As many of you know, quilts rarely make what they should when give to auctions. Here are a couple of ways we have found to make closer to their value for good causes.

1) Raffle, don't auction, the quilt. Around here, people will part with $1 or $5 for a chance to win a quilt, but won't pay $500 at an auction.

2) This is a new one. Our community had a fund raiser for a woman with cancer. Our guild donated a quilt. It had 60 white cornerstones between the blocks. Each of those was sold for $10, and people wrote messages and/or their names in the blocks. The quilt was give to the woman to have with her in the hospital while she's having treatments, and it raised some money to help with expenses.

Hope these ideas help with your fund raising activities.

OMG the second idea is brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

Shelly, I totally agree about the raffle. I was shocked to learn that some states have laws against raffles. Too bad as it is such a great way to do fund raising.

The selling of the cornerstone blocks is a great idea!

I also agree that donating quilts for an outright auction rarely fetch even the cost of materials, let alone the time and effort put into making one.

Good ideas!

Raffles are definitely better than auctions, I think. The cornerstone idea is a great one.

Great tips, love the second one :D:D:D

Both sound great

A quilt camp I go to has used both ways to raise money. One year they requested campers to donate a block (I want to say block & colors were specified - I know it was for cancer, but don't remember). Someone put them together and by the end of the camp we all had to opportunity to sign it in honor or in memory of someone special to use. Each name was a $1.00. Then, once the quilt was completed, they raffled off the quilt.

Most recently, they invited campers to send a fall colored 9-patch and then had groups associated with the camp facility sell raffle tickets. The raffle was held during the last camp. They raised (if I remember correctly) over $700 for the camp.

As am I! I knew you couldn't use PayPal to sell raffle tickets - I guess that is one reason why. I'd be willing to bet that some of the raffles I've participated in were not 'sanctioned'. :oops:

That's a novel idea.