Organise A Special Event

Running a special event is a great idea to communicate your goal and your personal message in a fun and interactive way. An event can be as simple as an internal work raffle or a little more involved like a big trivia night for your work or local community.

Make it easier by using your contacts (or those of your friends / team members) and make it something you and your team can have some fun organising and implementing, you could turn it into an annual event! Be inventive, creative and use the event to promote your efforts. You are doing an amazing thing, let your sponsors become a part of that experience.

The Events team can help you with the following ideas to make your event successful:

Provide promotional brochures, fact sheets, posters or even MS flags or tattoos.
Provide receipt books for people that give donations in person.
Organise an MS Ambassador to talk about MS and how it affects their life.
Provide the event logo, MS logo or both, to add to your promotional material.
Visit you to discuss your fundraising or event ideas.

Here are a few fundraising event ideas

	Trivia nights - The bar/restaurant/club benefit through bar sales and entry fee goes towards your fundraising. To raise extra funds charge for clues and answers, hold a 'closest coin to the wine' game in breaks or hold a 'true/false' competition.
	Mufti Day / Casual Day - Through workplace or local school (gold coin donation). Other ideas include 'crazy tie day' or 'loud shirt day' etc.
	Poker / Casino night - Get your friends around and donate a percentage of the winnings towards your fundraising efforts (or charge for chips).
	Raffle - Organise your own raffle. Ask local businesses for prizes and ask others from your local area to help sell tickets
	Swear jar - Suggest a gold coin donation for every %$! spoken!
	Morning tea/Afternoon tea - Set up a morning tea, lunch or afternoon tea at work in exchange for a contribution towards your fundraising goal.
	Karaoke Night - Charge an entry fee and supply food and karaoke facilities.
	Sausage Sizzle - Many local businesses will allow you to organise this on site (Bunnings, Mitre 10, BBC Hardware, local nurseries) or have one at work at lunch time.
	Sponsor a shave - Ask friends or work volunteers to volunteer themselves to have their head shaved or wax their chest or legs if a certain amount of money is raised.
	Ball - Organise a ball with dinner and entertainment for your work or social group. Allow plenty of time to organise and spread the word!
	Barefoot lawn bowls - A set entry fee covers food, green fees and any extra goes toward your fundraising effort.
	eBay auction - Put unwanted or donated items for auction on eBay and donate the money towards your fundraising goal.
	Cocktail Party - If held at a bar then charge an entry price and have a set list of cocktails available for a pre-arranged amount of time.
	Golf Day - Hold a golf tournament with friends, family or work colleagues and raise extra money hold a 'closest to the pin' or 'hole in one' competition.
	Guessing Competition - How many lollies in the jar? (gold coin donation)
	Mini sports competition - Organise through your friends or work colleagues. Sports such as pool, darts, soccer and golf are just some examples.
	Movie Nights - Many cinemas open their doors to charities for a movie screening, with a percentage of ticket sales to go towards your fundraising.
	Self sacrifice - Instead of buying lunch or breakfast, make it at home and donate the money you would have spent towards achieving your fundraising goal. Try to include others in your office to do the same with meals or coffee.
	Treasure hunt - Run an event or competition where people follow clues around the city or neighbourhood with a team of others. Run it through local pubs and finish with the final destination being a pre-arranged party.
	Slave for a day auction - Auction yourself off for a day to the highest bidder. Also get friends to volunteer themselves to help you in your fundraising.
	Other ideas include wine tours, progressive dinner parties, xmas card drives and wine and cheese nights.