Fundraiser

How to spell fundraiser

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce fundraiser

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fundraiser mean?

1. nounAn organised event or campaign held to collect money for a cause or organisation.
2. nounA person whose job or role is to collect money for an organisation or cause.

Fundraiser in a sentence

• The school held a fundraiser to pay for new sports equipment.

• The hospital hired an experienced fundraiser to lead its donation drive.

• Tickets for the charity fundraiser sold out within a week.

• As the charity's chief fundraiser, she met with major donors each week.

Where does fundraiser come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern compound built from two much older English elements. The first part, 'fund', came into English in the 1600s from the Latin word 'fundus', which literally meant 'bottom', 'base', or 'a piece of landed estate'; over time it shifted to mean a reserve or store of money kept at the ready. The second part, 'raise', arrived from Old Norse 'reisa', meaning 'to lift up' or 'to cause to rise', and developed the financial sense of gathering or collecting money. English speakers, especially in the United States, joined the two during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to describe both the person who collects money and the event held to do so. Because it is a transparent compound, the spelling traps are mild, but writers sometimes wonder whether to insert a hyphen or a space; the standard modern form is the single solid word, with no doubled letters.

How the word is built

• fund (money set aside for a purpose)
• raise (to gather or collect)
• -er (agent/event suffix)