Need An Office Fundraiser? Try Penny Wars!

Those of us working in offices know how difficult it can be to come up with new and fun ways to raise money. Whether you need money for monthly birthday celebrations, flowers for sick employees, charities or holiday lunches, it becomes a real chore to go from person to person asking for money.

Penny Wars is a competitive and fun way for an office to raise funds. It gets everyone involved and interested, and people almost forget that bunches of money is being raised while the office is having all this fun!

For Penny Wars to be a success, you must have a rather large office. Something bigger than a 5 or 6 person office. If your office is large and is divided into teams already, that’s even better.

Look at the office division. You will need 3 or more teams of people. There is no limit as to how many teams you can have, the more the merrier! If your office is not already divided (most are), then have each person pick his/her team out of a hat.

Each team will obtain and decorate a large, clear, gallon jug, jar or receptacle. It can be glass or plastic, and should not be decorated so much that the money inside cannot be seen. The team name should be clearly on the jug, and it should have a lid that is, for now, closed with tape all around it to prevent tampering. There should be a money slot in the jug or in the lid.

Line up all of the jars in a prominent area that gets a lot of traffic (but not in an area where customers are). Determine and post the beginning and ending time of the contest. It’s usually about 3-5 days. Declare the contest ON!

The object of the game is simple. Whoever has the most money at the end of the contest wins. But, of course, there is a catch to this game. All coins count for the team, but all paper money in the jar is SUBTRACTED from that team’s total. So what you have is sabotage, and lots of it.


Team members will load up their own jar with coins, and everyone else’s jars with dollars, fives, tens and twenties. It’s not uncommon for all teams to be in negative numbers at the end, and the least negative number will win.

Expect things to get fast and furious as the final minutes wind down, and teams try to count each other’s money through the jars to decide where to put their final paper contributions.

Generally, the winning team will be awarded something (A cake? Rented movie and popcorn over the lunch hour?) for winning, but the true winner is the office or whoever is receiving the funds that were raised.


This is a really fun way to raise LOTS of money in just a few days, and get the entire office involved in a rousing competition as well.