The best Halloween fundraising ideas

Over the years, Halloween’s popularity has grown hugely in the UK. According to Statista, 19% of British adults celebrate Halloween. Since 2013, UK consumer spending for Halloween products has more than doubled, and in 2021 more than £600m was spent on celebrating Halloween.

Halloween fundraising could be an untapped opportunity to engage your supporters and raise money for your cause. Many of these ideas are easy to organise and accessible for supporters of any age.

Guess the number of Halloween sweets

This can be done in an office, school, or even digitally. Purchase a few bags of Halloween themed sweets and fill a jar with them. Then charge people to guess how many sweets are in the jar. The closest guess wins the jar of sweets.

You can do this digitally and reach more people by posting it on your social media channels. Use Canva to create the image and instead of Halloween sweets you could fill the jar with spiders, for example.

Set up an online fundraising page where people can pay the suggested entry amount and leave a comment with their guess. Remember to remind people that as they are purchasing a ticket essentially, they cannot Gift Aid their entry.

Halloween themed quiz

Everyone loves a quiz so why not create a special Halloween themed quiz that supporters can download from your website – or they can create their own. The quiz can take place at local pubs, in people’s homes or even online.

Ideas for question rounds are: Halloween trivia, Halloween songs from films (for the music round) and name the actor from Halloween films (for the picture round).

Fright night movie night

A fun and easy fundraising idea is for supporters to get their friends together for a Halloween movie night. Their friends make a donation to watch the movie, which goes to your cause.

You can provide a list of movies for your supporters, which can be categorised into different Halloween themes as well as age groups. Children can also get involved, with age-appropriate family Halloween films such as The Addams Family or Hotel Transylvania

This is also an idea that could be fun for the community or schools, who can show the films in a school or community hall. They could also raise additional funds by charging for popcorn, sweets, and drinks.

Donate QR code on trick or treat buckets

A simple way for your supporters to potentially raise funds for you is to provide them with a QR code that they can print off and stick on to their child’s trick or treat bucket.

Anyone who wishes to, can then scan the QR code and make a donation to your cause. It’s also a great way to raise awareness of your charity.

Halloween bake sale

A bake sale is a simple idea that’s always a winner. Supporters can host a bake sale at home, at their work or in their community. As it’s for Halloween, encourage those baking to make it Halloween themed – think orange cupcakes to represent pumpkins or cakes with icing to resemble spider webs.

You could even design some branded Halloween bunting as well as some cupcake and cake toppers that fundraisers can download and print off.

Don’t forget to remind supporters to offer a range of baked goods, such as gluten free and vegan and to clearly label ingredients so that those with allergies know what they are purchasing.

Pumpkin carving competition

This is a great activity for school and community-based fundraising, as well as a fun online fundraiser.

If you’re running an online competition, simply set up a fundraising page and ask the entrants to pay a minimum amount to enter. Then ask them to email a photo of their carved pumpkin to you.

Once the deadline for entries has passed, you can either judge the entries yourself or create an album on Facebook and ask your supporters to vote for their favourite. The photo with the most ‘likes’ is the winner. 

Halloween Ball

This requires investment and planning but could raise substantial funds, particularly if combined with an auction. The Halloween element could be in the decor as well as the dress code.

Halloween fun run

Why not organise a Halloween fun run in a local park, where runners dress up in spooky costumes. Runners pay an entry fee to run, which you can set up as an online fundraiser, or they can pay in cash on the day.

Remember that you will need to contact your council for permission and to check what Licenses and insurance you may need.