I know that fundraising is something us in youth ministry don’t like, but fundraising is something that most of us need to do in order to do that missions trip or in our case in Montana – we like to take our high school youth on a trip to Dare2Share or Acquire The Fire conferences. To do our trips we raise money for it each year.

Let me share with you an idea that I really liked and I think will help you in your next fundraiser.

The company that can help you raise money for your youth event/s is called SamaritanFundraising.com

Let me share with you what they do. They have your group sell discount cards that are of great value to the donor who purchases them. Here’s a quote from the website:

The Samaritan Card is a wallet-size shopping discount card you sell to raise money. Imagine telling your donors they can have access to money- saving discounts at more than 100,000 retail, restaurant, and recreation merchants nationwide, for a mere $20 donation. When your donors buy a Samaritan Card, they tap into exclusive savings of up to 50%.

I don’t know if you saw that, but discounts are at more than 100,000 retail, restaurant, and recreation places! This simply means that the value of the card is going to keep more money in the pocket of donor and some.

I don’t know exactly what you do for youth ministry fundraising – Car Washes? Sandwich Selling? Thrift Sales? Candy Bars?

Believe it or not we actually did a Thrift Sale to raise some money to buy the youth some new kitchen appliances and believe me when I say for the amount of “work” it took – it just simply wasn’t really worth it. Matter of fact someone just decided to donate more money then I think we raised. We did however, get rid of a lot of stuff.

With that being said I wish that I would have motivated the students in my youth ministry to go and each sell 10 of these Samaritan Cards.

Check this out: You sell 500 cards this equals $6000 for your group! Let’s break it down. Let’s say you have 50 kids in your youth group – that’s only 10 cards per student that they would need to sell.

They also have a profit calculator on their website along with a section where you can see the merchants that offer the discounts simply by entering in your zip code.

If you are looking to do youth ministry fundraising in the near or far future – please check them out!

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