Holding a Raffle
by Craig White
Center for Participatory Change
1. Get the prizes.
Prizes should be either donated or purchased at cost, so you
make the most money from selling tickets. Having a theme to prizes
(crafts, vacations, household goods) helps target good buyers
for raffle tickets. If you seek donations from businesses, stress
how the raffle will be good publicity for them. Also, if you
are a nonprofit, their donation is tax deductible. Help them
see how giving you a donation is good for business.
2. Get the volunteers. Call volunteers and see how many
tickets they can handle. The more people you get, the better,
but make sure you keep track of how many tickets everybody gets!
Your best volunteers are people who work in large offices, have
large families, or have lots of friends. A raffle is a good way
to involve new volunteers who may be loosely connected with the
organization, like spouses, neighbors, or friends. Make sure
all your volunteers can describe the prizes and tell why your
organization is raising money!
3. Set up the drawing. Set a date for the drawing. Two
to three months is a good length of time for a raffle. You may
want to hold the drawing along with another event, like a celebration
or festival.
4. Print the tickets. Use the ticket above as a model. Make sure
that both parts are numbered! It’s worth it to get good
tickets printed up, with perforated ticket stubs, printed numbers,
and bound into books of 10 or 20. To know how many to print,
see how many your volunteers can sell. Print about 200 more than
your actual goal.
5. Distribute the tickets-and keep track! Note which numbers
are on the tickets you give to each volunteer, and keep track
as the tickets are returned. Keep encouraging your volunteers!
You may also give prizes to the sellers of the winning tickets,
and to the person who sells the most.
6. Round up the tickets. Set a few deadlines for people
to turn in tickets and cash, so you get returns as you go along.
Encourage competition, by seeing who has sold the most so far.
Make sure the final deadline is at least five days before the
drawing. Collection can be the most challenging part, which is
why it’s so important that you kept good records! Finally,
if people bent or stuck something on their ticket, write out
a new one--all tickets should be exactly the same for the drawing.
7. Hold the drawing. Put all the tickets in a barrel or
box. Have a blindfolded adult or child draw the winning tickets.
Be sure to announce which drawing is for which prize. Then announce
prizes for your ticket sellers. After the drawing, you might
want to use the ticket stubs as a way to build your mailing list.
And don’t forget to send winners their prizes!
The information in this brochure is based on ideas in Fundraising
for Social Change, by Kim Klein (Chardon Press, Berkeley California,
1996).
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