Ideas for your team, your campsite, and your whole event. Each one comes from a Relayer who did it. Amounts are what they reported, in their own currency.
Post a picture of next month's calendar. People choose a date and pay the number of that date: the 12th costs 12, the 30th costs 30. Every purchase is an entry in a draw at the end of the month, with a small prize taken from the pot. One Relayer raises about $465 in a short month and more than $1,200 in a long one. It costs nothing but time.
Watch out: Check your local rules on draws and raffles before you sell anything. In some places they need a permit.
A 500 ml water bottle filled with small coins holds far more than people expect. One team reports $75 to $100 per bottle. Give every team member a bottle in January and collect them at the Relay.
Write to family and friends. Say why you Relay, in your own words, and put a stamped envelope in with the letter. This is the oldest idea on this page and Relayers still call it their most reliable.
One committee that could not get people to come to them decided to go to the people instead. Their bake sales bring in $500 to $1,500 each time.
Everything donated, one expense for the advertisement. One team made $1,900 in a weekend and found a sponsor for their survivor dinner while they were at it.
Colleagues pay to wear jeans for two weeks. One workplace raises about $2,000 this way every year.
A restaurant or café gives a share of one evening's sales. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Every one counts and it costs the team nothing.
Plants from a nursery at the end of the season, poinsettias in December, daffodils in spring, candy bars, coffee, garden flags, neck coolers when the Relay falls in a hot month, key fobs sewn from a fabric stash. Things people would buy anyway sell better than souvenirs.
Watch out: Decide the split before you order. One team sold a $30 item and only $10 of it reached Relay. If the maker's cost is high, the idea is not a fundraiser.
Cut them into neck warmers and headbands, or sew the fronts into a quilt and raffle it. One quilt of survivor shirts from 2007 to 2025 sold tickets for months before the event.
A child asks for pledges per book read. A six-year-old raised more than $400 in one week, with a short video of him asking. Children like to be part of it.
Families pay to have plastic eggs hidden in their garden overnight. Some people paid extra so the team could egg a family who could not afford it. Eggs are donated back and used again next year.
Owners pay to enter, a local car club runs the judging and often supplies the trophies, and food trucks pay for a place. One Relay used it to find the sponsors it had lost.
A $10 entry, a pub that gives a share of food sales, a brewery that donates prizes, and musicians who play for free. One Relayer said it was the most fun fundraiser they ever ran.
A pancake breakfast or a soup night, cooked and served by a local club. Relayers sell the tickets. It works before the Relay and it works at six in the morning during it.
Cornhole, pickleball, kickball, a chili cook-off, a golf day, a free-throw pledge where a coach shoots 100 shots and people pledge per basket. Pick the one your town already plays.
Fire engines, tractors, and diggers in a car park for children to climb on. One committee made $1,500 and gained new families at the same time.
Evening events with a ticket. A comedy night with dinner, a 1980s dance, or a paint class in a donated room. One Relayer keeps a list of more than twenty of these and runs a different one each month.
At the wrap-up dinner, the committee offers four possible themes for next year. People vote by donating to the theme they want. The theme is chosen and the first money of the new year is already in.
Sell a cord for $5. Every lap earns a bead. At ten laps, trade for a gold or silver bead. A prize at the end for the most beads. Children take this very seriously.
Teams that sell a proper meal, not only cakes, do best. Walking tacos, snow cones, lemonade, slushes from a frozen-drink machine, a hamburger stand shared by all the teams.
A big jar of sweets, marbles, or anything else. A dollar a guess. Children cannot walk past it.
Teams nominate people. The five most nominated get a box in the information tent, and people drop money in the box of the person they want to see hit. The top three get a pie. People can also pay to throw it themselves.
Bandana tie-dye with permanent markers and rubbing alcohol. Rock painting. Paper cranes folded while people walk. Friendship bracelets. Coloured hairspray for $5. A fishing booth for small children with a toy prize on every line.
A movie night basket, a spa basket, a local sports team basket, a pet basket, a basket of restaurant vouchers collected from six places in town.
Watch out: Draws and raffles have rules in many countries. Check before you sell tickets.
Cheap UV beads on a bracelet. When they change colour, you should be wearing sunscreen. A fundraiser and a cancer-prevention message in one. One team made hundreds of dollars with them at a golf club.
Luminaria are the quiet heart of Relay, and Relayers are careful with them. These ideas raise money for the bags without turning the ceremony into a contest.
One Relayer set up 25 decorated bags at her place of worship to show people what luminaria are. A friend suggested letting people drop money into the bags. It became the team's biggest fundraiser of the year.
Three bags, coloured pencils, and stickers in a small box for a $10 donation. Families decorate them at home and bring them to the track. One Relay offers three bags for $10, keep two and leave one for the ceremony.
Sell the bag for the usual price, and for a little more, add a photograph of the person to the slideshow that plays during the ceremony.
Selling luminaria in schools raises money early and brings school teams to the Relay.
Sell a $5 bracelet all day. Everyone who crosses the line at the very end, wearing the bracelet, gets a ticket. One ticket is drawn and all the bracelet money is credited to that person's fundraising. One Relay went from about 50 people at closing to about 400. A vendor started the pot with $500.
A committee member visits every campsite at the end. The team with the most people still there wins first choice of site next year.
This is a question people are shy to ask, and almost everyone has the same answer: they paid out of their own pocket at first, and then learned to stop.
These answers were gathered in September 2026 from hundreds of replies in the two Relay community groups on Facebook, then rewritten in plain words for Relayers in any country. No one is named without their permission. If you recognise your idea here, thank you. Amounts are what people reported, in their own currency. Your national cancer organisation has the final word on what is allowed at your Relay.
Every answer on this page started as a question in a Relay group on Facebook. Ask yours there and Relayers from around the world will answer it, usually within a day.
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