Experienced Bad Mom

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Tips for Running a Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser

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I fed spaghetti to 100 people Saturday night.

Well, me and a cast of thousands (okay, a cast of <10 people).

I spent a couple months working on this event, a spaghetti dinner fundraiser and silent auction for my son’s baseball team. I was in charge of the food, another mom was in charge of the silent auction, and two moms spearheaded the tickets, advertising, facility rental, and whatever else we needed. We toiled for hours in the months leading up to this event and learned a lot along the way. Here are my tips for when it’s your turn to run a fundraiser for one of your kids. And, yes, I’m throwing some sarcasm and humor in for fun!Tips for running a spaghetti dinner fundraiser

1. Plan your spaghetti dinner at least 3 months in advance. Many organizations from which you may be soliciting food or silent auction donations require at least 2 months to consider your request. We missed out on a few opportunities for our team because we asked less than 8 weeks before the event.

2. Prepare for a wide variety of responses to your donation requests. One local restaurant whipped out a gift certificate before I even finished my “Hi, we are hosting a silent auction…” spiel. Some stores make you apply online through corporate and do not decide at the individual store level. Some places need a donation letter and 501(3)(c) number and/or IRS non-profit charter. Some places get so many requests they decide by randomly choosing from all their requests each month. Some people say no.



3. It’s an added bonus to get all soda donated for the event from your local liquor store. This made it extremely handy for me to pick up a box of wine to drink after the event was done.

4. It takes all kinds. What I mean by that is that the 4 of us managing this event found out pretty quickly that some of the parents on the team would work hard to help secure silent auction items and/or pitch in at the event. Meanwhile, some of the parents would do nothing except reap the benefits of everyone else’s hard work. Hey, that’s life, isn’t it?

5. I’d like to give a HUGE shout-out to Olive Garden. Seriously, our local Olive Garden donated all the breadsticks and salad (including dressings, croutons, and cheese) to our event. It was delicious, amazing, and helped us earn more money because we didn’t have to supply those items ourselves. Seriously – Olive Garden you rock!

6. Find a nice church in your area with a commercial kitchen. For $75, we rented the hall at the local church. (As a comparison, the American Legion wanted $250). The church set up our dining tables, food serving areas, and hot bar. We got to use their commercial kitchen for food prep and clean up and use all their silverware and dishes (so we didn’t have to buy disposable).

7. Keep a positive attitude when people come up for seconds or thirds. Yes, they paid $7. Yes, it’s a fundraiser. But, yes, some people will think it’s a Las Vegas buffet and will want to eat at least $25 worth of spaghetti, meatballs, salad, breadsticks, desserts and drinks.

8. The Silent Auction is your money-maker and don’t forget it. I only spent $28 out of pocket for all the food to feed 100 people. That’s pretty good, right? Everything else was donated or purchased with donated gift cards from Sam’s Club and Walmart. Still, I think we sold about $700 in tickets. We made 3X that much from the Silent Auction items.

9. Speaking of Silent Auctions, you may be asked to bid on a premier, deluxe silent auction item in someone’s place. That someone may win the premier, deluxe item. And that someone may call the next morning to say they don’t want the premier, deluxe item after all. (Thankfully, the second place bidder happily accepted, but really?! I was so surprised by this!)

10. Delegate. I didn’t know how to cook spaghetti noodles or sauce for 100 people. But my Italian mother-in-law and her two sisters did! And it was delicious.

11. Boxed wine is good. The spigot makes it very handy for drinking as you recuperate from the spaghetti dinner and silent auction fundraiser. 🙂

 

Have you ever run a spaghetti dinner fundraiser? What tips would you add?

Image courtesy of Suat Eman/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

***

Update: Many of you have asked for the donation letter we used. Here is the template (identifying info removed), which was printed on our organization’s letterhead. 

Dear Potential Donor,

On [date], the OurTown 10U AAA Travel Baseball Team is hosting a Spaghetti Dinner & Silent Auction. This event serves as the primary fundraiser for the upcoming 2014 season. I would like the opportunity to introduce your business to the 100+ attendees at this event. Would you be willing to donate goods or services to our cause?

The OurTown 10U AAA Travel Baseball Team is part of the OurTown Area Youth Baseball & Softball (OTAYB&S) Organization which promotes youth baseball for select players 10 years old and under in the area. Without the support of local community businesses, we would be unable to reach the financial requirements to provide the 10U players with the quality baseball program desired. OTAYB&S is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, so your donation is fully tax-deductible. Our U.S. Tax ID number is XXX.

The OurTown 10U AAA Travel Baseball Team thanks you for your support! If you have any questions, please call or email our donation chair at the number below.

Sincerely,

Name

Donation Chair

Email

phone

Comments

  7. So what exactly is a silent auction? I have to come up with some ideas for fundraising for my church and I have no idea… What did you say to local business to help out and donate?

    • Emily, In a silent auction, there is no auctioneer like you see on TV. People/companies donate a gift basket, for instance, which you put on a table with a sign-up sheet during your event. Say your event lasts 2 hours. Then people can mingle, look at items, and write down their bid for the item (That’s the silent part). But the catch is that during the 2 hours, anyone can come over and write down a higher bid. At the end of the 2 hours, whoever has the highest bid wins the item. So you want folks to have lots of items to look at and you want them to keep bidding for their favorite. Make sense? I will see if I have a sample donation letter to email you. Some companies want them for tax purposes, other companies don’t. It just depends. Good luck!

      • I love the info you shared, thank you!
        Would you send me a copy of the letters you used for silent auction items? I am a Golf/Choir/Ag/4H MOM and I will be planning or helping with silent auctions this school year. Any other info you have to forward would be appreciated.
        Thank You!
        Melanie
        Melanie recently posted…Summer Days Drifting AwayMy Profile

      • Thank You so much for this post. It has great information and lets me know this IS doable. I would love if you could email me a copy of the letters you used for the silent auction items as well.

      • Great idea. Could you send me a copy of the letters that you used for the silent auction as well?

      • This sounds like a wonderful idea. We are going to do a fundraiser to send some kids to church camp for Young Life. Can you please send me a copy of that letter used for the silent auction as well? [email protected]
        Thanks in advance 🙂

      • Hi I go to a small school and im trying to fundraise for student council. However it is a christan based scchol and they have turnew down every ohter idea me and my fellow members have given them. If we do this will it work? We as an organization have zero money due to the school spending it on football.

        • It was a lot of work soliciting the silent auction donations, selling tickets, and then staffing the event (cooks, clean up, etc.) but it worked for us. Good luck!

  8. Thank you for all of this great information!! I will be planning a spaghetti dinner and silent auction in the next few months for my son’s tournament baseball team. Could you please share the letters you sent to request donations?

  9. I would love any advice, copies of your letters that you sent out to ask for auction items, and helpful hints that you could give me. My son is in need of a kidney transplant within the next year and we are raising money for transplant expenses. Are baskets better than individual items? How many items should go into a basket? Thanks for your help!!

  10. One thing you need to consider…in most jurisdictions you will need a Special Occasions Permit to serve any alcohol. There is a fee ($90 in our area) and they usually require you to apply for it up to 6 weeks in advance of the event.

    • We didn’t serve alcohol, so that wasn’t an issue for us, but a good reminder for anyone considering it.

  11. I am also in the process of planning a silent auction/spaghetti dinner. I would love a copy of your donation request letter. Also, if you have any suggestions on locations that were helpful with donations that would be great as well. Did you just call Olive Garden and explain your situation and ask for the food donation?
    Thanks so much for your post and your help-I admit, I’m a bit overwhelmed by this idea!

    • Olive Garden actually offered the food donation! I had simply called to ask for “a donation” meaning gift card and the manager said sure they could do a gift card but they could also do the bread sticks and salad. How great is that?! I think it depends on your Olive Garden, its manager, if they’ve done things like that already in the quarter (mine hadn’t) and probably other factors. I’ll shoot you the donation letter, too. I think we found our wording for it just by surfing the web and Googling for the best words.

      As for places to ask, a fellow parent made a Google spreadsheet that listed pretty much every business in town. That way all parents on the team could access it and add who they visited, who said yes, who said no, who said come back the manager wasn’t there, etc. We tried to assign each family a section to ask, but that didn’t go over well. About 4 of us did all the soliciting. I’d say we had most luck with non-chain restaurants (local places) but we also filled out paperwork and got donations from Walmart, Sam’s Club, Meijer and Target successfully. They are all used to the asking, I’d say. Good luck!

  13. Using gift cards how much did the cost of the spaghetti actually cost. How much did you make to feed 100

    • My memory is that we spent $20 on spaghetti noodles, paid for by one of the donated Walmart gift cards. You can search on the internet for lots of helpful recipes about how much dry spaghetti you need for 100 portions. Thankfully, spaghetti is cheap, even more so when you buy the big boxes compared to 1 lb individual boxes. Good luck!

  14. I JUST READ THIS ARTICLE. I HAVE A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION IN MEMORY OF MY SON. WE ARE HAVING A SPAGHETTI DINNER FUNDRAISER NEXT MONTH. I TRULY APPRECIATE YOUR ADVISE. OLIVE GARDEN HAS DONATED THE SPAGHETTI FOR 200 PEOPLE. COULD YOU SEND ME THE DONATION LETTER YOU USED FOR MONEY AND/OR SILENT AUCTION PLEASE?

  15. I love this information! Organizing my first spaghetti dinner fundraiser at the moment and I find this article very helpful.
    I know a million people have asked already, but I would love an email with a sample letter for donations as well if you don’t mind 🙂

  16. Wow!! Amazing advice. You are very kind to share such good advice. Will you please send me the sample letter and what stores you found most helpful? Thank you for your time!!

  17. Hi I loved your post. I am having a spaghetti dinner for my sons best friends family whose home just caught on fire last week and they lost everything so I know it’s not going to be for at least a month and a half but could you please email me a copy of the donation letter and any other information you may have that you think would be helpful. I’ve never done a spaghetti dinner before so I don’t know what I am doing. Thank you so much. Great job again also how were you able to only spend $28 for 100? That’s amazing!!!

    Brandy

  18. Hi, great job. I’m in the process of planning the same event for Our PTA Council in our town. If you could please email me your copy of donation request letter, it would be greatly appreciated. I was wondering how exactly do we prepare the pasta? Do we need a kitchen or can we use hot plates /electric stove top to cook on?

    Any help will be great,
    Thanks

    • At the bottom of my post, you’ll find the letter.

      As for cooking, I think you’d need a kitchen like we had. If you Google around some more, though, maybe you’ll find a different answer and people who used hot plates, etc. Good luck!

  19. I like the idea of spaghetti dinners because they raise a lot of money, and spaghetti is PRETTY hard to mess up. Not to mention almost everyone likes it. Thank you so much for sharing these tips, some of this stuff I wouldn’t think of when preparing.

  20. My husband and I are becoming missionaries and are working on raising support. I have considered hosting an event like this. I was wondering if you sold tickets to the event in advance, so that you would have an approximate headcount, or did you just charge people at the door?

    • We sold both ways, although mostly in advance. We asked each family of a baseball player to try to sell 8 tickets. So we had an approximate base of people coming that we knew to plan for, plus hopefully more who would show up at the door. I think we sold about 80 tickets (not everyone could sell the 8 tickets) and then maybe 30ish bought at the door. But that’s a guess! 🙂

  21. Did you purchase the sauce (GFS)? or make it yourself? Have you tried a fundraiser and accept donations instead of ticket sales? Our youth group is planning to raise monies for their mission trip.

    • We made the sauce ourselves. I think we googled “spaghetti sauce for 100” and several recipes popped up. Can’t remember which one we used but it wasn’t fancy–tomato sauce, onions, spices was about it. Donations might be a good way to avoid the stress of selling tickets but I didn’t try it. Good luck!

  22. What a great post! Thanks so much for sharing all of this. The nonprofit I work for is planning a spaghetti supper fundraiser for a community member who’s been stricken with debilitating illness, and most of the work for the event is on me. Your post helps quite a bit. I’ll be hitting up Olive Garden tomorrow! Don’t think we’ll serve alcohol – but I’m sure I’ll pick some up on the way home when it’s over. Lol.

  23. Great idea. I am putting together a spaghetti feed for my son to raise money to participate in a track meet in Australia this July. Could you send me a copy of the donation letter and the silent auction as well?
    Thank you for all the great advice.
    Tracey

  26. Great article and so helpful. Did you purchase pre-printed tickets or create your own? Were they numbered?

    • We assigned 8 tickets to each family to sell. Then, a couple days before the event, we had to RSVP to me, so I knew how much to cook for! Plus, we sold at the door. Some parents could easily sell their 8 tickets and took on more (they had families in town, busy work places, etc.) while other parents had a hard time. It all came out in the wash.

  27. Hi there!

    I’m a Senior Bible teacher in TN and we are planning a pasta night/silent auction. Any chance you could me send me the letters you sent out to get donations? Thanks!

  28. We had a spaghetti dinner, cake auction, and silent auction. The cake auction was the biggest hit!

  29. Thank you for this information! I’m trying to organize my first spaghetti dinner fundraiser for our youth group. Would you be so kind as to send me an email with a sample letter for donations and any other documents you may have for this fundraiser? Thanks!
    Stephanie

  30. Thanks for all the tips!! Did you primarily send out letters for donations, or did you make some calls/go in person for some as well? Which was the most successful? Also, we only have 1 month to pull it off, based on your experience does that give us enough time to secure items for a raffle (I don’t know that we’d be able to secure larger silent auction items in time)? Thanks again!

    • Definitely go in person. Some corporations will not be able to help you with only a month to go–sometimes they need corporate approval, or else get so many requests that they give them out lottery style at the end of the month. So locally owned places are probably your best bet. Also, think about if someone has a timeshare they could donate, season tickets to a game they could donate, or like someone else just mentioned, you could also have a cake/pie auction and every family chips in a cake that is auctioned off. Good luck!

  31. I ran a basket raffle at our spaghetti dinner, and i had a list of donors and address, the kids filled out the thank you cards and envelopes. That was a great help! I just had to mail them.

  32. Hi – Im looking into planning a dinner fundraiser with a silent auction for the local high school marching band to go to the chickfila bowl at the end of the year. Can you please share the letter you used to ask for donations? thank you!! [email protected]

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