Tips on How to Run a Successful Fundraising Trivia/Quiz Night

Here are TACO Trivia's Top 5 Tips on "How to Run a Successful Fundraising Trivia/Quiz Night"

Tip #1 (How to run a Successful Fundraising Trivia Night) - Advertise like crazy

There are many ways to advertise a Trivia Night. Here's a list of some standard and creative ways:
* Facebook - Load up a new event. Put it on your 'wall'. Put it on your status updates
* Twitter - Just twit about it everyday. Put a link on it to a webpage, or your facebook.
* Email - Try emailing the local Council members and the local Council Youth worker, and the Non-For-Profit sector of the community. Ask them to forward the advertisement on. Many of these workers already have mailing list that they forward newsletters on to. Email your local Parliament member.
* Flyers - A4, A5, A3. Put the flyers up at shops, at local schools, letterbox drop the flyers
* School Newsletters. Usually a quick email to the appropriate person works, and if you don't know the right email address, just ring the admin office of the school.
* Local Radio - It is much easier to get a quick advertisement onto local radio. Some radio stations will even interview you, if the cause of the Trivia Night is news worthy.

Tip #2 (How to run a Successful Fundraising Trivia Night) - Have a Cause - Raise the profile of the Cause

If you want to spark interest, and if you wish to raise a lot of money, you need to communicate to people the cause of the trivia night. The stronger people's connection to the cause, or the stronger you can build people's passion for the cause, the greater the night will be. When people open up their heart to what the night is supporting, they generally open up their wallet as well. It can be frustrating to think that people won't just give you lots of money if you tell them 'I'm raising money for...' But if you share a story or two, or real life people or events that have changed things for the better, then people will support the cause more generously.

Tip #3 (How to run a Successful Fundraising Trivia Night) - Don't just rely on entry sales to raise money

Depending on demographics of people within your contact groups really changes how much you would charge people to enter the trivia night. Some groups put on glamorous events and charge $55 a head. Other community groups charge $10 a head and encourage people to book a whole table. To run a successful quiz night, don't just rely on these entry sales. If you have 100 people at your trivia night, and they each have paid $15 to enter, that's $1,500. Think how much disposable income people have in their wallets. Sure, some have nothing, but others are probably willing to let go of another $50 or so if there is a strong enough cause, or reason to do so. Play some fundraising games. Charge for drinks at the bar/counter. Run an auction with donated goods; its amazing how much money people let go of, when they're receiving something or worth, as well as donating to a fundraising cause. Try not to just run games where you are only asking for $1 and $2 coins. Find creative ways to have people donate some more than this.

Tip #4 (How to run a Successful Fundraising Trivia Night) - Good Trivia Questions
Make sure you don't have vague trivia questions that could have more than one answer, e.g. 'What ingredients do you use to make Playdough'? Well, five different people have five different answers and you end up with arguments. Have the appropriate amount of rounds. TACO Trivia Nights tend to have 8 rounds, with 10 questions in each round. Don't let the quiz questions be too hard. Ever sat in the trivia night where the brainy table are getting all the answers, and everyone else don't know ANY of the answers. Have different rounds of questions. For example:
Round 1 - Sport
Round 2 - Entertainment
Round 3 - General Knowledge
Round 4 - Children's Questions
Round 5 - Music
Round 6 - Science
Round 7 - History
Round 8 - Technology

Questions for trivia nights can be found on many websites, including here at TACO Trivia.

Tip #5 (How to run a Successful Fundraising Trivia Night) - Plan well in advance

Ever used Microsoft Project or something similar? You can outline all the expectations for running a trivia night. Start well in advance. Set your trivia night date. Then list all the facets of the trivia night, e.g. advertising, volunteers, finances, running of the night, etc, that need to be completed prior to the event. You could put together a working party, and delegate tasks to each other. Someone could be in charge of advertising, another of collating Trivia Questions, etc.

Well there you have it, TACO Trivia's Top 5 Tips on "How to Run a Successful Fundraising Trivia/Quiz Night".

Hope some of that helps. Feel free to comment, and leave some advice to others.