Fundraising: Cup Deposit Donations

This article is part of the Festivals For Ukraine Toolkit.

• Creator: Music Saves UA & YOUROPE
• Published in: 2024

Festivals with a cup deposit system have an easy way to raise funds with the help of their audience. You can offer people the option to donate their cup deposit to your charity of choice instead of keeping it. This essentially creates an opportunity for every visitor to donate easily, using something they already have–their cup, minimizing the effort and thought process needed to donate.

DAS FEST has been a proud supporter of Take A Stand since the beginning, and we didn’t hesitate to lend our support when needed. We were delighted to contribute effectively and purposefully through Music Saves Ukraine in this remarkable way. Collaborating with our Fest family, we aimed to involve as many people as possible, and the cup deposit donation proved to be an excellent tool for this purpose. Our audience embraced this initiative wonderfully, and we are immensely proud of the outcome, knowing that we have made a meaningful contribution to ease suffering. There is no doubt that we will continue our support in the future. 
Markus Wiersch / DAS FEST

Deposit price and scalability
The cup deposit usually varies between €0.50 and €2 per cup. Since festivals attract thousands of people, this becomes a well-scalable fundraising method that involves your entire audience. A nice bonus is that some of your visitors will not stick with the same cup for the whole festival, meaning they can potentially donate multiple times.

Analyze your deposit system and talk to your people for the best implementation.
Technically, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution because deposit systems work differently at each event. It depends on whether cashless payment, cash, vouchers, tokens or other means are used. It is advisable to work out the best possible implementation with the caterers or beverage team, as this donation system involves some logistical effort. While designing your cup deposit and donation system, prioritize ease of use – try your best to ensure that donating the cup deposit will be as easy as returning the cup.

Good visibility and striking visuals are key.
Donated cups can be collected at beverage stands, dedicated return points, or by volunteers or NGO helpers using collection boxes in a public area. To get the best results, pick a location that offers maximum visibility and dedicate time and resources to creating memorable and enticing designs for collection boxes, staff and volunteer clothing, banners, and other materials. The cup’s design can contain a short call to action and visuals relating to the chosen charity. 

Make sure the donations are accounted for.
The collected cups must be sorted, counted and accounted for. Particularly, if the deposit system works with a cup and a token, you must create an infrastructure that allows both to be reliably collected together. The collected cups can only be handled by trustworthy people familiar with the process. After the donations are calculated and recorded, the cups must be returned to the system. It is important to clarify in advance how the collected donations will be recorded and separated from the rest of the beverage revenue since, in most cases, vendors include the deposits in the beverage revenue. Also, clarify who receives the deposit money during the festival (e.g. promoter or caterer) and how and to which organizations they will transfer it.

Non-stop promo goes a long way.
Your goal is to ensure people know about the cup fundraising activity, its charity goal, and how to participate even before they set foot on the festival site. Dedicate social media posts, record a video explaining the system, and make a blog post on your website before the festival starts. At the festival, use the app, festival booklet or map, stage screens, dedicated banners, and stage hosts to promote this activity.
Try to involve your artists as well. They can mention it on stage or even announce that they will be collecting the cups alongside volunteers at some point and, for example, give their stickers to everyone who brings their cups to them. The German NGO Viva Con Agua has perfected this principle and regularly provides great live moments in which artists crowdsurf in inflatable boats and collect cups or call for empty cups to be thrown forward into the stage pit, where volunteers and NGO employees pick them up. However, this only applies to a tokenless cup deposit system, where the cup is proof of paid deposit / donation.

Using cup deposit donations, DAS FEST in Karlsruhe collected over €30,000 in total for Music Saves Ukraine in 2022 and 2023 with the help of the Fest family. Other festivals, like Metronome and Summer Sound, also raised thousands of Euros for Music Saves Ukraine using this system.