The Penny War

Need to raise funds? The Penny War Fundraiser is done with teams motivated by friendly competition to get people emptying their pockets and looking for spare change. This is great for organizations with departments and school classes.

1. 1 Penny = 1 Cent. But silver coins count in the negative against the Penny. 1 Nickel = -5 Cents. Your team will want to put pennies in the team jar and silver coins in the opposing team's jar.

Example 1:
Team A. has 25 pennies in their jar.
Team B puts a Quarter in Team A's jar.
The quarter cancels out the 25 Pennies. This leaves Team A with a score of Zero.

Example 2:
Team Red has 12 Pennies in their jar.
Team Blue puts a dime in Team Red's jar.
The dime equals -10 so Team Red has a score of 2 cents.

2. I recommend running this competition for a week. Monday - Friday. Put the Friday deadline after the lunch break.

3. Decide Teams: boys vs. girls, doctors vs nurses, Mrs. Jackson's class vs. Mr. Smith's class.

4. Have each team decorate their jar.

Options:
 -You will want to cover your jar completely so that the teams can not tell how many pennies vs silver coins are in the jar. Use a container that you can alter. Cut a coin slit in the lid so opposing team members can't look down into the jar.

- Decorate your jar with team name leaving the rest of the jar exposed so opposing team members can see the contents of the jar. This gives everyone a view of who is in the lead.

5. Once the deadline is reached you will want a team of helpers to sort the money in each jar.
- Count the grand total in each team's jar.
- Count the amount in silver coins and paper money versus pennies for each team's jar.

6. Determine the winner. The winner is the team with highest score. Your winning team's score may be in the negative.

7. Add up all team's money and be sure to share with all participates the Grand Total raised for your cause.

For this fundraiser you can give a prize to the winning team but not to take away from the funds. Just the glory of winning the Penny War can be a prize.