Fundraising Thermometer
Five New Ideas

Fundraising is all about envisioning a new reality or project, making a plan, taking the needed steps to realize your goals and of course...celebrating once you’ve made your goal.

By setting very clear goals you can motivate others to help in that process. A great way to set the pace and track your goals is a fundraising thermometer.

One way is to track on a traditional mercury type thermometer, which is a great visual. However, we’ve come up with some other great ideas to track your fundraising campaign.

ROADMAP

This idea is a great visual for any group but can be fun if you are raising money to travel to a destination (like a band trip, school trip, cheerleading or mission travel). Create a large poster with a road map. The easiest method is to use dots along the way and color them in as you earn money. You can use a “car” or “plane” or “train” along the road (or tracks) as you raise more money. As the vehicle travels along the route, say you from Washington State to Washington DC each stop along the way can have a fundraising milestone attached to it. Have fun and tell your participants, “help us make it to Chicago, we only have $500 more to raise!”

SPORTS RELATED

There are a lot of great visuals with this idea. Take baseball for example. Create a large baseball diamond and assign dollar amounts to each base. As you round second base, on your way to third the excitement will grow. Assign each base with a certain dollar amount.

A football field also serves as a good visual example. As fundraising totals are earned color or fill in down the field with each 10 yard marker indicating a certain dollar figure.

Similar fun visuals could be created with soccer, lacrosse, track and field or even golf!

FILL THE STANDS

Create a visual of grandstands or bleachers. Every person can represent a dollar amount. As you progress in your goals, the stands begin to fill up as you get closer to your goals.

PICTURES MAKE THE POINT!

Take an outline that represents your project. It could be the new playground you are building for your school, a new church addition or perhaps new band uniforms. As you raise money, fill in the outline with pictures. Once the picture (in these examples, the playground, church or band uniforms) is completed, you’ve reached your goal!

CHRISTMAS TREE

If your fundraising idea or campaign is around the holidays a Christmas Tree as a visual for your fundraising thermometer is a terrific idea.

Start with a picture of a big beautiful Christmas Tree. As you reach goals put a bulb or ornament on the branch to represent a milestone. Or color the tree from the bottom up to the top as you progress to the goal. The star on the top illustrates that you’ve made your goal.

Fundraising thermometers can be whimsical and fun in order to help motivate your group to a successful completion of your fundraising goals.

Return from Fundraising Thermometer Ideas back to Fundraising Ideas