Walk a Thon
During good weather months, there is literally no end to the ideas you can come up with in looking for fundraising ideas for Christian missions. Coordinating a walk-a-thon is one great idea that is a win-win for everyone involved on many different levels. This fundraiser is also great from a financial standpoint, because it involves really no up-front capital whatsoever.
The first step in getting your walk-a-thon fundraiser going is to plan out and measure the route that you will be using. Depending on the type of volunteer ‘walkers’ you think you might have, vary the course length and difficulty level to adjust to the group. You want people to succeed and earn money from the sponsors, not pass out from exhaustion! Once you get the route laid out, you should measure out various distances on the route so the participants will know when they have achieved specific goals and thus earned specific amounts of money.
The next step is to sign up your volunteers. It usually helps if it is the actual people who will be participating in the mission work who participate in the fundraising walk-a-thon. Once you have a nice group of volunteers to walk out your specified course, it is up to them to get sponsors to sign up. A sponsor usually will sign up for a specific amount of money per unit of measurement. For example, a sponsor might sign up for $10 per mile, and if you completed a marathon-length course, they would pay the group $260. It all depends on the needs of the mission group as to how much you should charge and how big the course should be. It may be that you will need to combine this Christian fundraising activity with another fundraiser to get enough money to reach your goal.
So what is the best way to get the word out and get sponsors? Well, start with who you know. In your own church, make announcements and sign up as many as you can who would like to support financially (maybe they can’t go on the mission, and can’t participate in the walk-a-thon). Next is personal friends and relatives of the participants in the walk-a-thon. It’s ok if some of these are non-Christians. In fact, once they see that these people are sincere and dedicated in earning the funds for the mission trip, they may not only help by supporting, but may become interesting in learning more about what you believe. Consider it just another witnessing opportunity while doing a great Christian fundraiser that will help you stay in shape as well. It’s just like we said at the beginning, it’s a win-win all the way around!