How to Run a Trivia Night Fundraiser: Raise Over $2500 in One Night

This week is the busiest week of the whole year at my job. Luckily, I'm not in charge and all I need to do is take orders. However, tonight, during the busiest week on one of the longest days, someone told me I need to blog. When I said I had a blog, but didn't have much time, she was incredibly disappointed. I got home tonight, wound up on dance music from trying to keep myself awake on the 30 minute drive home from our event's location, and decided, I have time to blog. 

As promised, I'm going to give some tips and tricks on running a successful trivia night fundraiser.

Why do a trivia night?

Trivia nights are super popular in the Midwest during the coldest months of the year - for good reason. You get to stay inside, hang out with your friends, play a game, and possibly win prizes! Bars have been taking advantage of this simple game for years as bar trivia is increasingly popular throughout the US. For the nonprofit, you can raise a good amount of money (especially if you use your own space) with a limited amount of resources.

Elements of a Successful Trivia Fundraiser

• Time - January and February are generally good months (as long as the weather cooperates) since people are looking for a warm place to hang out. 
• Location - Use your own space if possible or see if a local event rental space is willing to donate space for the night. Check with your donors, volunteers, board members, and staff. They might know of a location  you haven't thought of yet. Churches are often willing to rent out space for a reasonable amount.
• Questions - All good trivia nights have good trivia questions. They need to be challenging but not so difficult that participants will not attend the next year. You should also consider giving each round a theme relevant to your organization.
• You don't want your questions to come into question so be sure to fact-check!
• Find a few folks to help you write questions and have the answers prepared as well. 
• A popular format is 10 rounds/10 questions, however a faster trivia night could use the 8 rounds/12 questions format.
• Price - Most trivia nights run between $15-$25 per person and $200-300 per table (for a table of 8-10). You should base your price on space available, table size and how much you think your donors could afford. 
• Mulligans - Freebies, sell as many as you want and folks use them to answer questions. You will likely want to set a limit on how many folks can use per round or for the entire game. Usually cost around $20.
• Share the results throughout the night - use an excel spreadsheet shown on a wall or a white board, etc.

Trivia Night Extras

Trivia nights in the St. Louis area often involve silent auctions and games throughout the night to keep people interested. Below are some of those popular games:

• 50/50 - Sell raffle tickets ($1/ticket, $5/6 tickets) and split the pot of money between a randomly drawn raffle ticket and your nonprofit.
• Heads or Tails - Flip a coin - folks put their hands on their head or on their "tails" to guess the coin's side. Do this until one person is standing. Everyone gives $1 to participate.
• Dead or Alive - Read off the name of famous celebrity - participants put their thumbs up if they think the person is alive, down if they think the person is dead - $1 to participate.

Raise Over $2500 in One Night

Set the price right and you can earn quite a bit in one night. The historical society I volunteer with raises over $2500 each year. Though it seems small, that's a big impact on our small budget. Rely on a good committee to help you put everything together and run the evening.

Good luck in your trivia night fundraisers. Feel free to comment below if you have questions about how I've run trivia nights in the past.