Healthy Fundraising

Pima County's Administrative Procedure on Employee Group Fundraisers: #23-36
  Additional Guidance on Procedure

Employee Wellness and the Wellness Action Committee have put together a list of healthy fundraising ideas here for you, but we're always looking for more. Have you tried some items or recipes that work well? E-mail us so we can add them to our list.

It's easy to make changes to what you're already offering by substituting some of the following items:

Healthier Food Items

Baked Potato Bar	Salsa Cup with Low Fat Chips
Salad and Sandwich Bar	String Cheese (light versions)
Dried Fruit and Nut Mix	Veggie Sticks with Low Fat Ranch Dressing
Frozen Yogurt	Fruit and Yogurt Parfait
Fruit Salad Cup	Low-fat Popcorn or Pretzels
Fruit Smoothies	All-fruit Snacks
100 Calorie Snack Packs	Apple Dippers
Low-fat/low-sugar Baked Goods

You can often make or serve healthier versions of many foods. Serving whole grain buns or turkey burgers at a BBQ or replacing potato chips with veggie sticks or even whole-grain chips can easily make a healthier meal.

Product Sales: Non-Food Items

Books	Greeting Cards
Calendars and Planners	Holiday Decorations
Candles	Household Items
Coffee Cups or Mugs	Jewelry
Healthy Cookbooks	Key Chains and Bumper Stickers
Coupon Books	Hats & T-shirts
Emergency Kits for Cars and Home	Lotions, Perfumes, etc.
First Aid Kits	Magazine Subscriptions
Flowers and Plants	Music CDs and Videos
Stationary	Stuffed Animals

Activities

Walk or Jump-A-Thon	Manager Dunk Tank
Obstacle Course	Penny War
Flower-Gram	Holiday Gift Wrapping
Rummage Sale

View pdf and print this list.

 

Additional Guidance on Procedure

Unhealthy foods such as those high in saturated fat, sodium, cholesterol or refined sugar or flour, or containing trans-fats should not be served. To further define these terms, Employee Wellness refers to guidelines set by other counties, policies for healthy school fundraising and California and New York state guidelines for serving food in the workplace. Before referring to the following, review the first sentence of this paragraph and attempt a "common sense" approach to any items in question.

Specific fundraising food item guidelines :

• Item should contain no more than 35% of calories from total fat (excluding nuts & seeds)
• Item should contain no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat
• Item should contain no trans fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils)
• Item should be no more than 35% sugar by weight (unless the source is naturally occuring from fruit)*
• Item should contain less than 360 mg of sodium
• Item should contain less than 20 mg of cholesterol
• Snacks should be under 300 calories
• Meals should be under 700 calories
• If grains are used, at least 50% should be whole grains

* If you don't see the information on the food label and need help with calculating this visit www.metric-conversions.org.

Note that these guidelines are not meant to be exclusive if an item falls slightly outside of the guidelines and is widely considered a healthy, nutritious snack.

The California Center for Public Advocacy has put together a nice list of guidelines and suggestions for healthy fundraising items: All It Takes Is Nutrition Sense