3 Friendraisers to Help Spread Awareness of Icing Smiles

Learn how to raise funds, spread awareness, and engage your community with Icing Smiles. 

In a world where fundraising events are commonly held to support various causes, the concept of friendraisers is gaining momentum. Friendraisers offer a unique opportunity to not only raise funds for Icing Smiles but also spread awareness and engage with your community in a more personal and meaningful way. 

Understanding the Difference: Fundraiser vs. Friendraiser

While fundraisers and friendraisers share a common goal of raising funds, they differ in their approach and purpose. Fundraisers primarily focus on generating financial support for an organization, often through large-scale events or campaigns. 

On the other hand, friendraisers emphasize building connections, fostering relationships, and spreading awareness about Icing Smiles. Friendraisers aim to engage friends, family, and community members on a more personal level, inviting them to participate actively and become ambassadors for the cause they care about.

Everyone Knows Someone We Can Serve

The beauty of friendraisers is their ability to leverage existing relationships and networks. Everyone knows someone — an acquaintance, a friend, or a family member — who could benefit from Icing Smiles. By engaging our personal circles through friendraisers, we expand our reach and create a ripple effect of awareness and support.

“It is incredible through word of mouth who this organization can reach,” says Icing Smiles Founder Tracy Quisenberry. 

In this blog post, we will explore three friendraisers that can help support Icing Smiles.

1. Cake and Cookie Sponsorships

A cake or cookie sponsorship is when a Sugar Angel hosts a personal campaign to collect donations from their friends, family, and colleagues to not only help offset supply costs but also to raise funds for Icing Smiles. 

Icing Smiles provides all the tools you’ll need to get sponsors for your cake or cookies. In just a few short steps, you’re able to set up your personal fundraising page. We’ve made it easy by providing a template to help you get started, but you know your connections best. It can help to tweak the suggested messages or write your own to promote your fundraiser in your own style. After your page is up and running, we also provide templates you can use to reach out to your friends and family about your fundraising efforts and to thank those who donate.

This type of fundraising not only raises money for Icing Smiles. It also increases exposure for our organization and helps us expand our reach to new, previously unexplored networks of supporters. “People don’t realize it’s not just about money,” says Icing Smiles Founder Tracy Quisenberry. “It’s about telling our story.”

Cake and cookie sponsorships are important for Icing Smiles. In 2022, Sugar Angels helped bring in over $6,000 for the organization through their sponsorship pages. However, the true magic of these fundraisers is that they’re also “friendraisers.”

“By sharing about Icing Smiles and the cakes they’re making, more people are learning of our cause and mission, helping us to grow toward our organization’s goal of becoming a household name,” says Development Coordinator Chelsea Boog.

2. Violet’s Bake Sale

Violet’s Bake Sale is a classic and accessible friendraiser that taps into the power of community support. The beauty of it is that a virtual bake sale requires no physical venue. Instead, you use your phone, email, and social media to promote a personalized bake sale event page featuring different dessert packages. Then your local friends, family, and neighbors preorder which delicious desserts they would like from you, and you — or a Sugar Angel in the area who is willing to provide baked goods for your bake sale — can then bake and deliver the treats. The great part about a virtual bake sale is you receive the orders in advance. 

By involving the community in this tangible way, participants not only raise funds but also create opportunities for conversations about Icing Smiles’ mission and the impact it has on the lives of children and their families.

Whether you volunteer all the time or are still waiting for that call to action, you can host a virtual bake sale anytime, anywhere, and we’ve got all the stuff to get you started!

3. Best Cake Ever

Best Cake Ever is a peer-to-peer friendraiser that encourages individuals to showcase their baking skills and offer their favorite cake creations to raise funds for Icing Smiles. Every October, participants enter their cakes and then engage with their community to promote it, get votes, and raise donations for the Icing Smiles’ mission. 

We provide you with marketing tools for social media and email to get the word out to family and friends to vote for your cake in the form of donations! Each dollar made to each cake’s’ fundraising page counts as one vote for that cake ($1 = 1 vote, $20 = 20 votes, etc.) with all of the proceeds benefiting Icing Smiles. The cakes that receive the most votes win prizes like one-on-one cake-decorating lessons with famous pastry chefs, Icing Images edible printers, and other cake-decorating supplies from our sponsors. 

By sharing their passion for baking and Icing Smiles’ mission, participants can spread awareness while collecting donations to help us continue delivering smiles. 

Gather Your Friends to Bake a Difference

Friendraisers are an innovative and impactful way to make a difference while spreading awareness about Icing Smiles. By participating in peer-to-peer fundraisers such as Best Cake Ever, cake and cookie sponsorships, and Violet’s Bake Sale, we can actively engage our communities, involve friends and family, and contribute to the mission of Icing Smiles. 

Plus, when you volunteer to host a cake or cookie sponsorship, participate in the Best Cake Ever Contest, or host a bake sale with Icing Smiles, you will have a team of supporters behind you to ensure its success. We are here to help you and make this fun and easy for you while supporting our mission.