Monday, September 14, 2009

Raising Money By Organising A Quiz Night

By Mike Tants

Organising a quiz night as a fundraising event is an excellent idea - they are cheap to organise, especially if the prizes are donated and they are very entertaining.

Get the right mix of questions:

To keep the quiz as entertaining as possible keep the questions varied. I always include at least one picture round, and have questions from all eras to include all age groups. Subjects should be interesting and should range from general knowledge to song lyrics, science and nature to TV and film.

Try not to include too many questions that people will either know or not " make sure all questions can be guessed. Also, try not to have too many really tough questions. Remember, this is a night you want people to enjoy, so dont make them feel stupid with ultra hard questions.

I aim for 20 percent of the questions to be easy, 60 percent of the questions to be medium difficulty and 20 percent of the questions to be hard. This enables most people to answer the majority of the questions, but also includes enough tough ones to separate the winners out.

If you decide to write your own quiz there are plenty of free resources online to enable this. Be prepared to put in the time though to ensure you have a good range of questions and to ensure the answers are accurate. It may be worth buying a quiz pack from a reputable supplier as they only cost a couple of pounds and can save you hours.

Be organised!

Plan in advance!! Make sure the accommodation is adequate, with enough tables and seating for all. On the night ensure there are enough pens and that you have printed enough answer sheets for participants. If necessary, ensure the PA system works and make sure you have spare pens and answer sheets.

Is it worth it?

When planning a fundraising quiz night think about the number of people who are going to enter and think about the price for entering. A recent fundraising event I went to had around 50 people paying 3.50 to enter. The prizes were all donated and there was also food and drink to buy. 50 * 3.50 = 175, plus the food which was probably around 2 per person, which is another 100, so almost 300 for a quiz night, minus the cost of hiring the hall, which can be as little as 20. So between 250-300 for a quiz night for around 50 people. Double that for 100 people, etc. Not a bad fundraiser for the amount of effort required.

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