Raffle-Tickets.us Blog

Loving this story today. The Centralia Police Officers Association recently raffled off a truck in hopes of raising a small amount of money. But guess what? The man who won the truck (a business owner from out of town) donated it right back! That’s right–not only did they get some money by selling their raffle tickets, but they got to keep the truck for their own use in the community. That’s some serious generosity on the part of the towing company owner who won the raffle.

I really love this idea. I like to buy raffle tickets from charities when I can afford it. They don’t usually cost any more than $20 at most, so I’m not really out much when I don’t win (and who ever expects to?). But say I did win a prize from an organization that I really cared about? It never would have occurred to me to donate the prize right back, but what a great thing it would be. Say the prize is worth something like $1000 (or even more like the truck in this story). That’s like being able to donate all of that money to a cause that I care about for only $20. It doesn’t hurt my budget, and could do so much for an NPO.

I just saw an article about a raffle going on in my hometown that I think is a fantastic idea: an instant wine cellar raffle. They’re raffling off two cases of premium wine to the lucky grand prize winner, plus a couple gift certificates to a local restaurant for runners up. As a wine-lover myself, I can’t think of a more fun prize to hop for for the holidays. One $5 raffle ticket, and I could create a wine cellar in one day.

And not only is this a fun idea for a prize, but it is totally customizable to your organization’s budget. If you have a good amount of money to lay out initially on prizes, you can either increase the number of bottles of wine included in the prize or buy better quality wines. Or, you could offer more prizes, so that more ticket holders have a chance at winning. If you’re lucky, you can even find individuals willing to donate a bottle of wine each toward the prize.

If you buy pre-printed, standardized raffle tickets for your event, they do nothing more for you than to identify the ticket buyer with the ticket stub when it is drawn. Custom raffle tickets, on the other hand, allow you to get creative and communicate much more to your audience. Our standard tickets allow you nine lines of text. Think about how many things you could include in that space. And if you need more than nine lines, we’re happy to oblige–just fill out the “Optional Features” section of our order form. This section also allows you to request text on the backs of your tickets.

So what exactly should you put on your tickets? Well, of course you’ll want to start with the name of your organization or the specific event. We’d also suggest you include the date of the prize drawing, plus information as to whether or not the ticket buyer needs to be present at the drawing to win. This is simple courtesy and very helpful to your buyers. But adding other types of text can be even more beneficial to you. In order to get others who might see the tickets interested in the raffle, consider listing the top few prizes on the tickets, as well as the ticket prices (1 for $1, 6 for $5, etc.).

You can also get your logo or another image printed on your tickets. How better to brand your raffle event than to make sure that everyone who purchases your tickets sees your logo every time they look at the stub? We’ll even send you a proof of your tickets so that you can make sure that your artwork prints correctly before we ship your entire order.

Unlike with some other forms of fundraising, in order to host a raffle you need to have some money budgeted to begin with. If you really want people to buy your raffle tickets, you need to be able to offer attractive prizes which means spending some cash long before you see any return on your efforts. However, if you put some careful thought into your raffle beforehand, you can often find ways to reduce this initial outlay.

One significant way to save money on your prizes is to find sponsors for your raffle. Individuals or organizations willing to donate their time, money or products to your cause. Of course, the more worthy they consider the cause, the easier this will be. If you’re a non-profit organization, it’ll probably be a lot easier to find sponsors. But you can also create incentive for sponsors by giving them something more in return for their generosity than just your sincere thanks. One very easy way to do this is to include your sponsors’ names on the raffle tickets themselves. This shouldn’t cost you any extra, and it gives your sponsors free advertising. Their name will reach as many people as your fundraising does.

Just in case there are any Lakers fans out there who haven’t heard yet (perhaps you were in a cave all weekend?), Ron Artest is raffling off his 2010 NBA Championship ring! Artest announced the raffle last Wednesday night on Larry King Live, and the raffle winner will be chosen on Christmas day, December 25. The announcement was followed by a record-breaking $120,000 of ticket sales in just 24 hours. You can buy tickets on Artest’s own site, www.ronartest.com, or an alternate site set up by CNN, www.netraffle.org. (The alternate site was apparently set up because Artest’s site crashed with the heavy inflow of traffic!)

Tickets for the Win My Bling raffle cost only $2.00 and the proceeds will fund mental health services for youths who can’t afford the care. Artest has been a celebrity supporter of making mental health services more easily available ever since apologizing for a fan/player brawl he was involved in in 2005. In that apology, he publicly thanked his psychiatrist for the help he’d received. This raffle therefore appears to be part PR, part personal. In any case, don’t miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a Lakers’ fan.

One easy way to boost ticket sales for your organization’s raffle is to offer a discount on tickets when customers buy them in bulk. Offer 1 ticket for $1, 6 tickets for $5, 12 for $9, etc. The larger the number of tickets sold in a batch, the better the discount should be. You can afford not to make as much on each ticket, because you know you’re selling more tickets and your expenses for the raffle are already set. Printing more tickets costs you next to nothing. People will look at the larger batches of tickets as a better deal, and will also consider they have a better chance of winning the prize. If someone wants to buy an unexpectedly large batch of tickets, offer them a special price.

Another way to increase ticket sales is to offer customers a certain number of free tickets if they sell tickets to others. For instance, if someone sells 10 tickets to friends and family, give them a couple of free ones. This will get you a cheap distribution force as well as increase your sales. Just make sure to assess how many tickets you can afford to give away. An easy way to do this is to go by your bulk discount prices. If someone sells 5 tickets at $1 each, then give them one free ticket. To you, this is the equivalent of selling 6 tickets for $5, just as with the bulk sales.

When is a raffle a bad idea? When it makes you look desperate. Take the case of the Bank of Queensland, which is launching a raffle next month offering account holders a chance to win $20,000 in hopes of luring more people to the bank. As the article notes, this cannot be a good sign for the Australian bank. It suggests desperation, indicating that they can no longer rely on competitive interest rates to attract people. A bank should not in any way resemble a casino.

Raffles are a great way to raise money for a good cause and to provide a bit of fun for members of an organization. But if you’re a reputable financial institution, it’s perhaps not the best way to instill confidence in the public. Make sure that you’re not throwing a raffle as a last ditch effort to save a sinking ship if the ship’s a business. Of course, raffle fundraising for a non-profit can be a good way to garner support for a cause that has not been getting a lot of attention.

Oh, in my posts on raffle twists, how could I have forgotten the time-honored cow chip raffle? Running across this article this weekend reminded me of this unique way of picking raffle winners. The middle school I attended used to hold one of these yearly. Basically, the raffle organization paints a grid on a big field, numbering each space in the grid and selling tickets with corresponding numbers. Then you simply let some well-fed cows loose on the field, and voila! They choose your raffle winners for you by their own natural processes.

This is just another example of how creative you can get with your process for choosing raffle winners. Come up with some innovative way of picking a winner, tying the method to the organization you’re raising funds for. If you’re an agricultural or animal rights organization, the cow chip raffle’s a great choice.

Over the years, people have come up with many creative twists on the traditional raffle. Using one of these variations can provide novelty for participants and hosts alike. After all, a traditional raffle is old hat to just about everybody on the planet. Here are a few of the variations that I’ve run across and that you might consider.

• 50-50 Raffle: This one’s nothing more than the split-the-pot raffle often run at high school sporting events. Participants buy raffle tickets and all of the money collected is added together. The holder of the winning raffle ticket splits that money with the organization running the raffle.
• Door Prize Raffle: I call this one a door prize raffle because every single participant who doesn’t “win” gets a sort of door prize gift anyway. Bags or other containers are filled, each with either a door prize (one suggestion is to use candy) or a number inside. They are all wrapped alike, and the contents are muffled with tissue paper or other material to disguise them. Participants purchase the containers, and at a given time they are all opened together. Those who have chosen numbers choose from the prizes in the order indicated by their numbers (1, 2, 3, 4…).
• Reverse Raffle 1: There are a few types of raffle that are sometimes called reverse raffles. The first variation involves first choosing a prize that no one will want–a donkey, an hour of watching grass grow, having to stand on stage and wear a leotard while singing a song–whatever. Then everyone that comes to the event or is involved in the organization is given a raffle ticket, free. The only way to get out of the raffle is to sell your raffle ticket back to the host organization.
• Reverse Raffle 2: Another common variation on the reverse raffle involves a real prize–one that people will actually want. The twist is that instead of giving the prize to the first number drawn, you give it to the last ticket remaining. To add to the drama, when you get down to the last few remaining candidates, you can give them the choice of splitting the prize between them or continuing to draw numbers.

The political raffle I wrote about back in August got me thinking about other ways for people to earn raffle tickets rather than buying them. No one ever said that a raffle ticket needs to be given in exchange for cash. For that political raffle, people earned raffle tickets by handing in names of prospective voters. What other types of effort or information might be worth offering raffle tickets for?

It occurred to me that sometimes more than money, non-profits and other organizations need man-hours. For example, do you have a community garden project that you’re trying to get going, but just don’t have enough people working on it to get underway? Offer raffle tickets in exchange for a certain amount of work. The prize could be garden tools, produce from the garden, seeds, or something completely unrelated. Or does your company need market research information? Offer raffle tickets to people who fill out surveys for you.