How does a small group have a successful raffle?

July 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

We recently got a great question by email from a Raffle Secrets newsletter reader.  I think a lot of small groups wonder about whether they can pull off a raffle.

Hi Sandra-

I want to have a “travel give away” raffle. I was thinking about giving away a 4 day cruise and the raffle tickets would be about $20. I think I would need to sell about 200 to make a profit of $5,000. However, my question is how would a “grass roots” organization pull of a successful event like this?

Thanks,

Kenita Pierce-Lewis, CEO & Founder
H.O.P.E, Inc
Duluth, GA

Hi Kenita, this is a great question!

First of all travel is one of the best prizes that you can give away!  People love the idea of winning a trip or even a mini-vacation.  I’ve been on three cruises myself and would instantly be attracted to a raffle with a cruise as a prize.

Now the next thing to consider is the ticket price.  Is $20 the best ticket price? As I mentioned I love cruises, so if I was already a supporter of H.O.P.E. or was a friend of yours or one of your volunteer ticket sellers I’d be happy to buy a ticket at $20.  However, if I were not familiar with your cause, I might hesitate at $20.

With tickets at $20 you would need to sell 250 tickets, for a gross profit of $5000.  If you were to get the prize donated then you would still need to factor in ticket printing and any advertising costs in the budget.  So depending on those, the real profit would be $4500 – $4900.

I always recommend setting a higher goal in order to account for both the budget and unexpected circumstances.  For example, you might give a volunteer a pack of 10 tickets to sell and they come back with only half of them sold.  So a goal of 300 tickets @ $20 each would help you reach your goal.

On the other hand, if you decided to sell tickets at $10 each, the goal would need to be at least 600 tickets sold.  Close friends, family and current supporters would still be encouraged to buy at least two tickets and yet the lower ticket price would attract people who are less familiar with your cause, but attracted by the prize.

All that math aside, let’s get back to your question!

There are two ways that even a small group can be successful with a raffle fundraiser: motivated volunteers and ticket buying incentives.  These are so important that we devoted a separate chapter to each of these topics in the Raffle Secrets guide.

Your volunteer ticket sales force

Board members, committee members and other volunteers can sell a lot of tickets to their personal networks. The personal touch is often the best way to sell the most tickets.

If your state and locality allow, have volunteers sell raffle tickets directly to coworkers, friends, and family. (When encouraging volunteers to sell tickets at work, advise them to check with their supervisor first. Some companies have a prohibition against sales in the workplace.)

Incentives for your ticket sales force

As an incentive, offer one or more prizes to your ticket sellers. Each ticket sold may count as an entry into a separate random drawing for a prize, or you can award prizes directly to those who sold the most tickets.  Again, gift card work well for these awards.

If volunteers cannot sell tickets, you can still reward those who motivate ticket sales. As tickets are sold, record who told the ticket buyer about the raffle. Offering referral bonuses to ticket buyers is another way to encourage word-of-mouth ticket sales.

In addition to individual prizes, competition among teams can drive ticket sales as organized groups of volunteers strive to outdo each other. Individuals who don’t see value in their singular effort can be highly inspired when asked to work as part of a team.

Ticket buying incentives

Besides offering incentives for ticket sellers, create some enticements for people to buy tickets.  These special offers make it even easier for volunteers to do their job of selling tickets. Here are a few ideas:

  • Secondary prizes at the final drawing – Adding additional, smaller prizes gives ticket buyers more opportunities to win.  So with better odds of winning something, people are more interested in buying a ticket. Secondary prizes should appeal to the widest audience so items such as gift cards work great.
  • Interim or “Early Bird” Drawings - To inspire ticket buying from the very first day, schedule prize drawings at regular intervals before the main drawing. These drawings spark sales and maintain deadline urgency between the excitement of the launch and the anticipation of the big event.
  • Multi-Ticket Discount – Offering bonus free tickets or a reduced price for a larger number of tickets encourages people to buy more tickets. For example, $10 for one ticket, $20 for 3 tickets. Or $20 for one ticket, $50 for 3 tickets, $100 for 8 tickets

Ready?

With motivated volunteers even small groups can be successful with a raffle fundraiser.  Add in ticket buying and ticket selling incentives and you are even more likely to achieve your goals.

Raffle Secrets includes more details on all of these strategies that can make a raffle for a group, large or small, a big success.

 

Filed Under: Questions, Raffle Basics, Strategies

7 Websites to Find Amazing Raffle or Auction Items

July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Getting prizes for a raffle or charity auction can be a challenge! Of course it is best to get prizes for free – donations from local businesses, friends or other supporters of your cause. But sometimes you run out of options. Or maybe you want to get a really BIG prize which are sometimes tough to get donated.

There are quite a few great websites that can help you with sourcing items that are at least half off the retail price.

1. BiddingForGood.com is an online auction service for non-profits. You can find all sorts of items up for bid from all over the country and browse dozens of different auctions right from the comfort of your own couch. Check out their auction boards for ideas or even bid on one to use in your raffle. Another great service that BiddingforGood provides is what they call “instant items.” They can get great prizes for you!

2. Woot.com offers great deals on one item per day (New, not used). That’s right, they only sell one item per day from their site. They have a limited number available, but great deals can be had, if you check in with them every day. Often they feature electronics, but there are other channels including a “KidsWoot” with childrens merchandise.

3. Groupon.com focuses on deals from a particular city or metro area. They typically feature restaurants, hair salons, day spas, and other local services. You can find items at up to 70% off retail.

4. LivingSocial.com also features deals from a city or metro area. They typically feature restaurants, hair salons, and other services. Deals are often at 50-70% off retail. Like with other deal sites though, watch the fine print.

5. Mamapedia is another deals site. They are different though because you will mostly find deals that are of interest to parents such as amusement park passes, house cleaning, dental, summer camps, kid’s gyms and much more. I’ve been on their email list for several months and they have a wide variety of offerings, usually at least 50% off retail.

6. Post your request on Craigslist.com. Most large cities have a section on Craigslist for their own classifieds. You can post your request and/or events in the Community Activities section. Also view the items for sale section. Most of the items on this site are used, and you definitely don’t want to raffle off used stuff. But you may just stumble upon a great new item on this site.

7. eBay. Yes of course, eBay! There are many different categories of merchandise to browse. Many professional eBay sellers just sell new merchandise too. You may find some interesting items here at a great price.

Filed Under: Prizes, Strategies

How to have a successful raffle fundraiser

July 12, 2011 By 4 Comments

An excited crowd is gathered together, watching the two smiling faces on the stage. A shiny raffle ticket drum spins and slowly comes to a stop.  One of the announcers reaches in and pulls out a ticket.  THE winning ticket. Whose name will they call?

To raffle ticket holders and everyone at the drawing event, a raffle’s success is in the winning ticket. However, behind the scenes, for the organization putting on the raffle, it is defined much differently.

A successful raffle fundraiser—

  1. Complies with state and local gambling regulations
  2. Meets the fundraising goal with the net ticket proceeds

Just two keys to a successful raffle?  Yes, but of course the devil is in the details as they say!

To cover the first key, complying with state and local gambling regulations, first check with state raffle laws.  There’s no one US federal law that applies the same regulations to the entire country.  Raffle regulations, like other forms of gambling, are controlled by the states.

Raffle Secrets has an entire chapter on legal issues.  It includes a checklist to use when contacting the state attorney general, how to write the raffle guidelines, and ideas for getting help with planning your raffle.  Beyond contacting your governing authorities, many of the legal questions can be answered in step one in this book.

Beyond making sure that it’s legal, the most important aspect of having a successful raffle is that it meets the fundraising goal with the net ticket proceeds.

Five essential elements for a successful raffle fundraiser

While it may seem like selling tickets and selecting a winner are the obvious parts of a raffle fundraiser, there are other key aspects to consider. These five elements are critical to the success of a raffle fundraiser—

  1. Ticket sales. Your fundraising goal is the net proceeds from ticket sales. Balance your ticket price and the quantity of tickets to be sold with the costs of services, administrative costs, and advertising to make sure you can meet your goals.
  2. A desirable prize or prizes. Be sure to select a prize or prizes that your audience would be excited about winning. Whether large or small, stick to prizes with a universal appeal.
  3. An audience who is willing and able to buy tickets. Obviously, your raffle will be a failure if no one buys your tickets. Like with any other fundraiser, take a good look at your audience. Be sure your audience approves of this type of gambling, has money to spend, and can afford your ticket price.
  4. Staff and volunteers to sell the tickets. Ticket sales drive the raffle, so be sure you have enough willing people to sell the amount of tickets needed to meet your fundraising goal in time for the event.
  5. A location for the ticket draw event. A raffle ticket drawing can be its own event, but you can combine promotion efforts and venue expenses by making the drawing part of an annual gala or dinner, the county fair, or other regularly scheduled community event. Having these extra people in attendance may increase last minute ticket sales, and a public drawing held in front of a larger audience will diminish doubts that the winner was fairly drawn.

Each of these are absolutely essential to having a successful raffle.

 

Filed Under: Raffle Basics, Strategies

Raffle drawing at the mall? Why Not!

July 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sherry Truhlar of Red Apple Auctions always has great ideas for nonprofit who are holding benefit auctions.  In this video she tells the story of a charity that lost its auction venue a few weeks before the big event.  In a move creativity, they moved the auction to the mall.

So I got to thinking, why not have your raffle drawing at the mall.  It’s a great public location, so you’ll have lots of people “witness” the drawing and attest to its validity.  You can build some excitement about your raffle drawing and your organization. If you plan just right, and work out permissions from the mall, you can sell tickets the day of the drawing, or for several weeks leading up to the drawing date.

It would depend on the volume of traffic your local mall gets whether it would be worthwhile to staff a ticket sales location all week.  Perhaps you just have people there on the weekend.  But take advantage of the empty storefront’s windows and create an attractive display about your raffle and your charity.  For example, if you are giving away a car, why not display the car in the storefront?  What a great way to attract attention!

Filed Under: Strategies

Car raffles go full speed with ticket buying incentives

July 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Cars are one of the hottest prizes when it comes to raffles.  Since it’s such a big prize, organizations can justify charging larger than average ticket prices.  Most car raffles that I’ve seen are $20-100 each.  Whether you charge $20 a ticket and aim for a larger volume of ticket sales, or go for the higher price and sell fewer tickets, that is up to you.  It’s important to do the math when planning the raffle and decide if you’ll have an easier time selling tickets at the lower price, or if you have a lot of supporters that will be happy to pay $100 a ticket.

No matter what base price you decide on, you can sell more tickets by using incentives.

Here is an example of one group using this strategy.  The Kiwanis of Cape May are raffling off a 2011 Ford Mustang.  Here’s the terms “Only 500 tickets will be available at $100 each. If you buy five you get a sixth free.”

See what they did?  First, a limited amount of tickets creates scarcity.  It says to the potential ticket buyer “there are only so many, you better get yours now before they are gone!”

Then, they give an incentive for people to buy 5 tickets.  If you are willing to donate $500 you’ll get six tickets instead of just five.  So if someone wants to give more, they have an extra push to go to the $500.

These ticket buying incentives can make a big difference in the outcome of your raffle!

Car Raffle from Kiwanis

In the Raffle Secrets ebook we have a whole chapter on strategies for boosting ticket sales. Plus there is a special report just on car raffles with several other examples of car giveaways.

Filed Under: Prizes, Strategies Tagged With: , , ,