Spooktacular fundraising ideas for Halloween

This one is pretty obvious, but a Halloween party is something that is sure to attract a crowd.

Invite your friends, family and neighbours for a hair-raising event. You could host it in the comfort of your own home, or perhaps hire out a venue such as a community centre or pub. The choice is up to you, but make sure you charge an entry fee and really take advantage of the theme!

You could organise apple-bobbing, a fancy dress competition, and serve your own freaky food creations. A bowl of brains, anyone?

Horror films are like marmite, you either love them or you hate them. However, it can’t be denied that they’re great entertainment.

Gather a group for a film night, charging them an entry fee, and see how many scary films you can get through! You could try watching the classics, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, or go for more current horror films, like The Conjuring. Or, get everyone to pick a favourite film each, old or new, and get watching!

Perhaps horror books are more your thing?

For this challenge, all you need to do is get people to sponsor you as you try and read as many horror novels as you can until Halloween. You could ask them to sponsor you £3 per book, so if you manage to read 10 novels, you’ll end up with £30 per sponsor!

To make it even harder, limit yourself to novels only; no novellas or short stories allowed!

Try your hand at your own Great British Bake-Off, with a terrifying twist!

Organise a baking competition at your workplace or amongst friends, and then sell your creations to the general public. Make sure you then organise a prize for the best cake, or the one that sells the most!

This one will be popular with the kids, so whether you work in a school, or you’re the leader of your local Brownies group, this is sure to go down a treat.

All you need to do is purchase a cuddly black cat toy and then come up with a list of names, secretly picking one to be the cat’s name. You then charge per guess (such as 50p), getting entrants to choose which name on the list they think is the name of the cat.

Then, once everyone’s had a guess, reveal the name and gift the cat to the winner. Easy!

Everyone loves a haunted house, so why not make your own? This one takes a fair bit of preparation, but the finished product will certainly be worth it.

Firstly, you’ll need to decide on your venue. You could do it at home, perhaps in your house or in an outbuilding such as a garage, or hire out a hall. Once you’ve chosen your venue, you’ll need to get advertising. We can supply you with all the posters and banners you need, as well a press release if you would like to attract a wider audience.

Then, get decorating! Attach bin bags to the walls, create corridors out of cardboard or draped cloths, set up decorations that can drop down, and put up speakers to create spooky sounds that will give your guests a fright. Perhaps your friends and family could be actors in your haunted house, getting guests to interact with props and giving them a scare?

Don’t forget to also come up with a theme for your haunted house! Maybe it’s haunted by a demon, or is home to a family of vampires? A story behind your haunted house will make it much more immersive for your guests.

There are lots of ideas online that will make your haunted house a success, so if this one sounds right up your street, get googling!

If arts and crafts are more of your thing, why not design your own Halloween t-shirts and sell them? You could set up your own shop online, such as on a site like Etsy, or see if there’s a local market that will allow you to have a stall.

If you need help advertising your t-shirts, remember that we can create promotional materials for you, along with a press release for your local newspaper.

Zombies are in, and what better way to capitalise on these pop culture icons than by hosting your own zombie-a-thon?

Get your workplace or school to join in, with participants being sponsored to dress as a zombie for a day and to take on challenges.

We can provide you with sponsorship forms, or you could get participants to set up their own online giving pages. Either way, it’s bound to be a success!