Murder mystery fundraising: “Come Die With Me” mystery marathon.

What is a “Come Die with Me” Mystery Marathon?

This is the simplest way of fundraising using murder mystery dinner parties for small groups.

The benefits of these styles of event is there is no need for actors, organising venues, catering etc. Instead the “event” is devolved to individual hosts and run within their own homes.

As it’s a private party, and no money is exchanging hands for tickets, there are no concerns with environmental health, insurance etc either.

Organisers ask for volunteer hosts who will run a murder mystery dinner party at their own home, inviting around their own friends.

Each host receives a murder mystery kit (party size of their choice), some information about the chosen charity to pass onto their guests (often this involves a slip containing details of suggested donations and what the party is raising money for). Hosts can also be given any raffle tickets or other fundraising activity running simultaneously which they can pass onto guests attending their party.

Hosts are then given set dates to run the party within – we suggest a month, as it makes arranging parties easier to have 4 possible weeks to negotiate who is free when! (Friends are hard to coordinate if you want to entertain a large number!)

Once the party is over, all donations received are given back to the organisers, and the funds are totalled up.

How they work

Over a specified length of time, several hosts in a given area run a murder mystery party. They can either all run the same party, or all run different parties – the choice is up to the organisers.

Each host invites different friends to the murder mystery evening at their own home.

Catering can either all be done by the host, OR the host can ask the guests to bring a dish and chip in towards the catering.

On the night the host requests a donation towards the charity from each guest in attendance at the party. (Organisers may want to present a suggested donation with the invitations for each guest. E.g. £10-20 – given that an evening’s entertainment at a restaurant will cost anything between £30-£40 you aren’t asking much!)

The host runs the murder mystery party for their guests. This is a standard dinner party format, so they’re very easy to run!

At the end of the night the host tells the guests how much money they’ve raised, and then this amount is fed back into the organisers who total up the funds raised by the individual hosts.

To give you an example of the funds which could be raised.

The organisers recruit 10 hosts.

Each host invites 10 guests.

Each guest provides £15 donation.

Total funds raised: £1500

Overhead costs: Nil (apart from buying the 10 murder mystery games)

When charities approach us to run mystery marathons like this with our dinner party games we always discount bulk purchases, so that the maximum funds can be raised.

In addition to running the actual evenings, the organisers may want to raise sponsorship money by asking for donations to sponsor the event from people who can’t or don’t wish to take part. They may want to run a raffle and sell tickets at the individual parties.

There are several benefits to running events this way.

1) The events are devolved. The organisation is taken on by individual hosts. There are no advertising and marketing costs. There are no venue hire costs. There are no catering costs.

2) The events can be spread out over a wide area – hosts can take part and be living miles away. Parties can take place in the UK, Canada and Australia, but all the money could be returned to the same charity. This will engage more people over a wider area.

3) Guests aren’t parting with lots of money. You’ve not had to cover overhead costs, so the individuals donating to the charity aren’t being asked for £40 for a night out, and then stung by a raffle, auction or other activity.

4) It’s entertainment without hiring in entertainers. Each guest becomes a suspect and everyone takes part to have a great evening.

5) There’s no insurance concerns. Hosts are simply hosting dinner parties in their own homes, and inviting their own friends for tea.

If you’d like to talk to us about running a murder mystery marathon for your chosen charity, please just get in touch.

Call us now on: +44 (0) 1472 348909 or email us.