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Church fundraising is a great way to generate extra revenue for your church while also building community relationships. Church fundraising provides a great way to reach out to the community for support as well as to spread the word about your Church. There are a lot of different ideas for fundraising and choosing the right one for your Church can be an overwhelming task. In this article we will suggest some great fundraising ideas. We will also talk about how you can make it easy to fundraise by receiving credit card and debit card donations.

Now we will look at some of the more common Church fundraising ideas and how they can benefit your church.

Bake Sale - Bake sales are a great way to get the community together and strengthen the bond with your church. Just have members bring the goods and let people know about your cause.

Yard Sale - Doing a big garage sale in the church parking lot on Saturday morning is a great way to raise funds. You can get people to give their items for a general sale, setup tables like a swap meet does, or even let people sell things from their cars.

Street Cleanup - Basically, your workers get donations of so much per pound of trash collected and hauled away. This works especially well when the area being cleaned up is a visible location such as a park or main road.

Car Wash - A car wash fundraiser is a common summer event and great for having some fun in the sun. Church groups can always count on it to raise funds for the church.

Easter Lillies - Have these wonderful flowers available for sale a few weeks before Easter. You can plant them a few months before Easter and grow them or just buy them already grown. With a cost of only a couple of dollars apiece, it's a great way to make money.

Wristband Fundraiser - These low-cost silicone bracelets can be ordered in bulk with your slogan of choice for well under a $1. The right color combination and message can create a huge impact. Consider phrases such as WWJD, Got Faith?, Believe, Trust Your Faith, etc.

Pancake Breakfast - A big breakfast is a great turnout when there is a good cause behind it. A pancake breakfast fundraiser is easy to do and very low cost. Charge enough to make profit. You can also place a big jar labeled 'contributions' right next to the cash register.

Accepting Credit Card and Debit Card donations

To really speed up the process you could offer your donators the ability to give to the church fundraiser using their credit card or debit card. This would allow them to easily make a contribution without the hassle of dealing with cash. A lot of people do not carry cash anymore because it isn't convenient. Instead they carry credit cards.

To accept credit card donations you would need a way to accept credit cards. There are lots of options including point of sale terminals, and online payment processing gateways.

In this article we talked about some great church fundraising ideas and also how to make it easy for people to donate with their credit card.

This article was written by Todd Nelson, Marketing Director for Capital Merchant Solutions, Inc (www.holyprocessing.com). CMS has been in the merchant account business for nearly 10 years, and offers free merchant accounts to both online and retail businesses. This article may be republished as long as absolutely no changes are made, and the resource box is included. Copyright 2007 - Capital merchant Solutions, Inc. - All rights reserved.