GroupRaise Fundraiser: All You Need To Know (’24 Update)
What is a GroupRaise fundraiser? A GroupRaise restaurant fundraiser is a tasty and super fun way to give back!
Imagine having a night out with your friends and family, where you enjoy a delicious restaurant meal, and have a percentage of the proceeds donated back. That’s exactly what a GroupRaise restaurant fundraiser is.
A meal is an amazing way to get together with your friends, supporters, and family, and at the same time help your cause and the local community. A GroupRaise fundraiser is about combining food, friends and social connections to have an impact on the things you care about.
Image by Priscilla Du Preez from Unsplash
Tasty and Easy Fundraisers: A Perfect Match!
Fundraising is one of the most important things for organizations of all kinds as it allows groups to support their causes and to build a strong financial foundation that will allow them to work properly. However, consistently planning fundraising events can often seem like a challenging task.
You’ll certainly find a lot of fundraising ideas talking to other organizations, on the internet — with a new fundraiser website popping up all the time — and with so many ideas to choose from it can be overwhelming to schedule and plan. The good thing is: it doesn’t need to be difficult to plan your next fundraiser. There are a lot of great options and a GroupRaise fundraiser is certainly one of them.
GroupRaise makes the experience of scheduling fundraising events online easier than ever. Our website was designed to assist any individual or group that want to support a cause they care about — be it a one off meal or monthly events!
The GroupRaise experience is all about bringing communities together over the dinner table. Everybody eats every day and so getting people to use their meal choices to give back makes fundraising so simple.
Image by Lee Myungseong from Unsplash
GroupRaise Review: How it works
What GroupRaise does is connect organizations to a network of restaurants who, in exchange for a large reservation (often a minimum of 20 RSVPS), are willing to donate a percentage of sales back to your cause when your group eats with them.
Booking a meal is as easy as following these steps:
- Visit GroupRaise.com, pick a city or type in your zip code;
- Find fundraiser partners near you and select a restaurant;
- Pick the best date for your community and request your meal online;
Setting up a GroupRaise fundraiser is so easy it can be done in under 1-minute.
Screenshot from GroupRaise.com
So what happens next?
The restaurant gets back to you within 7 days; you invite your supporters, and then on the day of your event a percentage of sales is donated back to the charitable cause you care about.
Fundraising dinners are free to host and your group receives one hundred percent of your hard-earned money! Plus, when you host a GroupRaise meal you’ll have access to:
- A personalized fundraiser “meal” page to share with your supporters
- Custom promo tools and tips to make sure your event is a hit
- A dedicated support team and Help Center to guide you along the way
In the following sections you’ll learn more about these support benefits!
Restaurant suggestion
Picking the right partner is very important. On the GroupRaise site you will find mouthwatering options, so the toughest part will be to choose who you want to fundraise with first.
All the partners listed on our site are selected through pre-established criteria to ensure that you’ll have the best experience possible and a great fundraising event.
You can also set your own criteria to filter and choose the ideal partner e.g. the location of the restaurant, availability, average meal price etc. Check out this blog post Top Tips: Choosing a Venue to learn more about picking the right restaurant for your cause.
What’s more, once you’ve joined the GroupRaise community we always aim to give you a personalized and quality experience by suggesting the best partners for your next meal, which considers your group type and the success of other local organizations.
There are countless restaurants across the country that are waiting to work with your organization and help you raise funds for your cause. If you’re hungry to get started, check out participating restaurants in your area to find the right fundraising partner for your group’s appetite!
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Promo Tools
You, your organization, supporters, the restaurant, and everyone else wants your fundraiser to be successful, right? Of course! We also want that. That’s why when your organization books a restaurant fundraiser through GroupRaise, you’ll receive loads of custom promotional tools to boost fundraiser attendance.
The goal is to make it easy for you to gather your community for your fundraising event. Which is why we offer a unique Online Meal Promotion Page, customized flyers, social media images, and even captions for you to copy & paste.
See below for a full breakdown of the promo tools we send to every fundraising group as the days countdown to your event!
When your event is accepted, you’ll receive:
The moment the restaurant accepts your group’s event, a unique Online Meal Promotion Page is automatically generated. All of the event details are collected on this page and groups can use the page to gather RSVPs.
Image by GroupRaise
Promo Planner Email
30 minutes after your event is accepted, you will receive an email containing a comprehensive set of promotional tools that GroupRaise will provide you with until the day of your event. This email also includes a short message that you can easily copy and paste to jumpstart your campaign.
Image by GroupRaise
3 weeks before
Facebook Event Image & Description Template
We’ve found that fundraising groups that create a Facebook event page tend to have more successful events, so we send you an email with:
- A copy & pasteable Facebook event description with your unique event details
- A custom image you can use for the Facebook event banner
Image by GroupRaise
2 weeks before
Promo Schedule, Printable Flyer, & Text Message Template
Next, you’ll receive an email with a suggested promo planner schedule, detailing the various tools we’ll be sending over the next 2 weeks leading up to the event.
You also receive a customized printable flyer and copy & pasteable text message you can use to contact all your friends and family through direct messages.
Image by GroupRaise
10 days before
Email Template
You receive a forwardable email you can easily share with your contact list.
Image by GroupRaise
1 week before
Social Media Video & Caption Template
Fundraising promotion heats up 1 week before the event. We kick things off by sending you a customized social media video and copy & pasteable caption to help your event go viral in your local community.
Image by GroupRaise
1 day before
Digital Flyer & Text Message Template
To make sure you have everything you need, we send you a digital flyer (same as printable flyer, just with a color background) and one last copy & pasteable text message to remind your friends and family to attend the fundraiser the next day.
Image by GroupRaise
Image by GroupRaise
On event day
Social Media Story Video
Day-of, we’ve found that social media stories boost event attendance. That’s why on event day we send everyone who has RSVPed a custom Facebook/Instagram video they can post as a story, plus another copy & pasteable text message for them to use in direct messages.
Image by GroupRaise
The better the promotion, the better the event turnout and fundraiser success!
Support Team
The benefits of partnering with GroupRaise are not limited to event promotion, you will also have our support during the process of planning and hosting a fundraiser.
We do this through our Help Center and a dedicated support team.
On the GroupRaise help center you can search for frequently asked questions. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, our support team is always prepared to help. If you have any concerns or feedback to share, don’t hesitate to let us know by contacting info@groupraise.com.
We are here to make this entire process easier for you.
Image by Hannah Busing from Unsplash
New fundraising opportunities
When you become part of the GroupRaise community you’ll also get exclusive access to new fundraising opportunities!
In recent years we have extended our services to include other easy fundraiser solutions, like: Krispy Kreme Fundraising Campaign, Sam’s Club Fundraising Campaign, Applebee’s fundraiser, Noodles for a Cause, Bubba’s 33 Pizza Fundraiser, plus many more fresh ideas in the pipeline.
GroupRaise organizers get first access to these new fundraising opportunities, and if/when they become public, we share them on our Instagram and Facebook accounts, so be sure to follow us so you don’t miss a thing!
Check It Out Yourself!
Now that you know how everything works, why not check it out for yourself? We’ll be here to help you throughout the entire process, from choosing the best partner, to the day of your event.
With restaurants participating all around the country, you’re guaranteed to find a delicious partner giving back near you. Simply head to GroupRaise.com to get started!
