Raise $10,000 with a “Winner’s Choice” Fundraising Raffle

1. The Prize
2. Ticket Price
3. Selling Tickets

NOTE:  Before you decide to host a raffle, check the raffle laws in your state. Some states do not allow raffles at all or require certain permits that must be applied for in advance.

1. The Prize

The grand prize needs a high enough perceived value to entice supporters to purchase tickets at a higher price point than your typical $1 carnival raffle ticket.

What has broad appeal and might motivate someone to take a chance on a $20, $50, even $100 raffle ticket?

Cars are always very popular, but they can be prohibitively expensive and difficult to get donated. Electronics – such as big screen TVs and stereos – may not appeal to your entire audience.

What about a top-notch vacation? Leisure travel is an activity everyone enjoys.

Traditionally, using vacation travel as a raffle prize has been difficult because fundraising committees had to rely on donated airfare, hotel stays or vacation homes to put together ad hoc packages. They also had the option of spending weeks with a travel agent putting together a unique – usually very expensive – vacation package.

A simple solution: Winspire Experiences offer “WOW” worthy prizes that require no upfront cost and no extra work for the committee to procure or fulfill. The entire catalog of Winspire Experiences is available at “no-risk,” which means your organization doesn’t purchase anything until a winner is declared.

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“Winner’s Choice” Raffle

What’s better than winning an incredible vacation in a raffle? How about the ability to choose where you go and what you do?

Enter: the Winner’s Choice raffle.

• Appeal to more people:  Offering the winner multiple Experiences to choose from helps you to appeal to a much wider audience of potential ticket buyers. You can offer the Indy-Style Open-wheel Racing for the guys or New Orleans Jazz & Dining for couples and a Royal Caribbean Cruise for young families. There’s something for everybody!
• Save valuable time: Reserving Winspire packages for a Winner’s Choice Raffle takes less than 5 minutes, and deciding on which Experiences to offer can be covered in a single meeting. This leaves more time for your committee to sell tickets and promote the raffle among donors and in the community.

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How many Experiences should I offer?

We usually recommend selecting anywhere from 3-5 Experiences for winners to choose from. Any more than five Experiences gets complicated and confusing for potential ticket buyers. The most successful raffles usually limit their offering to three packages because it is easier to promote and still allows for a range of Experiences that will appeal to a wide audience.

Note: Sometimes offering five packages will actually give the winner too many to choose from. We’ve had winners spend over a month trying to decide which package they want, which delays your purchase and final fundraising tally.

2. Ticket Price

The second most important part of organizing a lucrative raffle is establishing the ticket price.

Fundraising raffles are unique because people are more likely to pay a higher price per ticket knowing their money is going to support a cause.

The price needs to be high enough to raise a substantial sum of money, but low enough to entice almost anyone who is asked. As previously mentioned, people are generally willing to shell out more for a raffle ticket that supports a cause they believe in. The thought process goes something like, “What the heck… If I don’t win – at least it’s for charity!”

So how much should I charge?

To figure out the optimal ticket price, it’s important to first establish your monetary goals for this fundraiser. A concrete goal will not only help you set the ticket price but also figure out how many raffle tickets you need to sell.

In this case, our goal is to make $10,000. Don’t forget to figure in your costs – such as the price of the travel package and promotional materials – when setting your revenue goals.

Let’s take our example from earlier with the Open-wheel Racing ($2,300), New Orleans Jazz ($2,350) and Royal Caribbean Cruise ($2,350) packages. Take a look at the Nonprofit Cost (not Suggested Retail Value) of each package. Always use the package with the highest Nonprofit Cost when you are setting your goal. In this case, two of the packages have a Nonprofit Cost of $2,350. If you figure roughly $150 for printing tickets and promoting the raffle in your community, that means we have to sell $12,500 worth of tickets ($10,000 + $2,350 + $150 = $12,500) to raise $10,000.

Now that we have a revenue goal, we can start looking at how much we should charge per ticket. Set up a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Spreadsheets and create three columns. In the third column put your Revenue Goal and in the second column put a range of ticket prices. In the first column, divide your Revenue Goal by the Ticket Price and you will have the number of tickets you need to sell in order to reach your Revenue Goal:

The price you choose depends on whom you are selling the tickets to. If you have an intimate group of supporters who have a vested interest in your cause (such as parents at a small private school), then it makes sense to charge $50 or even $100 per ticket – especially if everyone knows the odds are as low as 1 in 120 they could win! On the other hand, if you plan to sell hundreds or thousands of tickets to a much larger audience over a longer period of time, it might make sense to charge less. Oftentimes organizations will offer a special for purchasing multiple tickets (i.e. $25 per ticket and $100 for five tickets).

STORIES FROM OTHER NONPROFITS:

Montana State University Athletics Department sold $32,000 in tickets over the course of an entire school year. Beginning in the fall, roughly 300 student athletes were asked to each sell at least 10 raffle tickets for $10 a piece to friends, family and the rest of the student body. The prize was a “Winner’s Choice” of three Winspire Experiences that included getaways to Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley and Cabo San Lucas. The winner chose the Lake Tahoe Weekend Getaway ($2,550 – which happened to be the cheapest package) so the department netted a total of $29,450.

Marin Primary and Middle School sold almost $22,000 worth of raffle tickets by involving the entire student body and their parents. The grand prize was a choice of one of four once-in-a-life-time trips provided by Winspire, including trips to Mexico, San Diego, New York and Whistler. Raffle tickets were sold for one month leading up to their annual fundraising gala for $25 a piece or $100 or five tickets by students and their families. The Association challenged student with a contest, enticing them with a big party or field trip going to the class who sold the most tickets. They held parking lot rallies, selling both event and raffle tickets in the morning as parents dropped of their kids. See the full press release here.

3. Selling Tickets

Create Raffle Tickets

You have a couple of options for what you can use as raffle tickets. If you are on a budget, you can go to the nearest dollar store and get a spool of 2,000 red raffle tickets for $10. If you want to get a little more creative, you can design and print your own raffle tickets and get them printed and cut at a local print shop.

However, tickets don’t need to be complicated. Marin Primary & Middle School made their own tickets and simply included the name and location of the event on one side, and the participant’s name and phone number on the other.

To save time and money designing your own tickets, we’ve developed easily customizable templates for raffle tickets and email promotional flyers. {{cta(‘067ba487-7e86-4b3b-8e97-a87b24a9b3a5’)}}

Each ticket should have a corresponding “ticket stub” with the same ticket number and contact information as it appears on the buyer’s ticket. When a ticket is sold, one goes to the buyer and the corresponding ticket stub is kept and returned to the raffle organizer for the actual drawing.

NOTE: States have varying regulations for what information needs be included on each raffle ticket and ticket stub. Check local policy before designing your own raffle tickets or deciding to use simple numbered tickets from the dollar store.

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Establish a Timeline

Start selling tickets at least 2 months before the raffle drawing and set goals each week to keep your team motivated. Have weekly meetings with your team to collect tickets stubs and discuss which strategies are working and what could be changed to increase sales the next week.

Who do we sell tickets to?

You can sell to anyone! Friends, family members, donors, families of donors, even people who are new to your cause. One of the best ways to drive sales is to assign members of your committee and organization at large to each sell a certain number of tickets. How many you assign each person depends on the price per ticket and how many people you have selling them.

If your organization has students, athletes or other enthusiastic youth who benefit from your cause, run a contest to see which individual or group can sell the most – with a small incentive for the winner.

Idea: Set up a “Ticket Sales” thermometer in a prominent spot with your goal and update it daily. Use Social Media networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as email campaigns to your donor base to spread the work and increase sales. Marin Primary & Middle School also created a wonderful auction flyer promoting the raffle.

What happens if we don’t sell enough tickets?

Hopefully your prize had wide enough appeal and enough ‘wow’ factor to sell enough tickets to meet your revenue goal. If for whatever reason you didn’t meet your goal – it can be tempting to extend the deadline. You know how many tickets you need to sell, so sometimes charities choose to wait until it’s reached before drawing a winner.

If a date of drawing has already been assigned, it’s best to close ticket sales and draw the winner as planned.

As noted by reader Chris in our comments section:

Any changes to your raffle after tickets have been sold, especially a timeline extension, will cause ticket buyers and supporters to lose faith in your raffle and does not represent the picture of a successful organization. Organizations should do their due diligence up front and know they have the ability, strategy, planning and partnerships in place to sell the number of tickets they need to hit their fundraising goal.

To avoid a situation in which you haven’t raised enough money, try having a local business underwrite, or agree to cover the cost of, your raffle prize. This ensures the raffle’s financial success, builds your network for the future, and gives the business plenty of positive exposure in your community. A triple win!

When to Hold the Drawing

Drawing a winner is the easiest (and most fun!) part of hosting a raffle. All the hard work selling tickets is done!

One of the best times to draw the winner is alongside another event, such as a fundraising gala. Not only will it add to the excitement and draw more people to the event, but you can take advantage of the crowd that night to sell more tickets. Marin Primary & Middle school made over $2,000 selling raffle tickets the night of the auction event.

Once a winner is drawn and they select a travel package they want, Winspire takes care of the rest, fulfilling their once-in-a-lifetime Experience down to every last detail.

Interested in hosting a “Winner’s Choice” Raffle as a fundraiser for your organization? {{cta(‘009fc540-9422-40b0-9b8c-b4a8a29b3caf’)}} with a professional Fundraising Specialist. Your designated Winspire representative will be in touch shortly to start brainstorming and reserving prizes that ‘wow’ and delight donors, with no upfront cost.

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Do you have any experience running a fundraising raffle? We want to hear about it! Leave a comment with any tips or feedback for other fundraising professionals who might be considering this fundraising method.