17 FFA Fundraising Ideas That Are Practical and Effective

There are over one million young adults, teens, and kids involved in Future Farmers of America. The nonprofit helps provide agricultural educational support to communities rural, suburban, and urban across the country.

Future Farmers of America chapters rely on strong fundraising to support trips, competitions, leadership development, classroom equipment, and community projects. The best FFA fundraisers are hands on, community focused, and tied directly to agriculture or service. Below are seventeen high quality ideas that work for chapters of any size and can be adapted for rural or suburban communities.

1. Produce Basket Sale

Partner with local farms or your school greenhouse to assemble seasonal produce baskets. Offer fall harvest boxes, summer veggie mixes, or themed bundles like salsa kits. 

Families love buying fresh, local produce and the quality speaks for itself especially when you market it’s coming from a local non-profit.

2. Flower and Plant Sale

Plants remain one of the most reliable FFA fundraisers because everybody loves plants for both indoor and outdoor spaces. Sell hanging baskets, vegetable starters, herbs, and flowering arrangements grown by students. 

Promote these plants and flowers as student grown to help encourage orders.

3. Farm to Table Dinner

Host a community dinner featuring food grown or prepared by students and local partners. Decorate the space with FFA colors, invite families and alumni, and create a memorable experience that strengthens community bonds.

4. FFA Calendar Fundraiser

When programs go digital, they always find success. Digital calendar fundraisers are one of the most convenient, efficient, and strongest ways to generate revenue for nonprofits.

Especially ones like FFA and the Scouts of America where you’re divided into community chapters. Parents and families take great pride in that.

Our calendar fundraiser product has raised millions of dollars for organizations around the country. With its simple design, automated text reminders, and ease of use, it only takes 15 minutes to get your calendar set up.

If you're interested in old school pen and paper fundraisers, they still can be successful, albeit with a little more work.

5. Livestock Showmanship Clinic

FFA members with strong animal science backgrounds can teach younger kids the basics of grooming, show etiquette, feed planning, and care.

At your local county fair is a great way to do this with kids that are already involved with fair.

Combine this educational experience with something like a petting zoo, charging a small entrance fee. A good way to get younger kids excited about agriculture.

6. Christmas Tree Sale

Whether you partner with a local tree farm or have one at your hands, selling and delivering fresh Christmas trees is a viable and impactful fundraiser.

If you’re partnering with the local tree farm, you can use it as a fundraiser with them keeping the bulk, but giving your organization a cut for any you sell, or are willing to deliver.

If you have your own, you can keep all of those profits. Starting your own Christmas tree farm is a difficult venture, but you can also source trees in at bulk and sell them over a couple weeks with heavy promotion so your community knows about it.

7. The Raffle or Silent Auction

Partner with local businesses to raffle off popular items like a chainsaw, tool set, or lawn equipment. Families may be willing to donate items, restaurants willing to donate gift cards.

Businesses get community recognition and your chapter raises a strong profit with minimal cost. Use a dinner or lunch as a way to maximize this style of fundraiser.

8. Chicken BBQ or Hog Roast

A traditional community meal is one of the most dependable FFA fundraisers. Why? Food appeals to everyone. Especially when you combine the idea of good comfort food like bbq or another community style meal.

Just have a solid main paired with inexpensive side dishes like potato salad, coleslaw, macaroni salad, sports drinks, water, and a dessert and you have a meal that has universal appeal.

Have meals available to eat at a community location like a church, sell meals to go, and do pre-sale tickets to help get this fundraiser off the ground. 

9. FFA Chapter-Based Grants

The national FFA does offer a variety of different ideas for your chapter. Places like Culvers or plant-based fundraisers, but really focus on the grants. Grants when successful are great ways to get your program money. Definitely take the time to apply to these.

While some of these ideas the national FFA offers are great, their recommended online fundraiser is going to keep 10% or more of your fundraiser. Here at Teamfi, we don’t keep anything from what you raise.

Here’s how our pricing structure works.

10. FFA Themed Crowdfunding Fundraiser

Along with the counterpart calendar fundraiser, crowdfunding is another program favorite for efficient fundraising.

Crowdfunding is the process of putting up a team page and bringing in online donations. This allows you to get donations from beyond your community, so friends and family of your program around the country!

With Teamfi’s online crowdfunding platform, all it takes is:

• 15 minutes to set up your fundraising page.
• Team and player pages to encourage donations.
• Over 10 ways to track your progress.

11. Community Garden Plots

Convert unused school land or raised beds into rentable garden plots for families that either don’t have the land for their own garden plot, or perhaps don’t have the soil for an effective plot.

Renting out these small plots can not only be lucrative, but can bring in community members who otherwise may not have heard about your program. Community water access, basic tools, and a fence to keep critters out will only make your plots more valuable.

12. Agri-Focused Photography Calendars

Students and families take photos of barns, animals, fields, tractors, and seasonal landscapes, then turn them into printed calendars. Calendars are inexpensive to produce and easy to sell at school events or online.

Calendars best sell in November, December, and January near the holiday season so aim to get calendar photos over the course of a year to get different photos for different months. A barn in winter, a chicken coop in spring, a cornfield in summer, a tractor in fall, just as a few examples.

This is a long term fundraiser, but is really a fun one to put together.

13. Tractor Photo Opportunities

During the summer, especially in rural communities, it’s senior photo season. If you have 300 seniors in your high school class, that’s nearly 300 photography sessions going on.

Photographers love being able to curate photogenic opportunities for their clients. So here’s an idea for your FFA program.

If you have a small space, the land, have photographers pay a small fee to utilize it. A tractor set up for tractor photos, some flowers, some nice looking trees, and maybe even a water feature. The more you’re able to set up your space, the more you can charge.

This doesn’t just apply to senior photography, but family photos too. 

Passive income.

14. Holiday Market at the Ag Shop

Open your agricultural workshop, greenhouse, community space, or use your local school’s gymnasium to host a holiday market.

These markets are great fundraisers because:

1. Vendors pay money to be there.
2. You can charge a small admission to patrons to shop.
3. Concessions or a bake sale is paired perfectly with this.

These are common tried and true community style fundraisers where you can even have your FFA kids and families become vendors as well.

15. The Better Bake Sale

We’ve all heard of bake sales right? Make up some delicious sweets beforehand, head out to a community event, and sell them for a modest profit.

Bake sales are really strong community fundraisers, but when it comes to return on investment, it’s not always the strongest.

That’s why we wrote this blog, “How to 3X Your Bake Sale Fundraiser”. Take a look and make it your best bake sale yet.\

16. Farm Fresh Egg Subscription

Have you seen egg prices lately? More and more Americans want farm fresh eggs and are willing to pay a premium, especially with supermarket prices skyrocketing.

In March, eggs peaked at over $8 a dozen across America due to outside factors like bird flu. While prices have dipped, since 2022 prices have remained high and this year was proof big agriculture isn’t immune from outside factors.

If your program has a poultry setup, offer a weekly or biweekly egg subscription for families in your community. Families pay in advance for a set number of deliveries which creates consistent income for your chapter.

Keep in mind any regulations from your state, here are Michigan’s for example from our home state!

17. Seasonal Fundraising Excellence

Become a powerhouse when it comes to seasonal fundraising. Envision one overarching online fundraiser with smaller seasonal fundraisers during each season; spring, summer, fall, and winter.

A winter Christmas tree or wreath fundraiser, a spring flower sale, a fall pumpkin patch, there are ideas galore.

We have plenty of fundraising ideas if you need a head start that we encourage you to check out!

Ready to Fundraise?

Let's get your next FFA fundraiser going. Whatever idea you pick, get a team together, and make it your best one yet. If you're interested in a calendar fundraiser, crowdfunding, or another great digital fundraiser, we're here to help!