Restaurant fundraisers offer a unique opportunity to connect with your community while also driving revenue. Whether you’re looking to support a local cause, bring in new customers, or create buzz around your restaurant, hosting a fundraiser can be a win-win for everyone involved. From boosting foot traffic to fostering goodwill, the benefits of restaurant fundraisers go far beyond just the money raised. In this guide, we’ll explore how to organize a successful fundraiser, different types of events you can host, and the long-term advantages for your restaurant.
Why Host Fundraisers at Your Restaurant?
First things first, we need to talk about why hosting a fundraiser at your restaurant is a good idea. While I can talk all day about building community and working toward the greater good, the simple truth is that restaurants are a business — so what might motivate a business to host fundraisers?
Strengthening Community Ties
By necessity, restaurants tend to have a decent sized space available to them for seating and mingling. Because of this, it’s become apparent that they’re an excellent gathering space for fundraisers in your community — and that word, community, is the key here. Hosting restaurant fundraisers allows you to take advantage of that space and build a sense of community.
While you can certainly pick and choose the charity or cause, giving people a good cause to come together for can be incredibly motivating. It can give people in your community a clear cause (even better if it’s local) and, importantly for you, it can bring in more people than you might normally.
Increasing Foot Traffic and Sales
Giving your customers a good reason, such as a charitable cause, to come to your restaurant will encourage them to come out when they might not have otherwise. And just like any other special event, this means that you’re likely to have more people spending money in your establishment.
If it’s properly marketed and advertised, charity events and fundraisers are an excellent way to build brand recognition both for your own restaurant and the charity. Your regulars will have a chance to get familiar with the charity, and their supporters will get to discover your restaurant — it’s a win-win.
Types of Restaurant Fundraisers to Consider
There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach to restaurant fundraising. You can take one of several approaches, so be sure to reach out to the charity to coordinate something that works for both of you.
Percentage of Sales Donated Events
The percentage approach is one of the more common restaurant fundraisers out there. It’s simple, easy to understand for everyone involved, and creates the least extra fluff for your staff to deal with. With that said, it also means that you’ll need to stay on top of what qualifies and what doesn’t.
For example, if you run a fundraiser in which you pay 50% of every pint of beer sold, you’ll need to remember that not everyone drinks beer. Will you still donate 50% for every pint of soda or cider? What about for a glass of wine? Where’s the line? Because of this, many shops opt to run more specific events, like dine-in nights or special menus (more on those shortly).
Charity Dine-In Nights
Charity dine-in nights are another great way to raise money for a charity. Generally, they involve either a price-for-price match (I.e., for every $1 spent, you donate $1) or a percentage of total sales. This allows you to give a blanket donation without the need to worry about qualifying items — just do your numbers at the end of the night and donate.
Special Menu for Fundraisers
If you have the space and time to close for the night, special menus are an excellent way to draw attention to a specific cause. Pick a traditionally slow night and advertise a ticketed event with a special menu. Guests can buy tickets that are planned out to pay your costs for the night with a bit on top, and you get to donate all profits to charity. In turn, you’ll be able to play up the event and, importantly, have a bit of fun in the process.
Silent Auctions or Raffles
Silent auctions and raffles are a well-known restaurant fundraising activity for good reason. They’re easy to run and allow you a bit more control over your own profits for the night. Simply run a night as you normally would and allow guests to buy tickets for prizes. All proceeds from the tickets go to the charity you’ve partnered with, you get to make money, and guests get prizes.
How to Plan a Successful Restaurant Fundraiser
Choosing the Right Cause or Charity
One of the most important decisions that you can make when planning restaurant fundraisers is the charity to whom you’ll be donating. There are a lot of charities out there, and not all of them have the most forthright practices when it comes to actually giving money to their cause. Because of this, it’s crucial that you do your research. Get to know the people who run the charity, learn where they spend their money, and only then should you partner with them.
This is also important for another reason — communication. Getting to know the people that run your charity of choice allows you to figure out how you’ll work together.
Collaborating with Local Organizations
While donating to national or international charities isn’t a bad thing, we’re here to help the people around us. Because of this, it’s generally best to try and find a cause and then narrow down to a local charity. Not only does this keep money in your community, but it provides locals with an opportunity to discover you!
Promoting the Event to Maximize Attendance
Marketing is incredibly important when running any kind of event, and restaurant fundraisers are no different. In fact, I’d argue that marketing is even more important here, as you won’t be the only party involved. Because of this, it’s important to discuss who will handle marketing between you and your chosen charity; some may opt to lean on their pre-existing network of supporters, making marketing easier, and others may expect you to do the legwork.
No matter what, though, it’s best to put out something on your end. Send email or SMS messages if you have a following, post on social media, and put up posters in-house — anything helps.
Organizing the Event Logistics
While you’ll need to flex your organizational muscles no matter what, one of the best things you can do when running restaurant fundraisers is to talk to the charity. They have done this before, likely dozens of times, and as such are likely pretty knowledgeable about what works and what doesn’t. So let them help! You’ll need to handle the physical space, any special menu(s) involved, and keep the restaurant running, so see how you can make that easier, rather than trying to do everything, everywhere.
Promoting Your Fundraiser to Drive Participation
Okay, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — restaurant marketing is incredibly important and is also commonly ignored. Let’s fix that and talk about how to properly promote your restaurant fundraisers.
Using Social Media to Spread the Word
Social media is built from the ground up to spread word and build community. Coincidentally, those are both things that you need when running restaurant fundraisers! In the weeks leading up to your event(s), you should be constantly posting on your socials to hype it up.
If there are prizes to win, talk about them and tag local groups and organizations that may be interested. If it’s a cause that has a following on social media, tag them! And, crucially, make sure to highlight your food and drinks — after all, your food is one of the main draws.
Email or SMS Campaigns to Reach Your Customers
If you have subscribers to send an email or SMS blast to, this is the perfect opportunity to lean on that following. Send out a newsletter or text with information on the charity, any special details of the event like prizes, and information on how you’ll be donating (percentage, ticket sales, etc.).
Partnering with Local Influencers or Media
Any chance that you have, you should be trying to partner with local influencers or media. Whether that means bloggers, podcasters, social media personalities, or local news outlets, they’re there to highlight cool things in your community — and restaurant fundraisers (especially those for local charities) absolutely count as cool things in your community.
Measuring the Success of Your Restaurant Fundraiser
Once all is said and done, it’s time to take a look at the numbers. Seeing how well you did can help show concrete evidence of success, but it can also show if this is worth being a recurring or long-term partnership.
Tracking Sales and Donations
You already likely track daily sales, so this should be no different. Mark down how much you’re donating and, if you do it again, track changes between events. From there, you can look at external factors like the day of the week, the type of event, the charity (or charities) involved, and how it was marketed to see what you can do better next time.
Evaluating Customer Feedback and Attendance
Especially when running community-based events like restaurant fundraisers, it’s super important to get feedback from your customers. Depending on the type of event you run and your restaurant’s general vibe, there’s a chance that not everyone will be happy with it. While that’s not necessarily the end of things, it’s good to consider that events can and will disrupt your regulars.
This is where customer feedback is most important — you need to know if restaurant fundraisers are viable for your business and, importantly, if they resonate with your guests. If the answer to both is no, then it may be time to find another way to help your community. If it is, then great; start planning another!
Identifying Long-Term Benefits to Your Restaurant
After restaurant fundraisers, it’s not uncommon to have more people swing by your restaurant in the following days. You may also find that more charities reach out after seeing their peers find success with you, and that’s also great!
At the end of the day, though, it’s important to identify what you get from restaurant fundraisers and do your best to encourage that. If you get a large influx of social media followers, start posting more. If you have more people begin to show up the next week after when you ran the last event, consider making it a recurring event. In other words, lean on the success that you find.
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