Small businesses are called small businesses because they're small-scale in almost all aspects. You know what this means. This means that money can be tight some, if not most of the time. This is why most small businesses don't even reach 5 years.

If you're a new small business owner, you have to be prepared for one thing that haunts small business owners – there will be months when money will be coming in slow drips instead of the deluge that you're hoping for. Unfortunately, this won't stop your expenses from piling up. In fact, they will pile up month after month until your small business can't breathe anymore.

Is there hope for small business owners?

Does this mean that you have to quit right now? No, because this is a challenge that you can easily overcome. Of course, you can just plan ahead to make sure that your small business will have enough savings to tide you over during lean months. Don't live from “paycheck to paycheck”. Recognize the fact that there will be lean months and do something about it.

What can you do?

You should set aside some of your time and resources into helping the business raise funds. This is in addition to the income that you generate from the products or services that you're selling. It's understandable if you don't have a lot of available time and resources so it's best to stick to easy fundraising ideas.

What about the successful businesses?

Don't rest on your laurels. Even if you're successful now, it's best to be prepared. Besides, these easy fundraising ideas can also help you especially if you're planning on scaling up your business.

What are the tips that you can do right now?

Since these are very easy fundraising ideas, you can easily implement them right now. Check them out to see how they can help you:

• Sell equipment and supplies that you don't need. This is one of the easiest ways for you to raise funds. Do you have a laptop in your office that no one uses? Sell it to a kid who's about to enter university. Do you have supplies that are gathering dust in storage? Sell them to another small business. Think of this strategy as a “garage sale”. If you have a lot of expensive equipment that you can dispose of, you can even consider running an auction. You can easily raise hundreds, even thousands of dollars with this strategy. This is very helpful especially if you're just looking for a boost in funds to help you overcome a deficit in the current month.
• Sell pizza. Ask several people for their top 5 favorite foods and there's a good chance that pizza will appear on all the lists. This is a good opportunity especially if you're located near a university. Close the shop early on a Friday, and head over to the most popular pizzeria in town. Load your cars with dozens of boxes of pizza and head over to the dorms! Knock on doors and offer to sell pizza by the slice or by the box and you can easily raise a lot of funds this way. The smell of the pizza will help the pizzas sell themselves so this will be very easy. Make sure to have someone ready to make another pizza run just in case you sell out all your boxes.
• Use the donate a car strategy. The donate a car strategy may sound complicated but it's really not if you have a good plan. Basically, this can be done in a couple of ways. First of all, you can ask around for people who are willing to donate their old clunkers. You'll be surprised at the number of people who have cars that they can't get rid of. Help them get their very precious garage space back by taking their old cars off of their hands. You can also “donate a car” yourself by giving out a brand new car to a raffle winner. Yes, you're going to hold a raffle. Approach an open-minded car dealer and set up a special payment scheme wherein you're going to get the car now and display it in or near your place of business but you're going to pay for it later on after the raffle. You can also ask for a special discount. Do your calculations correctly and you can easily raise thousands of dollars.

As you can see, there are several easy fundraising ideas that can help you raise funds. Check them out today especially the donate a car strategy!