Briefly describe this fundraising event:
Each family contributes a generous "finger food" or dessert tray (Costco/Price/Sam's Club size most helpful!). The hall is decorated with: icicle lights about the room; heart-shaped balloons; votive candles on tables plus curling ribbons, bud vases and heart-shaped confetti;
white-painted wood "lattice" panels to dress up various places...be creative!

Organizing the event:
You need someone to coordinate the donations of food and commit people to Be There to heat and serve it. Ditto, a team to purchase decorations and take charge of putting 'em up. People to meet and greet. People to sell tickets prior to event. Most important: people to Promote the event. And a room large enough to hold what you propose to do (check out rental fees in advance).

There has to be Music. If you have the budget, and are ready to Promote like crazy, you could hire professional DJ's. Our church youth group set up their own system, and took turns playing DJ. As you can imagine, they sometimes chose some odd tunes for us "old people", but it didn't take them long to figure out what we would and would not boogie to. Their event ran from 7 to 10 pm on a Saturday evening.

Capital possibilities:
Our youth sold tickets at 10 dollars per person, and had approx. 40 people present. 10 more bought tickets, but did not show. While they could have promoted the event more over a 3 week period, their hall would not have supported adding more than about 20 more people, because the center of the room had to be left open for dancing.

Decorations and Paper Goods/utensils (plates, cups) eat into any budget. Our group used small paper plates, bought in bulk, and plastic punch cups, but the dessert spoons and coffee cups were the Real Deal. It is no great hassle to wash a couple loads of cups and utensils when you have a dishwasher, and there's other cleanup to do at the same time.

Degree of difficulty:
Yes, it involves time, and contributions from the family. In order to happen, you have to have a fun-loving community spirit, and look upon it as something that goes Beyond fundraising. Those who have a very good time at your event will return to the next one, which may be even more successful.

Other suggestions or comments:
Have Variety in music selections, and have some adult input there. Our group nearly bypassed the 70's and 80's, which had a lot of Boogie and Romance to it. But by midway thru the event, we had all ages up and dancing, together (even some country line dancing), and it was just Fun, 'cuz the families know and care about each other.

Selecting foods that are, in general, commercially made and simply re-heated (if necessary) is a sensible approach to the liability issues. Having a Food Handler's Licensed person or persons present and supervising is also prudent (check with your county health dept. about how to obtain cert. cards).