Re: fundraiser suggestions.

Hey brothers,

I'm a brother from Georgia. Looking for ideas for fundraisers. What do you do in your lodge that you've seen being successful?

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Pancake breakfasts....jk...i have wondered about doing a 5k and half the proceeds go to shriners hospital or some other local charity in your area such as a food pantry, kids charity or veterans support. The other half could then go to the lodge. Around here, people love to do 5Ks. Maybe at a festival in yoiu town have a beer table. Buy some kegs, charge an arm and a leg you can make some dough then.

The year that I was in the East, we had a shotgun drawing. We raised $$,$$$.$$ that year for the building fund.

Wow, that's impressive.

@warrior maybe you can shed some light on the fish fry....


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CLewey44 said:

Wow, that's impressive.

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The secret is a LOT of volunteer time spent at local gun shows. Tickets $5 each or 5 for $20.

I had a good team together on the fundraising committee, and a lot of Saturdays and weekends at the shows staffing the booth and waking the isles.

Bro. Stewart P.M. said:

The secret is a LOT of volunteer time spent at local gun shows. Tickets $5 each or 5 for $20.

I had a good team together on the fundraising committee, and a lot of Saturdays and weekends at the shows staffing the booth and waking the isles.

Click to expand...

We did a similar program to that with a custom made fishing rod last year. Went pretty well. Raided a lot of money for the Georgia Masonic children's home

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I am in the east this year and we had a sporting clay shoot this year. It was an awesome time. Made us some money. It was way better than frying fish and fries all day....even the ones that were pessimistic about it had great feedback...haha


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All numbers are Net. (Rounded off)

Cigar Night: 1000
St Patrick's dinner: 800
Breakfast with Easter Bunny: 500
Founders day: 1200 (twp closes down the street and we set up a sausage and peppers stand.)

Calendar raffle: 8 to 15k depending how many are sold.

Brother_Steve said:

Cigar Night: 1000

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Can you elaborate on this a bit more? Sounds very interesting.

Raffles are always money for Jam - but the lodges here making big bucks ($10K+) are all doing it by holding Themed Gala Nights with expensive tickets but offering value for them via good entertainment, food and drink.

They key thing is - what are you raising the money for ? For a brother in distress, we once raised several thousand dollars at a lodge installation meeting by raffling a couple of decent items..

hanzosbm said:

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? Sounds very interesting.

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Our lodge is in a downtown setting. We have a nice alleyway we can set a tent in with music and tables.

We charge 35 a person for nonsmokers and 50 for smokers.

Food is included. We do not sell alcohol but you can bring your own.

We do raffles for items such as lighters, humidors, cigars, etc.

The lodge usually fronts 500 for food/cigars. We get about to
30 to 40 people if the weather is good. Average out the cost and smokers vs. nonsmokers and we clear roughly 1000.

Brother_Steve said:

Our lodge is in a downtown setting. We have a nice alleyway we can set a tent in with music and tables.

We charge 35 a person for nonsmokers and 50 for smokers.

Food is included. We do not sell alcohol but you can bring your own.

We do raffles for items such as lighters, humidors, cigars, etc.

The lodge usually fronts 500 for food/cigars. We get about to
30 to 40 people if the weather is good. Average out the cost and smokers vs. nonsmokers and we clear roughly 1000.

Click to expand...

Very cool idea. Thank you!

What lodge are you from?

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What are your dues?

We only do one fundraiser a year. We make sauerkraut and sell it, mostly to the Bretheren, but we have some other loyal customers.

Usually in late October the farmer we deal with calls and says the crop is ready. We get together, grind up about 60 huge heads of cabbage, add salt, pound it down into huge crocks and then it sits until early December. Usually the first week of December we get together again and pack it in "Mason" jars and cook it.

We usually make between $1,000 and $1,500 depending on the yield. The money goes to the WMs fund for buying the yearly SWAG that gets given out for Masonic Birthdays and District Visitations.

As I mentioned in the thread on dues, all of our expenses are covered by dues payments and we have a sizable endowment fund so we don't REALLY need to raise funds, it is more for the fellowship, and that the bretheren love their fresh Kraut and would revolt if they couldn't buy a couple jars for Pork and Sauerkraut for New Years Day!