30 High-Impact Corporate Fundraising Ideas + Best Practices
Corporate fundraising presents a valuable opportunity for nonprofits and businesses to make a meaningful impact on their communities. For nonprofits, it means additional funding, resources, and greater visibility. For businesses, raising money for charity as a third party boosts brand reputation, engages employees, and fosters connections with new audiences.
Whether you’re a nonprofit looking to secure corporate support or a company looking to give back, these key strategies and fundraising ideas will help you maximize your impact.
Corporate Fundraising FAQ
What Are the Benefits of Corporate Fundraising for Nonprofits?
Increased funding and financial stability. Corporate sponsorships and donations create a reliable funding source for nonprofits.
Expanded audience and brand awareness. Corporate partnerships introduce nonprofit causes to new audiences and raise awareness about important issues.
Access to valuable resources and expertise. Corporate partners may provide helpful resources like in-kind donations or skilled volunteers, along with industry expertise.
Long-term strategic partnerships. These collaborations provide ongoing support for sustained impact.
Increased credibility and public trust. Aligning with respectable brands or well-known businesses helps build trust among the community and with donors.
Why Should Businesses Invest in Corporate Fundraising?
Reputation boost. Corporate giving enhances your social responsibility profile, enhancing and strengthening your brand and reputation.
Introduction to new audiences and customers. Supporting a nonprofit can help businesses engage with new customers. For instance, fundraising events that attract higher net-worth individuals—like charity golf tournaments—help businesses attract valuable clientele.
Improved employee engagement. Giving back can boost employee satisfaction and engagement, foster connection between teams, and improve team-building.
Diverse giving opportunities. There are multiple ways companies can support charitable causes, including in-kind donations, monetary sponsorships, cause marketing campaigns, and more.
Corporate partnerships have a number of benefits for businesses and noprofits.
What Are Some Best Practices for Organizing Corporate Fundraising Events?
For all parties to maximize the impact of charitable partnerships, the following best practices should be considered:
Nonprofits
Educate partners on any other corporate giving opportunities that may exist to further maximize their charitable efforts, such as matching gifts, volunteer grants, or payroll giving.
Mobilize your donor network to spread the word about your corporate partner’s contributions, share information about the upcoming fundraising event, and encourage participation.
Set goals that are both ambitious and realistic, based on past fundraising efforts, successes, and lessons learned.
Businesses & Third-Party Fundraisers
Be transparent about the scope of your support and involvement in the fundraising event.
Align fundraising events with your company’s mission, brand, and audience.
Collaborate with the nonprofit to create compelling event promotional materials, such as a compelling event website with storytelling, visuals, and many opportunities and tiers for involvement.
Both Parties
Work with partners that share your goals and values for the best possible outcomes for everyone involved.
Choose the right event that will appeal to each organization’s audiences.
Follow up after the event to reflect on its success, demonstrate its impact, and express gratitude.
Create an event plan that details event tasks, assignments, and timelines.
Outline a budget so both parties are on the same page.
Use purpose-built tech to effectively and efficiently streamline planning and event management. For example, if you choose a charity golf tournament, choose a solution built specifically for golf, like GolfStatus.
The Top Corporate Fundraising Idea: Charity Golf Tournament
What Is a Charity Golf Tournament?
A charity golf tournament is a premier fundraising event that offers numerous benefits for the host company and benefiting nonprofit. Golf events bring people together like no other event can, combining philanthropy with networking, camaraderie, and an activity people genuinely enjoy. Golfers pay a registration fee to participate as an individual or a team and businesses purchase sponsorships to support the cause.
Charity golf tournaments bring people together to raise money, make connections, and strengthen relationships.
Why Is a Charity Golf Tournament the Best Corporate Fundraising Idea?
Golf events have high revenue potential. Player registrations, sponsorships, and add-ons such as contests, on-course games, mulligan sales, auctions, and raffles drive revenue.
Golf tournaments appeal to sponsors. Golf events provide excellent branding and exposure opportunities for businesses of all types, plus access to an audience that can’t be found with any other event.
Golf events attract decision-makers. Golf attracts corporate executives and higher-than-average net-worth individuals. 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs are golfers, and one in three golfers are in top-level management.
Golf is more popular and inclusive than ever. Golf continues to see record popularity, attracting new audiences of beginners, women, and young adults.
Golf builds relationships. Because the focus of the event is on an enjoyable activity, it’s easy for donors and sponsors to build relationships and positive memories that keep them coming back year after year.
Golf events strengthen community engagement. Golf events planned by a third-party corporate partner deepen community ties and engagement.
Golf tournaments are customizable. Choose the golf facility, format, and competition level that best suits your combined audiences.
There are multiple opportunities for support. Golf tournaments offer a plethora of opportunities to support a nonprofit partner—monetary sponsorships, employee volunteering, in-kind donations, and more.
Tips for Launching a Charity Golf Tournament
With the right strategy and tools in place, it’s easier than ever to plan and execute a successful charity golf tournament. Follow these tips:
Use an event website. A dedicated golf tournament website with online registration makes promotion, registration, sponsor onboarding and exposure, sharing information about your cause, and communication with supporters simple and efficient.
Offer sponsorship packages at varying price points. This best practice allows businesses with different budget capabilities to support your tournament. High-end exposure, like a pin flag sponsorship, should be sold at a premium,
Maximize additional fundraising. Incorporate tournament components such as mulligan sales, raffle tickets, auctions, on-course games, and hole-in-one contests to boost fundraising outcomes.
Enlist volunteer help. Work to engage volunteers from both the corporate partner and nonprofit to help in tournament prep and day-of execution.
Most importantly, use a golf-specific event management platform. Golf tournaments come with a unique set of details that must be handled, including handicaps, hole assignments, team pairings, flighting, and scoring. Standard ticketing software and nonprofit CRMs simply aren’t built to handle this level of specificity without requiring time-consuming workarounds.
GolfStatus’ golf event management software addresses the golf specifics and has baked-in tools to save organizers time and opportunities to raise more money:
Event websites with online registration, secure payment processing, broad digital sponsor exposure, the ability to collect donations, and more.
Robust reporting and data management in one easily-accessible web-based platform.
A user-friendly back end where team members can collaborate, manage payments, track team and sponsorship sales, make hole assignments, and more.
Reliable live scoring that engages golfers throughout the tournament and makes the tournament more fun.
Exclusive sponsorships and add-ons to raise thousands more dollars.
A responsive, in-house client success team comprised of PGA Professionals and fundraising specialists.
For third party fundraisers like corporate entities, GolfStatus can essentially be the bank for the golf event. GolfStatus makes it simple to collect and hold funds that can be paid out directly to the nonprofit after the tournament concludes.
Get started with golfstatus
Other Event-Based Corporate Fundraising Ideas
1. Corporate gala or charity ball
2. Trivia night
3. Charity game night
4. Wine and dine fundraiser
5. Benefit concert (could also accompany your charity golf tournament)
6. Networking event or conference
7. Executive challenges (like dunk tanks or pie-in-the-face challenges)
8. Giving days
9. Corporate field day
Workplace Giving & Employee Engagement Fundraising Ideas
10. Donation matching
11. Payroll giving
12. Company-wide donation challenge
13. Internal company charity raffle
14. Company silent auction
15. Cause-related product sales
16. Peer-to-peer company-wide fundraising competition
17. Office bake sale
Companies can further the impact of their charity golf tournament by holding an accompanying donation drive.
Community-Focused Fundraising Ideas
18. Charity car wash
19. Restaurant fundraising night
20. Food or in-kind item drive
21. Charity run
22. Community festival for charity
Virtual Fundraising Ideas
23. Online fundraising gamification or rewards-based campaigns
24. Social media challenges
25. Crowdfunding campaigns
26. Livestream fundraising event
Seasonal Corporate Fundraising Ideas
27. Halloween costume contest
28. Valentine's candy-gram fundraiser
29. Holiday gift drive
Final Thoughts
Corporate fundraising strengthens communities, builds partnerships, and makes a lasting impact. Whether you’re hosting a charity golf tournament or launching another fundraising campaign, the right tools and strategies help ensure success.
GolfStatus simplifies golf event planning and management while maximizing fundraising potential. Click below to learn more!