Buy two identical 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles.  Everyone sells a piece of one of the puzzles for $1.00 each.  The winner receives $100.  The group receives $900.  The winning piece is removed from the completed "twin" puzzle and is on display at your concert.  The person with the lucky piece that fits wins the $100.

 

You'll need to get parents, businesses, churches, Service Clubs, etc. involved.  It will have to become a community event in order to reach 1,000 people who want to support your group.  Remember, that's the correct question..."Would you like to help support our community school chorus?" - not "Would you like to buy a piece of a puzzle?  We're selling them to...."  The words "buy and sell" turn people off quickly, but everyone responds well to an eager young person who is telling them about "the cool things they are going to do this year.  And would you like to help support our chorus?"  That is the best opening I know.

 

James Clark McReynolds

Wow, I love the puzzle idea!

 

I know I'm late in replying to you but I wanted to say, DO consider singing Valentines for next year. My choir did them and they were a hit. Also, at Christmas, sell Christmas carols. The way we did them was anyone in the school (students, teachers, staff, parents, etc) paid $2 for us to sing a Christmas carol to anyone of their choice. We sold almost 50 of them in a tiny school with only about 150 kids in grades K-12. Not bad!

 

Raffles, if you can get an item donated, usually do pretty well, and they're all profit.

 

Good luck!