Raffle-Tickets.us Blog

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of news articles about organizations raffling off homes–everything from Brazilian castles to typical suburban single family homes. Now, in the case of a raffle being run by a huge organization or wealthy personality, I have no problem imagining where they got the funds to do such a thing. But I’ve seen a ton of references popping up to smaller non-profits raffling off houses. This peaked my interest, so I started to look into it.

Apparently, in some states individual home owners can work with non-profit organizations to raffle off their houses. The idea is that, if you can’t sell your house on the regular market (presumably because your buyers can’t get mortgages and not because the house is a disaster), rather than selling it off for way less than market value and not being able to pay off your own mortgage you can sell raffle tickets so that both you and the NPO get a good deal.

If you’re interested, you’ll have to look up the laws in your own state. But in general the way it works is that you draw up an agreement with an NPO under which they agree to buy your home from you at appraised value once they have sold a predetermined number of raffle tickets. If they don’t sell enough tickets, the house stays in your hands. But if they do, they buy the house and get to keep an raffle proceeds that exceed that price to fund their organization.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, if you can pull it off. Especially in this real estate market. Do you know anyone who’s done it successfully?

Before you go ahead and start planning your raffle, make sure to look into your state’s gambling laws. I just read an article about a Utah community that was planning to raise money for a new police dog by selling raffle tickets. Unfortunately, they failed to take into account that the state’s strict gambling laws forbade raffles. Now, these folks had the best of intentions. Their county needed a new drug-sniffing dog and this seemed like a harmless way to raise the necessary funds. But the law is the law.

So do a little research before you launch your raffle. In many states, raffles for charities are legally allowed, considered on the same level as state lotteries. In other places, like Utah apparently, they’re a no-go no matter what the cause. The relevant laws are legislated by the state. Simply Google your state and raffle laws. The information is often on the website of the state attorney general, though in some states, like Kentucky, a separate government department may exist to handle charitable gaming laws.

Here’s a new one to me. I just read a news article out of Austin Texas about a political candidate who’s trying to use a raffle to glean information about likely Republican voters. The campaign is offering raffle tickets to supporters who submit contact information for voters who might support the campaign. The idea is an innovative one.

Of course, it’s not far off from all of those raffles for cars you see in malls that are run for the sole purpose of getting consumer contact information. An interesting twist is that the campaign is tailoring the prizes to their constituency, hoping to narrow down the type of information that is submitted and weed out random submissions in that way. The prizes include meals with prominent Republicans, a lesson in marksmanship and a calf-roping lesson with a lieutenant-governor.

This could be turned into a good strategy for many organizations hoping to raise money through a raffle. Take a lead from this campaign and customize your prizes to your audience. Say you’re environmental group trying to get the word out about buying locally. Offer prizes like a membership to a CSA, a personal tour of a local farm or a year’s supply of locally-raised, grass fed beef. Not only could you sell more tickets to those who are already interested in your cause, prize winners who are not as familiar with locally grown food will get a first hand experience.

The is this amazing raffle that goes on every year in the area where I live.  It is thrown by a hospital to raise money for their children cancer ward.  It is amazing how many people participate in this raffle and the prize is incredible.  They buy a dream house in a highly desirable neighborhood and raffle it off for $100 a ticket.  It is quite the hot ticket item around here.

My husband and I enter the raffle every year.  Not only are we happy to do it because it goes to a wonderful cause, it is also a fantastic prize to win.  I mean, who doesn’t want to win a dream house?!  It is much bigger than anyone would ever need, but it is extremely beautiful and desirable.

If any other organizations out there can afford to do a raffle like this, I would highly recommend it.  It will get a lot publicity for your organization and you will have no trouble selling raffle tickets.  People always want to support a good cause, especially when the money they donate is qualifying them to win a prize of a lifetime.

When you have sellers for your raffle tickets, it is important that they are trustworthy sellers.  I recently read a story where a seller of the Lion’s Club raffle tickets, which sell for $100 per ticket, left the $500 he had made so far along with $500 worth of raffle tickets in his car with his dog.  The dog decided to take the opportunity to eat both the the money and the raffle tickets.

Yes, this was your classic accidental situation.  The seller had no way of knowing that this would happen.  However, you do need to make sure that as a seller you are taking good care of your merchandise.  You can’t just leave your money and tickets laying around.  Keep them safely stowed away.  You also want to make sure that your fellow sellers are doing the same.

It is just important to remember that the tickets you are selling are not your tickets.  They technically belong to the organization you are selling them for and also the buyers you are selling them to.  It is your responsibility to make sure that the tickets not only get sold, but also don’t get lost.

Flyers are a great way to advertise your raffle.  It’s really easy just to hang them up where ever you go, but it’s also important to hand them out to people that you are selling the raffle tickets to face to face.  Flyers are one of your greatest tools when selling raffle tickets door-to-door because they can explain all the information about the raffle.

When you are selling raffle tickets, one thing you don’t want to do is overwhelm the buyer with things that your saying.  Keep your pitch short and sweet, and let the flyer fill in all the blanks for you.  As soon as they greet you, hand them a flyer, give them your pitch, and ask them how many tickets they would like to buy.  It’s as simple as that.

Flyers also provide as reminders to buyers after you have already left.  Remember, the main goal of your fundraiser isn’t just to raise money.  It is also to get your cause, business, or organization’s name out there.  Giving people flyers helps to remind them what you are all about, and can possibly draw them in to help in the future.  Take the time to invest in getting flyers made for your raffle ticket selling, and you will not be sorry.

A lot of people aren’t comfortable going door to door to fund raise.  For whatever reason, it intimidates them or they feel like they are intruding on people.  Nevertheless, it is so important to sell your raffle tickets in an proactive manner.  No one is going to come up to you asking you to sell them a raffle ticket.

The idea that most raffle ticket sellers seem to like is going up to a local store or shopping center and setting up a booth to sell tickets at.  This seems less intrusive in a way, and you get a lot of traffic.  You have to be sure to get permission from the store owners or managers to do this though.  The positive to this is that if they like your organization or cause that they may even sell tickets for you.

Another benefit to this type of raffle ticket selling is that you can do it alongside of a bake sale or a cook out.  It’s a great way to bring in some extra money.  Make sure that you have signs up for your organization or cause so people know what you are selling raffle tickets for.  Another good idea would be to have some flyers or pamphlets to hand out that explain your cause a little bit more in depth.  Have fun selling your tickets!

A big prize like a car requires a big raffle.  If you are looking to raise a whole lot of money for your organization, choosing a car as your raffling prize is definitely the way to go.  There are a few things you have to consider though when you are throwing a car raffle.  They are not the easiest raffles to put together.

Most organizations offer a cash prize in place of the car if the winner decides he/she does not want the car.  Also, it’s a good idea to offer a few smaller cash prizes to help you sell more tickets for your organization.  What you don’t want to come across as is one of those car raffles that they hold in almost every mall in America.  You are not out to steal people’s addresses, you are out to raise money for a good cause and you need to make sure people know that.

The car you choose needs to be a desirable car, not just any car.  You will want to work with a dealer to get this car, and offer them lot’s of free advertising to be able to get a good deal on the car.  A plus to going with a dealer is that you can use their client base as possible raffle ticket buyers by mailing them a letter about the raffle and keeping the car your raffling off, along with a sign for your raffle, in their show room where a lot of people will see it.   These are just a few things to consider.

People love gift basket raffles.  The sooner you realize that, the better off your organization will be when you conduct a raffle.  People love to participate in gift basket raffles because they feel like they are getting more bang for their buck.  As opposed to just winning one prize, they are winning a whole basket full of prizes that they really want.

Gift basket raffles are great because you can add your own flair to them.  They can reflect your organization or a theme you have going on for the raffle.  For example, if you are raising money for a school, you can fill it with a Kindle, Amazon gift card, a leather organizer, etc.

This is also a great way to get your whole group involved.  If everyone pitches in money to fill the basket, or buys an item to put in the basket, it will get filled with great stuff.  You can reward them with a long lunch, or an extra vacation day just to get the ball rolling.  Good luck!

Conan O’Brien is a big celebrity name right now.  With all of the drama that has been going on with his career this past year, pretty much every person knows about him and the injustice that has been done to him by NBC.  I am personally a big fan of Conan O’Brien, and I recently found out that he is doing a stand up tour all around our nation right now.

This is a great opportunity for any of you out there that are thinking about hosting a raffle or are already in the midst of having one.  If you could raffle off two tickets to go see Conan O’Brien, it would be a huge money maker at this point.  Your main buyers would be 20-30 year olds who have grown up with his comedy.

My husband and I have tickets to see him in June in Chicago.  The tickets cost us around $250, but it’s well worth it to us.  If there is anyway for you to get the tickets donated, I would try your best to do that.  If you can’t, there are a lot people selling them on Ebay right now.  Be careful, because some people are out to make a huge profit.  Good luck!