Idea behind fundraising:
I am working on the assumption that fundraising will not cost members of the Scout group additional money and will actually reduce their costs. That means that funds raised are to come from people not connected closely with the Group. Fundraising can also be done to support other worthwhile causes and this is my exception to this rule - where members of the group would be encouraged to donate to the good cause

When running an activity decide how much you want to raise, then how many people will be involved (donating). From this you will get an idea of how much you want to get from each person. Some events require entry tickets or payment before the event - make this for example £5 to £10 less than the required amount (so if you want to raise £20 from each participant, then charge them £15). The excess can be raised on the night with raffles, donations ond other ideas, this works because people don't associate the ticket price with the donations on the night. If you want to raise £20 on the night, a £15 ticket might sound good value, £20 might not, make the entry cheaper and get the rest during the event.

Fundraising Ideas
Bag Packing. This is quite simple, persuade a supermarket to let you bag pack for them on a Saturday or Sunday. Your job is to collect a collection of Bag Packers - Scouts, Explorers etc. who will pack the shoppers bags for them as they go through the checkouts. The shoppers leave a donation in a collecting box. This raises about £10 per till covered per hour.

Christmas Trees. Put a note around your locality the week between Christmas and New Year, advertising the fact that the group will collect used real Christmas trees from them to dispose of them. For this you will charge them an amount. If they want to drop the trees off at a local collection point they can do that for a lesser amount. You have to organise a team to collect the trees soon after 12th night, a trailer and car, an area to use as a base. You collect the trees and money. Trees are transported en-mass to the local tip or recycling point. This raised about £100 for a days effort.
Note 1: Some Garden centres and DIY stores have advertised a 'buy back' scheme for old Christmas trees it might be possible to talk to them and get them to buy (for a smaller amount) the trees you collect?

Catalogues. Such as Web Ivory (For Christmas time), Suttons Seeds (Easter time) etc. Many suppliers will send you catalogues to put out around your area to sell things. You distribute the catalogues to your target, the local people or members of your group, who look through them and decide if they want to buy things. You return later in the week to collect the catalogues, orders and cash (note - check orders have delivery addresses, and cheques are signed and for the correct amount). Send the orders and the goods will be delivered, either direct to the purchaser or to you to distribute to the purchasers. You make a profit from what you sell, typically 20%.
Put a note in with the catalogues, saying who you are and when you will be collecting. Ask them to leave the catalogue outside the house if the don't want an order if you are going from house to house - its quicker for you to collect in and you won't disturb people who don't want an order. I reckon going from door to door, it takes 2 to 3 times longer to collect the catalogues knocking on every door as it does to deliver them remember this else you might have to cancel collecting when it gets too late to knock on peoples doors.
Be aware of safety issues with this type of collection, and go in pairs. Suttons Seeds catalogues raised about 50p per house catalogues were delivered to.

Tuck Shop. This doesn't quite fit with the idea to raise funds from people not involved directly with the group. Buy a load of sweets and sell them after a meeting to the group. You can make between 20% and 30%. You need an initial outlay, which you will recoup after about a year. Tuck shop can be taken to camps etc. Store it in a secure locked box and have limited amount of float in it - take the rest away to the treasurer as soon as possible. Look at supermarket special deals - it is possible to buy cans of drink cheaper in a supermarket than a cash and carry. We buy about 4 boxes of 1p sweets, 3 of 2p sweets, 2 off 5p sweets and a more expensive sweet type to suit all pockets.

Gift Aid. Again not quite my idea, but this is an invisible way to raise funds, get the parents to sign the gift aid declaration, get 20% extra on top of suhbscription fees. These can be back dated a few years as well if you can talk to old members of the group

Write to people. Many companies have charity policies and give a portion of their profits back into society. If you write a letter, explain who you are, and why you want the money. Make it specific, Explain the benefits to the young people. If possible talk to the person who makes the decisions - go and see them. If you get anything, write back and thank them, and again with a report on what you did with the money - you never know, you might want to write to them next time. This isn't limited to money, try goods as well. On a foreign camp we had a theme day, and before we went wrote to various companies and got drinks, snacks, and all sorts of goodies for free (note if you go to a foreign international camp where there are likely to be Scots there - take Irn Bru and you will get a friend for life when they realise). Ask for computer equipment if you want it, it is constantly being replaced by large companies and guess where the old bits can go. All our computer equipment was donated. If you don't ask you wont get.

Write to people. Sometimes it might be worth to put a leaflet through every door in an area if you are looking for specific donations, rather than cash

Raffles. Again, mostly taking from people who support your group anyway I think. On group events sell raffle tickets to win things. These things can be donated (see above). Else have a prize draw, creates more money but is harder to organise since these are regulated by the Gaming laws. Profits depend on what you have to buy for prizes and how many go to the event.

Profits. A hidden fundraiser and not to be relied upon. After an activity if there is some change from what you charge put it in the group funds. If this change is a large amount, you ought to return it to the participants. doesn't raise much

Dances and shows. Invite people to an evening activity. Sell them tickets to comes. Perhaps feed them cheap food and entertain them. Get the young people to entertain them with a show, or variety performance (part of their entertiners badge?), or get a DJ to play music at them. This mostly involves people who support your group but they bring friends as well. About £7-50 is a good amount for a ticket, sell 30 for £200. During the night sell raffle tickets (See above)

Cook Book. Get the members of the group to write out recipes and produce a book with these in. With better quality printers you can do these full colour quite easily, or ask a company (see above - Donations) or printers if they can print and bind them. Many large companies have a print room that can do this. Put them in a spiral bound holder, with a plastic cover and card front and back. Make it professional looking and sell it for about £5 each. Alternative ideas to this are producing a calendar with their darlings photographs doing Scouting things, or both combined - calendar recipe book

Community service. Sometimes you may get asked to do some community service, and whoever asks you may give you a donation. The donation isn't the reason to do the service but a welcome addition to it. We recently got donations for planting bulbs in the verges along the main road, for car parking duties one night and for bag packing for a local hospice. We did these as community service projects and got some cash for it as a bonus.

'Lifetime subscriptions'. Many charities ask if you can give a regular direct debit donation to their cause, this is often a small amount, but a small amount from a lot of people adds up to a large regular income. Ask members if they would consider donating up to £5 a month to the group... with the aim here that once they are no longer members then the direct debit won't be cancelled - if the members enjoyed their time with the group there is a chance that you can get say £60 a year donated by them!!

Notes
Contacting the group
Much has been written about 'identity theft' via the internet. I have read some of the articles and are including this warning. No matter what the majority of the population are like, one time you may contact a rogue member of the community. They may seem normal. For this reason, try to avoid personal contact details on flyers and leaflets. Our group has a cheap 'Pay as you go' mobile phone - no line rental just pay for expensive calls you make, however for fundraising events where people want to contact you, they phone this number. The advantages are that no-ones personal numbers are being used, and the phone can be passed from one person to another to share the responsibility of taking messages. If you use a personal number, one person has to answer all the calls. After the event the phone can be turned off, personal ones mostly are left on.
E-mail can be an anonymous source of sending a message and your personal e-mail address can receive 'Spam' because of this. If you are sending out an e-mail address, sign up for a free one, and use your group name. This looks more professional and avoids you getting unwanted mails and tying up your e-mail address with loads of Scout e-mails.
Your Address. A bit tricky to create an anonymous address cheaply. PO boxes can be used but will cost money, perhaps just bite the bullet and use your own address.
Your name. Use your group name instead, if you get stuff delivered to your house with the group name on, you know what its about.



Here are a couple of links:
Idea 1
Idea 2
Idea 3
Idea 4