Depending on your resources and ability to stage a fundraiser, your group can either hold a sausage sizzle as an add-on to an existing event or as part of a larger event, such as an Easter market.

Offer Brunch With the Easter Bunny

The Easter Bunny is hugely popular during this season, and families will gladly donate to your cause for the opportunity to enjoy brunch with this beloved character. Have a volunteer dress up as the Easter Bunny and sell tickets for the brunch event. Securing food donations can help minimize costs, allowing a larger portion of the ticket sales to benefit your organization.

Easter Stall

A stall can be part of your money-making activities or organized as part of one of the many local markets usually held around Easter. The effort taken to develop an Easter theme for the stall should attract extra customers. Options might include selling homemade chocolates and hot cross buns—involving students in the baking process—or a craft sale with Easter-related gifts and decorations. You should also have an informational section to spread the word about who you are, allowing others to join your organization and sign up for your newsletter.

Easter Craft Fair

Organize an Easter Craft Fair where local artisans and crafters will sell their goods handmade by them. Charge vendors for their booths and then sell tickets to the fair- you can also hold workshops in crafts where people can create their Easter-themed crafts.

Easter Egg Roll Race

Organize a fun Easter egg roll race with participants racing to roll eggs across a field or down a hill- charge an entry fee for those participating and offer prizes at the end. This can be a family-friendly event that enables you to draw in your crowd and create some excitement where it's due.

Easter Themed Escape Room

Design an Easter-themed escape room challenge in which participants must solve puzzles and riddles to "escape" within the set allocated time. Charge teams an entry fee and offer a prize for the fastest team. This will be an interactive event that can charm kids and adults alike.

Offer an Easter Flower Arranging Class

Easter is synonymous with flowers, but you can go beyond simply selling bouquets. Call up a local florist and see if you can offer a flower-arranging class so that people have the opportunity to make their own bouquets for the centerpiece at Easter dinner. This event will be fun for families since kids can participate.

Hold the Ultimate Easter Egg Decorating Event

One of the classic Easter traditions is decorating eggs, but it can be a real pain for families. Make fundraising simple by hosting an Easter egg decorating fundraiser where people can come and decorate eggs. You will have all the supplies on hand—a bonus if you can get them donated.

Easter Egg Decorating Kits

Package Easter egg decorating kits with dye, stickers, markers, or anything people may need to have some fun decorating their eggs at home. This is a fun activity for families to do together and then share on social media, further promoting your cause. 

Host an Easter Bonnet Gala

Galas, while tons of fun as charity fundraising events, don’t always have to be black-tie affairs. Have a gala focused on showcasing your finest Easter bonnet. Sell tickets and offer tea with light refreshments, if you will.

Sell Tickets to a Really Cool Easter Egg Hunt

An Easter egg hunt is a good charity fundraiser because you can get the eggs and their contents donated by local businesses. Thank them in your flyers. Have a golden egg or two with something really fantastic inside to get people to buy tickets to join in.

Have an Easter Bunny Costume Contest

There may be only one Easter Bunny, but there's no reason people can't dress up like the bunny. Sell tickets to a costume contest and let all attendees vote on who has the best costume. This Easter fundraiser is all about hype, so promote it early.

Guess How Many Easter Jelly Beans

This classic, easy Easter fundraiser is almost a no-brainer and can be added to other events. The only real work involved with this fundraiser is filling up a large jar with jelly beans—one of those timeless pieces of Easter candy everybody seems to love. Participants pay to guess the number of jelly beans in the jar, and the closest guess wins the candy.

Easter Movie Marathon

Another easy-to-organize fundraiser is holding an Easter movie night or marathon. All kinds of movies are closely or vaguely linked to Easter and could be shown. A variation of this could be an Easter trivia night.

Easter Music Concert

Local bands, choirs, dance groups, and other performance-based organizations can organize a stand-alone show or perform during one of your other fundraising events.

Easter Pet Parade

Manage an Easter Pet Parade--an event where people can have their pets attired with various sets of Easter casuals. Offer reasons to encourage participation by charging for participating, hence award prizes for best dressed pets. This activity normally attracts attention for events from people who like pets and families searching for fun and memorable experiences.

Easter Egg Catapult Contest

Host an Easter Egg Catapult Contest for participants to design and test their egg-launching devices. Add an entry fee for the different teams that will be entering, offering prizes for the longest distance, most creative design, and overall performance winner. This is one of those offbeat, fun events that draws in crowds and encourages donations.

Easter Bunny Photo Booth

Set the scene with an Easter-themed photo booth and have one of the volunteers dress up as the Easter Bunny. Premiere this fun activity by having families stop by to get their child's picture taken with the bunny. You can do printed or digital photographs; it will be great fun and create memorable moments for the children and their families.

Easter Bingo Night 

Host an Easter bingo night. Offer fun prizes throughout the evening, charging to play with bingo cards. You could give away Easter baskets, chocolate items, or gift certificates.

Easter Silent Auction

Get the whole community involved with a Silent Auction fundraiser this Easter! Reach out to local businesses to secure donations for the auction. Restaurants and shops are eager to promote their brands, so suggest creative prizes like movie tickets, gift certificates, a weekend away, artwork from local artists, and themed gift baskets.

Encourage supporters to bid on their favorites, creating excitement around each item as you announce the donor's name. For a contemporary touch, enable smartphone bidding using mobile software, simplifying the process and expanding your reach. Dive into Paybee’s complete silent auction guide to kickstart your event!

The Benefits of Virtual Easter Fundraising

Virtual fundraising has become increasingly important to nonprofit organizations as people turn to the internet—often via mobile devices—to make charitable donations. Online giving is helpful to donors and allows nonprofits to reach more people and raise more money for their cause.

There are various reasons why having online fundraisers is essential for nonprofit organizations, including Easter fundraising:

Online Fundraisers Are Accessible to Donors from Anywhere

Anyone, anywhere in the world, can give to your organization because online fundraising takes place mainly on the internet. This would help smaller nonprofits that might not have many local donors or need a wider reach.

Donors Find Virtual Fundraising Events Very Convenient

Donors can easily contribute from the comfort of their homes at any hour during the day. This eliminates the need for in-person fundraising events and makes giving easier for people, regardless of their time zone.

Web-Based Fundraising Is Cost-Effective

The overheads for online fundraising are usually much lower than events, having not to spend money on venues, refreshments, decorations, and printing of handbills.

Digitally-Based Events Are Measurable

Through online fundraising it's possible to fully understand the success of campaigns and which strategies seem to work best. Online analytics reports and information will help make data-driven decisions when planning a future fundraising effort. 

Virtual Fundraising Is Flexible

Online fundraisers offer significant flexibility for innovative and adaptable work beyond traditional methods for many nonprofits. Virtual fundraising ideas for nonprofit organizations are copious.

Virtual Easter Fundraising Ideas

Easter Crowdfunding Campaign

Engage your community in donation-making for your Easter cause by running a Crowdfunding campaign. Crowdfunding works magic if you are a nonprofit organization with a strong base of local people. Engage your supporters using the Easter theme to share how their donations will make a difference at this particular time.

Easter Live-Stream Event

Hold a live event stream on YouTube, Facebook Live, or TikTok to celebrate Easter and fundraise. During the event, share the work of your organization and encourage donations. To be most effective, request donations to fund specific things, such as "A gift of $50 will provide Easter dinner for a family in need" or "We need $100 to create Easter baskets for kids living in shelters." By detailing strictly how funds will be used, donors will feel more invested and more likely to give. These streaming platforms create a great avenue to share your story and interact with your audience in real-time.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising  puts the power in the hands of online supporters to share the word on causes close to their hearts. Design your peer-to-peer fundraiser with custom branding, compelling images, and exciting gamification features like:

• Build fundraising thermometers to indicate just how close you are toward your goal
• Badges that are displayed on profiles when individuals achieve specific milestones
• Leaderboards showing your top volunteer fundraisers

Ask them to develop personal fundraising pages and then get the word out to their friends and followers online through social media, email, and other channels. In this way, you encourage these ambassadors to share a personal story about their connection to your cause on their fundraising pages; this will make more people inclined to give. 

Virtual 50/50 Raffle

Jumpstart your Easter fundraising efforts with an exciting Virtual 50/50 Raffle using online raffle tools like Paybee. It’s a straightforward yet effective way to raise funds for your organization. Participants purchase tickets at a set price, and at the end of the event, a winning ticket is drawn. The winner takes home half of the total proceeds collected, making it a thrilling opportunity to win a cash prize. Best of all, a virtual setup allows supporters worldwide to participate, boosting your fundraising potential!

Virtual Board Game Tournament

Bring together friends and supporters for an engaging Virtual Board Game Tournament fundraiser this Easter! Host classic games like Scrabble, Monopoly, Chess, and Clue online, where participants pay an entry fee to join the fun. Offer a prize for the tournament champion to add excitement. It’s a fantastic way for people to enjoy friendly competition while supporting your nonprofit’s cause.

Organize a Virtual Easter-themed Bake Sale

Ask supporters to place orders with Easter-themed baked goods for delivery or offer a local celebrity or baker to come to the highest bidder's house to bake with them. You could sell cookbooks that include recipes of the most popular items from the sale or use them as thank-you gifts for major donors. You could also include some personal recipes from some esteemed individuals at your organization as sort of an added touch.

Virtual Cake-Decorating Contest

Get your supporters involved and show off their baking skills with a Virtual Cake-Decorating Contest fundraiser! Participants pay an entry fee and can purchase convenient cake decorating kits. They unleash their artistic flair to decorate cakes however they choose. Each participant uploads a photo of their creation to an online platform, where supporters and community members can digitally vote for their favorites. It’s a fun way to spotlight talent, bring the community together, and raise funds effortlessly.

Easter Virtual Trivia Night

Host an Easter-themed virtual trivia night on a platform such as Paybee. Make sure you have a category featuring your organization in some way so that you're afforded the opportunity to speak about your cause while discovering who your biggest fans genuinely are. You could even make some of these questions worth bonus points for an additional donation. Just make sure you have an entertaining emcee and give them a script plugging your upcoming events and donation opportunities.

Easter Event Fundraising with Paybee

Hopefully, you're now a few more Easter event ideas richer! A dash of creativity and hard work can take you a long way in putting together something that raises funds, unites people, and involves them with your cause during this festive time.

Paybee will help you raise more with its robust, modern fundraising tool suite. It’s designed to enhance your efforts in creating easy-to-use donation forms, seamless event management, running live and virtual auctions, and coordinating peer-to-peer fundraising. Paybee also offers integrated payment processing and detailed analytics to track progress toward nonprofit goals, allowing you to optimize your campaigns.

Check out the rest of our Paybee blog for tips on boosting your fundraising efforts and growing your nonprofit organization.

Happy Easter!

‍