Raffle-Tickets.us Blog

The baseball season has arrived, and it provides a great time to do fundraising.  I have a baseball team client and I sold them on the idea that selling raffle tickets at a baseball game is one of the easiest fundraisers to do.  While they will still have to put in some work outside of baseball games, they can sell a majority of their tickets at the game.

Baseball is great because its outside, and people love to be outside.  It’s also one of the more fun sports to watch.  This draws people in, even people who don’t know the people who are on the team.  This provides the baseball team with a great opportunity to sell their tickets.  I suggested that the team should offer them at the concession stand because that is a place where people will already be spending money.

As to what they should raffle off, that’s up to them.  My client is a minor league team, so I suggested having the whole team sign a jersey and raffle it off.  Or raffling off a chance for someone in the audience to throw the first pitch in a game.  Or a chance to win season tickets to their games.  There are so many good prizes that they could raffle off.  I’m sure it will go great!

I’ve come to realize that one of the hardest parts of fund raising by way of raffles is choosing the right prize to raffle off.  I know I’ve talked about this on here before, but I really think that picking the prize to raffle off is so essential to running a good raffle.  One of the best ways to pick a prize to find something that people really need.

One of those things the people really need and really like are household appliances.  Now what you may be thinking is that those things are really attainable and that someone could just go to Target and buy a toaster if they really need.  This is true, but its also true that people like the best of the best in home appliances.  They want the best because they have to live in that home everyday and so do their loved ones.  This is something that your raffle can offer them.

Places like Target do make charitable donations every day, so its not weird for you to meet with their fund raising manager and ask them to donate a Dyson vacuum or something similar to that.  Another good idea is to try to make a home appliance gift basket to raffle off.  This is a great prize to raffle off for a school fundraiser.

Whenever you run a raffle its important to set goals for your group.  That way when every one is out selling tickets they have that goal in mind and try to strive to attain it.  It is also important that your goal be realistic.  When determining how much money you want your group to make from a raffle, you have to take into consideration a couple factors.

The first question you have to answer is how many people do you have that will be actively selling tickets?  Also, what are the costs of the raffle that you will have to cover?  Something that helps is to give your sellers a minimum amount of tickets that they have to sell to be able to meet your projected goal.  Then set another amount of tickets they would have to sell to stretch your goal by another thousand dollars or so.  This will inspire your over achievers in the group.

Lastly, you should set two time goals before the your raffle ends.  Pick two dates around the mid-point of your raffle and how many tickets you think should be sold by the group as a whole/each individual by then.  This will help to keep your sellers continually motivated throughout the duration of the raffle.  Goals are good and very beneficial for any raffle.

I work with a lot different businesses/groups who are running raffles.  One of the topics that  I discuss when we meet to order raffle tickets and such is the prize that they are raffling off.  Typically, the customer that businesses/groups raffles off a prize to is in their circle of influence.  Most likely they have interests in common.  I think that there is a lot of potential in this similarity between the seller and the customer.

When thinking of the prize you want to raffle, think about the majority of people you are going to be selling raffle tickets to.  For example, if you are a part of a reading club that is holding a raffle you might want to raffle off a set of signed books.  Or if you are part of a school, you could raffle off free sports passes to all of the games for the next two years.  Another example would be is if you are holding a raffle for a business you might want to make the prize a week of paid vacation.

This might not work for every group, but I think that it would work for most groups.  It’s such a common sense, practical way to improve your raffle.  I hope this helps you in your raffle endeavors.