Fundraising ideas for work that staff will actually join in with

The best fundraising ideas for work are the ones colleagues choose to join. Most offices can raise a respectable sum from a bake-off. The money that lasts comes from making giving easy, getting the company to multiply it, and saving one big night for the people who want one.

I’m Kevin Durham, the charity auctioneer who works the floor rather than the podium, and plenty of my 60 to 80 events a year are company nights. This guide covers the staff side: ideas people actually join, the schemes that add money quietly, and the rules on raffles at work. For the company-run CSR list, see my corporate fundraising guide.

What makes fundraising ideas work for busy staff?

Fundraising ideas work for busy staff when they are optional, cheap to join and happen inside the working day. Get those three right and nobody needs chasing.

In a YouGov poll of 1,052 employees for Acas, 31% disliked team-building activities and 20% disliked regular social events after working hours. Acas advises asking staff what they would enjoy, keeping activities within normal hours, and remembering that some neurodivergent colleagues find certain activities uncomfortable.

The rules I’d hold every idea to:

• Nobody is made to give or take part. The Fundraising Regulator’s code rules out undue pressure to donate. When a manager holds the sponsorship form, that pressure creeps in without anyone meaning it. No per-person targets, no list of who hasn’t given.
• Offer a way in that costs nothing. Baking, counting the tins or running the tally all count.
• Don’t build it around a drink. I’m virtually teetotal, and plenty of your colleagues won’t drink either. Acas also tells employers to consider dietary needs linked to religion or belief when they lay on food.
• Let staff vote on the cause. It’s their money and their lunch breaks.

Which fundraising ideas work in the office?

The fundraising ideas that work in the office are short, sociable and easy to repeat: a team challenge, a lunchtime auction of promises, a bake-off and a properly run desk raffle.

Team challenges anyone can join

A charity team building event works best when the team total counts, not the fastest individual. A month-long distance challenge lets people walk, cycle, swim or wheel at their own pace while each team collects sponsorship.

A lunchtime auction of promises

Colleagues offer a skill or a small favour: a CV review, a cake every Friday for a month, the director on the tea run for a week (watch the juniors bid on that one). Take bids on a sheet over lunch, or run a ten-minute live auction in the canteen. My auction of promises guide covers pricing the lots.

A bake-off with something for everyone

Pay to taste, pay to vote. Ask bakers to list ingredients and allergens, and make sure there are vegan and gluten-free entries.

A desk raffle, run within the rules

An office raffle among colleagues counts as a work lottery, and the Gambling Commission’s rules for work lotteries are specific:

• Everyone taking part must work at the same physical location, not across several offices.
• Tickets are physical, sold in person at work, all at the same price. No sales by email, online or phone.
• The draw takes place on the premises, and nobody profits.

If the raffle sits inside a bigger event, such as the bake-off, it can run as an event lottery instead: tickets sold only at the event while it is on, up to £500 of takings for bought prizes and £100 for costs, and no limit on donated prizes. My charity raffle guide goes further. I’m an auctioneer, not a lawyer, so check anything unusual with your council.

The sillier ideas, gunging the boss and the like, deserve a post of their own, and so does the Christmas party.

Ideas for hybrid teams

In autumn 2024, 28% of working adults in Great Britain were hybrid working. Online sponsorship for the distance challenge, a lunchtime quiz on a video call and a team total on the intranet all work at a distance. Save the raffle for an office day.

How does payroll giving work?

Payroll Giving lets employees give to charity straight from their pay, before income tax is taken off. The employer sets it up with a Payroll Giving agency, which passes the money to the charities staff choose.

HMRC’s detailed guidance, updated in July 2026, sets out the rules:

• No employer has to offer it.
• Employees get relief at their highest tax rate, though National Insurance is still worked out on full pay. For a 20% taxpayer, £10 to charity takes about £8 off take-home pay.
• Staff can give to any charity HMRC recognises, with no upper limit. They needn’t say which charity, and can leave with reasonable notice.
• Most agencies take a small fee from donations. The employer can pay it instead, and can deduct the scheme’s costs from profits before tax.

Payroll Giving is not eligible for Gift Aid. HMRC’s figures put it at £131 million from about 475,000 employees in the tax year to April 2025. It is the least showy idea here, and the only one that keeps raising money when nobody is organising anything.

How does matched giving multiply staff fundraising?

Matched giving multiplies staff fundraising because the employer adds its own money to what staff give or raise, usually pound for pound. A £500 bake-off becomes £1,000 without another cake.

The CAF guide to matched giving (August 2025) lists the usual models: one-to-one, doubling, a cap per employee, or matching a specific campaign or event. Its case study is an insurer that matched payroll gifts up to £50 a month, adding over £97,000 in 2024. The company can also deduct donations from its profits before tax.

Gift Aid follows the person who gives. Staff sponsorship can usually carry Gift Aid, but the company’s match can’t, because HMRC excludes company donations of money. Put a Gift Aid box on every sponsorship form.

Agree the match before you launch and say the cap out loud. If the cap is £5,000, don’t tell staff “everything is doubled”: the same code says fundraising must not mislead.

Ending the year with a company charity gala

Office ideas build the habit. My view is that the biggest single total comes from one night, when staff, clients and suppliers share a room and someone asks them properly.

Corporate clients planning their first charity gala tend to want professionalism and entertainment, not someone reading out bids from a lectern. That is why a corporate charity auctioneer is a different job from an MC. The running order I’d build:

1. An icebreaker game early, so the room is warm before anyone is asked for money. Then get the room quiet before the first lot: whoever holds the room holds the total.
2. A short live auction of around ten great lots, many donated by staff and clients.
3. A live pledge, with the company’s match announced before the first hand goes up.

At a Jigsaw Trust event, the charity expected £14,000 from the live auction. The auction made £27,000, and a live pledge they hadn’t planned added £30,600. That was a powerful team behind a powerful charity, and the pledge is where the real money lives.

Keep the gala as optional as everything else, and if tickets are pricey, let the company subsidise staff places.

Is a company charity gala worth a professional host?

A company charity gala is worth a professional host when it closes the year’s staff fundraising in front of a full room. The host thanks the staff, runs the auction or pledge and keeps colleagues from feeling put on the spot. Everyday workplace fundraising needs no host.

Cake sales, dress down days and payroll giving run themselves. Have ready your date, staff numbers, the total raised so far, the charity you support and who in the company will say thank you.

Where to start

Pick one giving scheme, two or three office ideas your colleagues voted for, and one finale. Publish a running total so every bake-off visibly feeds the bigger number.

Planning a company charity gala and want a second pair of eyes on the running order? Call 07596 851647. I’d rather talk it through than trade emails.